Topic: Credit mobility
Blog Post
March 5, 2025
New Lessons for Improving Community College Transfer to Independent Institutions
Updates to the Playbook for Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts
While nearly four out of every five community college students aspire to earn a bachelor’s degree, only 16 percent do so within six years. One oft-overlooked method to increase bachelor’s degree attainment among community college students is to strengthen transfer pathways between two-year and independent (i.e., private, not-for-profit) four-year institutions. Independent institutions often provide flexible degree options, personalized supports, and greater efficiency in credit transfer, all of which can help community college students complete a four-year degree.
Playbook
March 5, 2025
Playbook for Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts
How to Design and Implement Statewide Pathways from Community Colleges to Independent Colleges
One way to achieve bachelor's degree attainment for community college transfer students at scale is through state- and region-level initiatives dedicated to supporting transfer from community colleges to independent colleges and universities. The Teagle Foundation and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations’ Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts initiative aimed to create such pathways. This playbook draws on the experiences of grantees building pathways in 14 states.
Case Study
February 27, 2025
Holistic Credit Mobility Strategies in Action
A Case Study Report on State, System, and Institutional Efforts to Smooth the Path to a College Degree for Mobile Students
To understand the complex nature of learning recognition and credit transfer in American postsecondary education and examine the systemic barriers to entry many students face as they navigate its institutions, Ithaka S+R conducted a series of qualitative interviews in fall 2024 with state and system-level leaders in Idaho, Illinois, Ohio, and the University of North Carolina System, and representatives from Charter Oak State College and Florida International University.
Blog Post
December 18, 2024
How Dual Enrollment and Articulation Agreements Help Students Earn Degrees Faster in Georgia
This blog post is based on reports prepared for the TIAA Institute by George Spencer, Alex Monday, and Renni Turpin,[1] as well as an article in the journal Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.[2] Dual enrollment programs, which allow high school students to take college-level courses, have rapidly expanded in the United States over the past two decades. These programs are praised for increasing access to higher education, reducing costs, and accelerating degree completion (found in prior…
Blog Post
December 17, 2024
Higher Education at a Crossroads
Reflecting on the 2024 Complete College America Annual Convening
Complete College America’s (CCA) 2024 Annual Convening, hosted in Indianapolis this past month and framed around going “All In” on college attainment, brought together an array of postsecondary practitioners, leaders, and researchers focusing on student mobility and outcomes. At the conference, Martin Kurzweil and I led a strategy showcase focused on the Holistic Credit Mobility project, a cornerstone of our continuing efforts to support increasingly mobile students. In collaboration with CCA, Ithaka S+R is in the final stages of…
Past Event
March 4, 2025
Using Technology to Shine a Light on College Transfer Data
Students now earn college credit from many sources—dual enrollment, exams, work experience, and attendance at multiple colleges—throughout their education. However, institutions often struggle to accept this multisource and nonlinear transfer of credit, creating barriers that cost students time, money, and deepen inequities. At the SXSW EDU 2025 Conference, Emily Tichenor will join Brandon Felder, Kristin Brooks, and Renee Rhodd to explore how institutions in New York and South Carolina are reducing these barriers with credit mobility technology solutions that…
Issue Brief
December 11, 2024
Building a Successful Credit Mobility Platform
Lessons from CUNY Transfer Explorer
Students now have more opportunities to earn college credit at more points in their educational journey than ever before. But moving that earned credit into and between institutions of higher education so that the earned credit applies to a program of study has proven a persistent and stubborn challenge for many students. Studies have concluded that students who lose significant amounts of earned college credit when moving to a new institution have lower chances of graduation.
Past Event
October 3, 2024
Universal Transfer Explorer
This session at the South Carolina Transfer Excellence Convening will include a demo of the in-development Transfer Explorer website and draw from Ithaka S+R’s research on CUNY Transfer Explorer and Holistic Credit Mobility to demonstrate the importance of comprehensive credit mobility technology solutions for students and institutions. Join the session on October 3, 2024 at 2:20pm – 3:30pm ET, with Ithaka S+R’s Emily Tichenor.
Issue Brief
September 10, 2024
Transfer Credit Information at Your Fingertips
Preliminary Findings on Use and Implementation of CUNY Transfer Explorer
CUNY Transfer Explorer (CUNY T-Rex) was developed to simplify the transfer of credits and represents an at-scale technology tool solution that provides transparent and up-to-date information about transfer credit equivalencies to students, faculty, and advisors. We undertook a mixed-methods evaluation to understand the process, conditions, and business requirements that were involved in the launch and proliferation of CUNY T-Rex, as well as to understand the behaviors, uses, and implementation of CUNY T-Rex at individual institutions and system wide.
Blog Post
September 5, 2024
Highlights from the SHEEO Annual Policy Conference
State Higher Education Executives Convene to Talk Policy, Research, and Data
Last month, several Ithaka S+R staff members attended—and presented at—the State Higher Education Executive Officers annual policy conference in Washington, DC. Themes from the conference included how states are addressing the current skepticism about the value of higher education, the importance of aligning higher education to meet workforce needs, the growth of artificial intelligence and its impact on the higher education sector, re-engagement of adult learners, improving transfer, and the importance of using research data to support policy- and…
Blog Post
September 4, 2024
Improving Holistic Credit Mobility to Help Adult Learners Succeed
A New RFP from Ithaka S+R and Complete College America
Today’s postsecondary students accumulate credits from various sources of learning, and most attend multiple institutions on their path to earning a credential. This presents challenges for the states, systems, and institutions as they work to support these students on their educational journeys. To help the higher education community find solutions, Ithaka S+R and Complete College America are launching a coalition of institutions committed to advancing comprehensive methods of credit transfer. We call this approach holistic credit mobility. …
Past Event
October 1, 2024
Transfer Credit Information at your Fingertips
Preliminary Findings on Use and Implementation of CUNY Transfer Explorer
CUNY T-Rex, launched in May 2020, is a publicly accessible tool that allows any user (inside and outside of CUNY) to see how courses at one CUNY college are treated at any other CUNY college after transfer. Over the past year, Ithaka S+R conducted a qualitative research study to examine the use and implementation of CUNY T-Rex amongst stakeholders. In this session, Ithaka S+R’s Madeline Trimble and Pooja Patel will provide an overview of the tool’s development and introduce the…
Blog Post
July 23, 2024
Next Steps in Student Mobility
Ithaka S+R and Complete College America Partner to Support Student Success through Holistic Credit Mobility Policies, Practices, and Technologies
The typical postsecondary student of 2024 accumulates credits from multiple sources and attends multiple institutions before earning a credential. Yet many of our state, system, and institutional policies and practices have not adapted to this reality. To help address this challenge and support the higher education community in better serving today’s mobile students, Ithaka S+R and Complete College America are collaborating on a new, multi-faceted project, with funding from Ascendium Education Group. Through conducting research, launching a cohort of networks…
Past Event
July 9, 2024
Transfer Data Transparency as a Catalyst for Change
AACRAO Technology & Transfer Virtual Summit
Transfer process information is often inaccessible. What happens when details like transcript evaluation time, transfer credit applicability rate, and time to degree for transfer students are made visible to all? Institutions improve those outcomes. In a session at the 2024 AACRAO Technology & Transfer Summit, Ithaka S+R’s Martin Kurzweil and Queens College of CUNY’s Christopher Vickery will show how CUNY’s transfer information was brought into the light of day with positive effects. The presentation will include a demonstration of…
Past Event
August 6, 2024
Universal Credit Transfer Explorer
States Collaborating to Open the Black Box of Credit Mobility
Losing credits when transferring to a new institution prevents many college students–especially Black and Hispanic students, older students, and lower-income students–from earning a degree. To support these students and the institutions that serve them, Ithaka S+R and three SHEEO agencies are launching a non-profit, national, credit mobility website in mid-2024. Unique among similar services, the “universal credit transfer explorer” will show how credits earned elsewhere transfer and apply toward degree programs at the multiple destination colleges and universities featured on…
Blog Post
May 2, 2024
The NCAA Transfer Portal Chaos Says a Lot About the State of Credit Mobility
Will the Changes Institutions Are Making to Ease Transfer for Athletes Benefit All Mobile Students?
As the semester draws to a close and the glow of March Madness and College Football Playoff victories fade in our memories, the eyes of all college sports fans have been on the NCAA spring transfer portal. The college football and basketball transfer portals, which closed this week, had several live trackers on major sports sites so eager fans could see which athletes were looking to leave their current college or university and where they may land. This included…
Past Event
June 3, 2024
The Chronicle’s Strategic-Leadership Program for Department Chairs
This June, join The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Strategic-Leadership Program for Department Chairs, a workshop in partnership with Dever Justice LLC and Ithaka S+R. The program is designed to help guide new and experienced chairs through the challenges and transformative opportunities of their role. The program includes large-format seminars, small-group collaborative workshops, and written development exercises, featuring topics including national trends in higher education, the higher ed business model, managing conflict, creating a culture of belonging, and more. Ithaka…
Past Event
May 1, 2024
Adult Learner Re-Engagement in Pennsylvania
Informational Webinar with PDE and Ithaka S+R
On Wednesday May 1 at 11:00am-12:00pm ET, join the Pennsylvania Department of Education and Ithaka S+R for a webinar providing practical information on how higher education institutions in Pennsylvania can better support adult learners. By working with students to resolve past due balances and administrative holds, institutions are able to enroll students who were previously blocked from returning to college. Register to attend by Friday, April 19 to learn about strategies to engage, enroll, and support adult…
Past Event
May 21, 2024
Providing Credit Transfer Visibility to Improve Credit Mobility
In DXtera Institute’s April Tuesday Session, Ithaka S+R’s Emily Tichenor and Andromeda Yelton from JSTOR Labs will discuss their Universal Transfer Explorer project, a new, public, non-profit, national credit mobility website that will help address the many challenges college students face when they move between institutions or attempt to transfer credits they earned in high school or elsewhere. This “universal credit transfer explorer” will go live later this year with data from an inaugural set of institutions across three states.
Past Event
April 12, 2024
Universal Transfer Explorer Pilot
At the Washington Intercollege Relations Commission Spring 2024 Meeting/Conference, Ithaka S+R’s Emily Tichenor will join Alex Tadio (Washington State University), David Berner (Shoreline Community College), and Abby Chien (Washington Student Achievement Council) in a session providing an overview of the universal transfer explorer pilot project. The session will take place on Friday, April 12 at 12pm EST. Learn more.