Topic: Educational Transformation
Blog Post
March 20, 2025
Highlights from SXSW EDU 2025
The Growing Role of AI in Education, Learning Styles, the Value of Higher Education, and Student Belonging Take Center Stage
Earlier this month, I attended the SXSW EDU Conference in Austin, Texas, where I led a panel session about Ithaka S+R’s credit mobility work. The conference featured wide-ranging sessions covering key topics in the K-12, higher education, and education technology sectors. I wanted to highlight a number of sessions that stood out to me, focused on the growing role of artificial intelligence in education, leadership in challenging times, student mental health and learning styles, and building cultures that…
Research Report
March 19, 2025
Meeting the Climate Emergency
University Information Infrastructure for Researching Wicked Problems
Contemporary societies face a range of urgent threats to the well-being of individuals, nations, and the natural world. These high stakes “wicked problems,” as Don Waters calls them in this report, present challenges that are simultaneously scientific, technological, social, and creative. They require expertise from across the disciplines to understand, and equally complex public and political engagement, to overcome. Waters makes the case that America’s research universities are exceptionally well-equipped to address these wicked problems. The human expertise and creativity…
Blog Post
March 19, 2025
How Have Institutions Responded to Transcript Withholding Limitations?
In recent years, institutions have started to move away from the practice of stopping students with unpaid balances from accessing their official transcripts. These transcript holds have been criticized as ineffective tools for debt collection and for their role in the creation of stranded credits, credits students have earned but cannot access. In July 2024, regulations from the Department of Education went into effect that limited this practice. By that time, at least 13 states had already adopted similar…
Research Report
March 19, 2025
Balancing Access and Accountability
Assessing the Implications of the New Federal Transcript-Hold Regulation for Higher Education - Part 3
This report is the third in a three-part series examining how institutions of higher education have responded to state and federal policies limiting the use of transcript holds for unpaid balances, produced in partnership between Ithaka S+R and AACRAO. Part 1 explored the anticipated impacts of the July 2024 federal regulation limiting transcript holds on higher education institutions in states that did not have existing laws related to the practice. Part 2 examined the actual impacts of state-level limitations on…
Upcoming Event
April 8, 2025
Modernizing Credit Mobility in Support of Postsecondary Access & Achievement
As students navigate increasingly complex educational journeys, retaining the value of their credits and credentials remains a persistent challenge. Lost credits and inefficient pathways can derail student progress and drive up costs. However, new technologies, data-driven solutions, and AI-powered tools are changing the way institutions approach evaluating and recognizing credit for prior learning, and the information and resources that students can use to plan their route to a degree through multiple institutions. At the ASU-GSV Summit on April 8…
Past Event
March 15, 2025
Using Lasso Regression to Examine Vertical Transfer Paths and Predict Student Success
At the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP) 50th Anniversary Conference, Martin Kurzweil, Lexa Logue, David Wutchiett, and Colin Chellman will give a presentation of research using lasso regression to address multicollinearity and interaction effects in estimating graduation and academic outcomes for students transferring from community colleges to bachelor’s colleges. The session will be held on March 15 at 1:45-3:15pm ET.
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
February 5, 2025
Adult Learner Community of Practice Launched
Over 50 Institutions Across Pennsylvania Participating
In December 2024, Ithaka S+R, in collaboration with the Pennsylvania Department of Education, launched the Adult Learner Re-Engagement Community of Practice. Already, institutions across Pennsylvania are demonstrating their commitment to developing innovative solutions for re-enrolling adult learners. A total of 93 representatives from 51 institutions, including public and private colleges, occupational training providers, community colleges, and universities, have joined this year-long engagement. The group encompasses a wide variety of offices and roles, from academic affairs and admissions to adult…
Blog Post
January 30, 2025
Understanding the Relationship Between NC-SARA, Online Enrollments, and High-Value Credentials for Online Learners
With support from the Joyce Foundation and Strada Education Foundation, Ithaka S+R is launching a new research project to understand how the creation of NC-SARA has affected student enrollment in online programs and the extent to which credentials for online learners are valued in the labor market. This project builds on prior Ithaka S+R research that used institution-level data to explore the relationship between NC-SARA and online enrollments.
Past Event
February 5, 2025
Institutional Debt, Administrative Holds, and Student Enrollment
In this session at the 2025 Transfer Convening at UNC-Charlotte, the Adult Learner Re-Engagement team, Ithaka S+R’s Liz Looker and Jonathan Barefield, will present findings from research in North Carolina. We partnered with the UNC System Office and individual institutions to conduct mixed methods research on institutional debt and administrative holds for stopped out students in the state. Specifically, we found that the vast majority of stopped out students owe less than $2,000, and that existing hold policies have disproportionately…
Blog Post
January 14, 2025
Supporting Adult Learners and Boosting Degree Completion in Tennessee
Announcing a New Project
Ithaka S+R is excited to announce a collaboration with the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) and the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) to better understand the challenges faced by Tennesseans with some college but no credential who have been prevented from continuing their education due to administrative holds and past due balances, often called stranded credits. TBR governs the College System of Tennessee, the state’s public community and technical colleges. As a leader in state strategies to promote…
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 and that students report…
Blog Post
November 12, 2024
Improving Re-Enrollment for Adult Learners with Some College, No Degree
Announcing a New Project with the New Jersey Office of the Secretary of Higher Education
As states and postsecondary institutions work to achieve critical degree attainment and workforce development goals, establishing policies and practices to effectively support adult learners who have some college but no degree is crucial. Through the statewide “Some College, No Degree” initiative, the New Jersey Office of the Secretary of Higher Education (OSHE) is working to increase adult learner re-enrollment and degree completion in the state. Beginning fall 2024, the New Jersey OSHE and Ithaka S+R are working together to…
Blog Post
November 1, 2024
Pennsylvania Adult Learner Re-Engagement Community of Practice
New Project Announcement and Call to Participate
Higher education institutions currently face the unique challenge of maintaining enrollment in the face of demographic cliffs and changing attitudes towards the value of higher education. One area where institutions may see growth is in re-engaging their own pool of stopped out students who are now adult learners with some college credits and no credential (SCNC). The recent regulation limiting transcript withholding by the US Department of Education creates an opportunity for institutions to identify clear pathways for their stopped…
Blog Post
October 29, 2024
New Research Examines How State Bans on Transcript Withholding Have Impacted Institutions
In July 2024, a new set of federal regulations significantly limiting transcript withholding for students who owe a balance to their institution went into effect. Predating this policy, 13 states created their own rules prohibiting or limiting this practice. These policies varied across states with some creating blanket bans on transcript withholding and others only banning the practice in limited circumstances, such as when a transcript was needed by employers or the military for education verification. Ithaka S+R partnered with…