The Challenges of Academic Credit Portability

The postsecondary education system is severely challenged by Academic Credit Portability both at the micro and macro levels. We are in a Catch-22 type dilemma. The underlying assumption on who has the responsibility to address the transfer process has generally rested with institutions. We expect every institution to provide better information on transfer policies and publish their course articulation agreements. We expect “feeder” schools (a.k.a. community colleges and other 2-year institutions) to prepare students for transfer to a baccalaureate institution and to guide their course selection accordingly.

Because institutions generally operate independently, the costs associated with transfer processing arise from the methods and procedures in enrollment and articulation. Traditional enrollment and registration processing assumes student and course data is internal, or within “the grasp of” systems managed by the institution. Transfer processing introduces a new wrinkle to this traditional model where data and methods to process rules and policies cross institution boundaries. Course data and prior academic progress is somewhat analogous to bank-account information, but today it is not as easily accessible.

At the macro level, some states have absorbed the transfer processing costs, which are concealed within the ever-increasing administrative budget of the state-funded institutions. The primary focus for improving transfer processing in a public-institution system is on making academic institutions accessible, open and transparent to the prospective student population. Once enrolled, student progress towards graduation has an impact on work-force development and tax revenues, and thus on the economy. Transfer outcomes can “bleed” across state lines, creating positive or negative flows of transfer students (“net migration”). This movement is challenging to states as they compete for the necessary human capital; to support their economic development objectives. Public institutions view the transfer of students and course credits differently than private and for-profit institutions, further complicating the equation.

The assumption that institutions can “go it alone” has been based on initiatives and new costs to help influence their policies and administrative practices. Some states have created common course numbering systems or attempted to build transfer policies for general education requirements. Others have created initiatives to develop transfer articulation agreements among collaborating institutions and to present “planning guides” to prospective students prior to their enrollment as transfers.

States and institutions are doing what they can to support transfers “in and out,” given access to tools they either build on their own or acquire. They often duplicate efforts, mapping course equivalencies and attempting to facilitate every transfer-student need, incrementally. The result: attempts to build ‘standalone’ or ‘regional’ solutions and to dedicate staff resources, further complicating processes and increasing costs. The intent is to make the process seamless and user friendly. However, the lack of process consistency, the lack of accurate data, the lack of a federated toolset to support collaboration, and a reluctance to tackle process improvements focused on serving both institutions and students make these investments counterproductive, because they are based on subjective, labor-intensive, and geographically-bound approaches.

The underlying assumption that institutions handle transfers “in and out” with internal processes is part of the problem. It is misleading to think that every institution has the resources and wherewithal to solve the transfer challenges they face internally, as well as the ones their student-consumers bring to them. Each institution’s education-mission framework is a lot like each country’s monetary policies, conversion rules, fees and methods of exchange; recognition of the complexities of inter-institution Academic Course Portability leads to the conclusion that we need a standard like the “international monetary fund” that equates courses in the context of their curriculums and/or learning outcomes.