"While facing logistical challenges, reverse credit transfer is becoming a more common practice nationwide as a way of getting an associate’s degree or certificate for students who had gone on to take courses in a baccalaureate program that could be applied to retroactively award them a community college credential," Diverse: Issues in Higher Education reports. 

"As states, educators, policymakers and philanthropists seek to expand the concept to increase rates of degree completion, minorities, first-generation students and adult learners could benefit most because they are most likely to have some college but no degree, according to experts.

'Reverse transfer is growing,' said Dr. Jason Taylor, an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy at the University of Utah and a recognized authority on reverse transfer. 'I don’t think we really know how many colleges and universities are engaged in it. Based on what we know, there are hundreds, but there’s no hard data.'

... Although students typically don’t set out with a plan to reverse transfer at some point, an opportunity that presents itself can save time and money toward a credential.

'Outreach efforts are happening where schools are doing audits of students and trying to find out who has a degree without knowing it and who is close,' said Karen McCarthy, director of policy analysis for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. 'Lots of people are only a few credits away from some credential. If we make the transfer process easier, at least they have that, and that might help them in the workplace.'

Types of reverse transfer practices and programs are as wide-ranging as schools, said Martha Parham, vice president of communications for the American Association of Community Colleges."

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Publication Date: 12/20/2018