GAO 33% Students transfer losing 43% of Credits......

[Life Long Learning]

 A September 2017 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that one in three students transfer from one college to another and, when doing so, lose an average of 43 percent of their prior credits upon enrollment in their new school. 

This is why the Big 3 came into being in 1971.

https://www.excelsior.edu/article/higher...ion-point/

[cookderosa]

The frustration, for me, is that there are 2 things at play here.
(1) transfer is not quite as mysterious and complex as it is made out to be. Yes, there are nuances, but for those who take the time to understand it, the transfer process is not especially difficult. As such, no college is really under any incentive to encourage you to transfer! So there is no reason they should be especially happy to teach you the process. With the exception of a community college transfer to a 4-year in state university, there really isn't any motive. So, you do have to figure a LOT of it out on your own, and to do that, you have to be a bit motivated - which may not be the case with someone changing schools in the middle of chaos or big life changes. So, ignorance is probably a big part of the 43%.
(2) you can choose where you go to school!!! If you lose 1 class in transfer, no big deal, but if you're about to lose a year (and I know at least 1 person in real life who lost a full year) then signing up ANYWAY is on you. My time and my money say choose wisely, but if you're headed to an expensive private school, the liklihood of them xing your transfer credit is probably very high.

[Merlin]

The frustration, for me, is that there are 2 things at play here.  
(1) transfer is not quite as mysterious and complex as it is made out to be.  Yes, there are nuances, but for those who take the time to understand it, the transfer process is not especially difficult.  As such, no college is really under any incentive to encourage you to transfer! So there is no reason they should be especially happy to teach you the process.  With the exception of a community college transfer to a 4-year in state university, there really isn't any motive.  So, you do have to figure a LOT of it out on your own, and to do that, you have to be a bit motivated - which may not be the case with someone changing schools in the middle of chaos or big life changes.  So, ignorance is probably a big part of the 43%.
(2) you can choose where you go to school!!!  If you lose 1 class in transfer, no big deal, but if you're about to lose a year (and I know at least 1 person in real life who lost a full year) then signing up ANYWAY is on you.  My time and my money say choose wisely, but if you're headed to an expensive private school, the liklihood of them xing your transfer credit is probably very high.

In my experience, most transfer issues arise because of ignorance of the requirements (as you explain above) coupled with a lack of comparable coursework due to misalignment between degree programs. Every school designs their degree programs slightly different, and because of that, GenEds are the most likely to transfer. Beyond that, it depends on how well aligned the core course requirements are between the two programs and how many and where upper division courses are required. This is made more complex when students change degree programs along with schools... that is a great way to lose the largest amount of transferability.

I agree that if people educate themselves on how these things work they will have a much better chance of maximizing the transferability of their course work. Or at least understanding why courses that don't meet a degree requirement are not supported.

[clep3705]

Some people transfer because they want to study something different, something not offered where they were. That's called changing majors. Do that at the same school and expect to lose a lot of hours.

[sacredrain]

As someone who helps develop transfer crosswalks and transfer agreements with community colleges, I can tell you that the main reason this occurs is money.

Colleges want to lure in graduates by having liberal transfer policies but they cannot have such liberal transfer policies that they lose money. So either they try and make up the difference via fees or they have to put the brakes somewhere on the transfer of credits.

One thing we did was to develop 2 general degrees that offer flexibility but there is not a concentration attached to this particular degree. It is mostly for students who have an associates in applied science and want a bachelors degree and students who have many credits but not a degree. For some students it is a great program, because we accept up to 90 credits in it. The downsize to the program is that we do not offer it online and it is only at our satellite campuses and the lack of concentration or degree emphasis.

While some wanted us to offer the program online, including myself, you had the finance department doing cost analysis of how much money we would lose if we had the degree online as it would take away from our more popular online programs.

[dfrecore]

As someone who sees a LOT of transcripts, I can tell you that the main issue I see with people who have a lot of credit - they've changed majors multiple times. I've seen people with 100+ credits at 1, 2, 3 community colleges over 5, 6, 7 years, who've changed their major 2-5 times. You're going to lose credits not matter where you go to school, because all of those credits just don't fit into a degree anywhere (even the Big 3). For people who change their major while at a 4yr school, they have the same problem, so it's not just a matter of transferring. Some people are really aimless, and just keep taking courses because they don't know what they want to do, and don't have anyone guiding them to just freaking make a decision. At some point, even a degree in something you don't love is better than no degree and a gazillion credits...

For people who don't have a lot of credit, most of it tends to be some GE's, that will basically transfer anywhere. These people are not the problem.

[cookderosa]

At some point, even a degree in something you don't love is better than no degree and a gazillion credits...

Truth.

Now that we're seeing a 6-year cap on Pell Grants, I expect that will help student's motivation a bit too.