A Student Transfer Primer - Page 2
"I Want to Transfer Colleges"
Guess What? You are not alone.
Millions of students transfer colleges every year.
Navigating College Transfer, An Introduction Page 1, 2, 3, 4
Higher institutions are really in two businesses that compete for resources within a single organizational structure: the first business is R/D and the creation of knowledge through dedicated research and second is the business of helping students acquire credentials before or during their career path. The balance between these two core missions is important to recognize because it makes up the character of an institution and how brands are built and marketed. You are probably wondering what does all this have to do with college transfer, and the answer is that how we perceive the brand has a major impact on how transfer works or does not.
For instance, most community colleges are not focusing on research grants from the NSF (National Science Foundation). You will rarely see world experts on DNA or Biotech teaching at a community college. They deliver more practical educational programs designed for their regional coverage by design. The origin of issues of comparability often feed on the differences fostered by the level of research, selectivity and leadership of institutions organized to compete and differentiate, thus making pathways through the diversity of institutions often troubling for students who pass through their doors on their way toward a credential.
Generally, we think of higher education institutions as enterprises focused on teaching and learning first and research second. That is because knowledge, content and the pervasiveness of both is a commodity delivered for free through the internet. MIT and hundreds of institutions worldwide are publishing their course content online for free through the MOOC's (Massive Online Open Courses) once called the OCW (Open Course Ware) initiative. Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide are accessing MOOC course content without paying any tuition with varying degrees of success and completion.
Centuries ago, higher education lived in a world of knowledge and content scarcity. Books and libraries were expensive and the only means to record knowledge, save it and promote it. Only the elite were educated and enrolled in college. Now, all the rules are changing.
Over the last fifty years, we have seen a dramatic transformation in the makeup of higher education systems as a result of the evolution of technology. Yet the legacy of governance, funding and perceptions still have not caught up to the reality of where we are today. This also contributes to the challenges of college transfer, even though we are making great progress in aligning expectations, curriculum, policies and practices.
Institutions promote their own proprietary knowledge transfer frameworks and nurture students to acquire skills and competencies while exercising aptitudes. Every institution does it their own way, thus making it difficult to compare the learning outcomes and benefits of one program offered at one institution compared to another. It is not just what is covered in courses and the classroom that is important, but the environment and exposure to great minds and thinking many argue. The challenge to measure and compare the value of an education has been vocalized by accreditation agencies, governments and industry as the cost of tuition and fees has outpaced inflation over the last two decades and while the call for greater accountability and transparency rises from the political reality that college attainment may be out of reach for many middle class Americans.
MIT posted their course content online demonstrating it is not the content that is important, rather the experience of participating with and learning from their faculty, joining discussions and working in their environment is where the value lies. This brings us back full circle back to credentialing and what the experience of attending college and graduating really means. Completing MIT's credential (graduating or even attending their courses) means something because of how they are expressing and defending the value of the educational experience they offer. All institutions should defend the value of what they offer like MIT however, not all of them can because the market place circumstances don't support it. That is a topic for another day.
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