A Student Transfer Primer - Page 1

"I Want to Transfer Colleges"
Guess What?  You are not alone.  

Millions of students transfer colleges every year.

College level learning is not just isolated in traditional classrooms where credits can be earned. Students and learners earn College level credit in high school, the workforce, military and through life experiences such as volunteering. Learners can take courses in large lecture halls, online or in small work groups.  Learners can also test out of courses if they have mastered the subject material.  This introduction or primer covers the complex topic of college transfer - and how we are helping thousands of people every month unwind the complexities - as we simplify and document the pathways and processes.

Millions and Millions of Students Transfer College Every Year. This Student Transfer Primer addresses the "I want to transfer" questions, and highlights the perceptions, assumptions and issues of switching colleges, student transfer, college transfer, course credit transfer and changing majors.

Our assumptions about college students, college attendance and the value of education offered by different institutions often go unchallenged. My introduction into student transfer happened over thirty years ago. I attended a major urban university and watched hundreds of students leave. Many changed majors, in their attempt to find their way. Some quit after their first semester. Others tried to hang around as long as they could. Many students transferred to other institutions or sought employment in an economy similar to today. The movie "The Graduate" comes to my mind and how we are influenced by our families and peers, often making judgements and decisions based upon the information we collect. This is part of the reason why I have advocated and launched CollegeTransfer.Net, in finding the need for good transfer information, to address the dire need of those seeking it and those who should be providing it.

Generally, we believe most college students are between the ages of 18-22 years old and live on campus after high school. These assumptions are often based upon a legacy of memories and inferences acquired through the media, movies and TV. Traditional college students attend full-time, which varies by institution. It usually means the student takes 12 or more course credits or a full load of courses each term or semester in the year. Traditional college students also include commuters. Many traditional college students must balance work while attending college.

Let's also reflect on some of our assumptions about the institutions across the higher education landscape. Colleges and universities are not all equal. Their missions, control and charters govern their focus and concentration. Carnegie Classifications lists twenty different types of colleges and universities that offer various forms of postsecondary undergraduate education. From large research universities to community colleges, we have a range of institutions offering learning environments rich with alternatives.

Our perceptions of institutions are often impacted by their involvement in sports, news and interconnections in the business community. The perceived value of an education, the rigor and difficulty is rated by third parties like US News and World Report nationally, regionally and by state. Websites have also impacted our perceptions of institutional brand by promoting linkages and programs by specialties and their department's reputation. How often we hear experts quoted on the radio and TV when news breaks is an indicator of the trust we have in higher education as an industry.

The federal government and states have collected mountains of data about institutional factors from the size of applicant pools to graduation rates, often propagating perceptions of what is important from a policy perspective because funding assumptions are justified by the ROI (return on investment) made in sponsoring institutions, scholarships, grants, loans and other forms of funding. Politics also plays a role in our perceptions of institutions as the investment is defended and justified to stimulate work force and commerce, which in turn creates jobs and wealth.

R1 institutions are the large research universities that compete for grants to foster discovery across many disciplines. So much emphasis is placed on R1's in general, because of the impact they have on innovation and the evolution of knowledge creation, we apply misconceptions about higher education industry's uniformity as a result. It is anything but uniform and standardized.  Governments and industry collaborate in a public/private partnership stimulating the competitive environment for intellectual talent which trickles into our economy and global competitiveness. This in turn drives the competition for the best faculty. All of this impacts our perceptions of the institution we call higher education and specifically institutions we strive to attend based upon those perceptions. This leads to brand recognition and assumptions we make, influencing the decisions we pursue relative to the schools we would like to attend.

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