N.C. Officials Optimistic About 'Reverse Transfer' | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is Harry Painter, who is a reporter for the John W. Pope Center for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

Process lets student dropouts who finished enough credits get degrees


    RALEIGH     Ever since 2006, when Margaret Spellings, then the U.S. secretary of education, issued a report stressing the need for higher graduation rates at colleges and universities, there has been pressure on universities to award more diplomas.

    The reason is not surprising: Nationally, only about 56 percent of students receive bachelor's degrees in six years; the three-year rate for a community college degree is 29 percent. These numbers reflect both a genuine problem for students and an embarrassment for universities.

    Reacting to the federal pressure, schools have taken action, from raising minimum admissions standards (better students are more likely to finish) to seeking out and bringing back dropouts (some dropouts need only a few credits to complete a degree).

    Reaction to these policies has been mixed. While the University of North Carolina minimum admissions policy has been effective in keeping out poorly prepared students, it also has resulted in declining enrollment at the state's less-selective colleges. And bringing back dropouts, as UNC-Charlotte has attempted to do, can be expensive.

    One new program has received little negative publicity — although it has attracted little attention. "Reverse transfer" aims to help students who start at a community college, move on to a four-year college, but then drop out — having gained neither an associate degree nor a bachelor's degree.

    The basic idea is that two- and four-year colleges will collaborate, awarding associate degrees to former community college students who have accumulated sufficient credit to earn them.

    North Carolina has been part of a pilot "reverse transfer" project. In 2012, a group of private foundations put together nearly $6.4 million to be used in 13 states for a two-year program called "Credit When It's Due." USA Funds gave North Carolina $450,000.

    The Lumina Foundation, one of the sponsoring foundations, expects this program to result in 2,094 new associate degree recipients in North Carolina — even with only 15 of the state's 58 community colleges and eight of the 16 UNC schools participating. Eventually, the plan is for all institutions to participate, at which point the number of new degrees is projected to reach 4,400 — but that also assumes that USA Funds will continue to provide financing.

    To qualify for an associate degree through this process, a student must have completed at least 25 percent of his or her coursework at the community college. Kate Henz, the UNC General Administration's associate vice president of academic policy, planning, and analysis, is optimistic about the program.

    Henz told the Pope Center that more than 3,000 student records have been sent for evaluations to determine if they qualify for associate degrees, although she could not predict how many would receive them. A key aspect of the program is making students aware that they qualify, and many students are not aware that reverse transfer is an option.

    "We're setting up a process for the long term," she said. UNC's General Administration has even hired a director of reverse transfer, Michelle Blackwell.

    So far, the only serious problem with reverse transfer occurred in Indiana. There, Indiana University and Ivy Tech Community College reached a stumbling block. Indiana officials were concerned that Ivy Tech would receive credit for graduating students who completed most of their degrees at the four-year school.

    The project has caught the eye of two Democratic U.S. senators: North Carolina's Kay Hagan and Iowa's Tom Harkin, who see it as a potential addition to the Higher Education Act, which is up for reauthorization this year. They have sponsored Senate Bill 2506, which would have the federal government provide tax-funded grants to "identify and reach out to students" that have earned a combination of community college and university credits.

    Hagan and Harkin have promoted their bill by saying that 15 states have reverse transfer programs, but they don't explain how a federal role would enhance the process, or how the public would benefit from it.

    Many higher education issues, from student loans to Pell grants, face a divided Congress. And this one could, too, if the price gets too high.
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