Overview

There are numerous definitions for reverse transfer, such as:

• The process by which a learner is awarded an associate degree after transferring and completing degree requirements at a four-year institution. 
• The process of retroactively granting associate degrees to learners who have not completed the requirements of an associate degree before they transferred from a two to a four-year institution.
• A process for awarding an associate of arts degree to learners who transfer from a two-year to a four-year institution before completing the AA degree requirements at the two-year institution. Through reverse transfer, learners can combine the credits they earn at their four-year school with those they had previously earned at community college and retroactively be awarded an associate degree. 
• Programs that award associate degrees to transfer students when the learner completes the requirements for the associate degree while pursuing a bachelor’s degree.
• The transfer of credits from a four-year institution to any two-year institution from which a learner transferred. It doesn’t matter if the learner transferred to another associate degree-granting or bachelor-level institution first, attended public or private institutions, or transferred across state lines. If eligible, the learner is awarded an associate degree.

These definitions focus on reverse transfer as a community college student transfer issue. None of the definitions defines the situation of learners who begin their education at a four-year institution and then leave that institution after completing more than two years of college, often acquiring learning equivalent to an associate degree. For learners who begin at a university, little to date has been done to recognize their incremental learning. This is a growing issue of contention in the learn-and-work ecosystem, whether university learners should be recognized for learning at the associate-degree level, as community college transfer students to universities increasingly are. Many advocate that all learners deserve college credit for significant learning, whether they begin at a community college or a four-year institution. They also advocate that these decisions not be linked to their college zip code, since reverse transfer is not available in all states. 

In 2012, six foundations launched Credit When It's Due (CWID), an initiative that encouraged partnerships of community colleges and universities to expand programs that award associate degrees to transfer students when the learners completes the requirements for the associate degree while pursuing a bachelor’s degree (i.e., reverse transfer associate degrees). Initially, 12 states received grants to develop and implement these reverse transfer programs and policies, and the Office of Community College Research and Leadership (OCCRL) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign served as the research partner. In late 2013, three states were added to bring the total to 15. The initiative completed in 2016 with a final report released in June 2017 covering the three-phase research agenda.

A related effort, Project Win-Win, identified learners close to meeting degree requirements as “near-completers,” a term useful in the reverse transfer context. Engaging near-completers has been a helpful strategy to maximize the number of potential reverse transfer students who may be within a few credits or courses of qualifying for an associate degree.

CWID and Project Win-Win evolved in 2018 into Degrees When Due (DWD), which helped participating institutions improve their student completion rates by sharing data-driven strategies such as degree auditing, adult re-engagement, and reverse transfer. Institutions worked to ensure that learners of color, low-income students, working students, student parents, and many others are re-engaged to cross the finish line. DWD helped institutions navigate the technical work of data mining and degree auditing as they rethink their campus culture, close equity gaps, and change policies to address barriers that cause adult learners to drop out. The initiative grew to include 23 states and nearly 200 institutes of higher education. Four foundations funded DWD: Lumina, Kresge, ECMC, and Ascendium.

Policy at several levels drives reverse transfer practices:

• State policy—25 states have reverse transfer policies set in legislation, board policy, or memoranda of agreement. An additional 18 states provide reverse transfer opportunities through institutional agreements and systemwide programs. 
• Accreditation policy—Residency criteria (requirements regarding for the period of time learners must domicile in the state immediately before registering for courses in the semester/term for which the learners seeks in-state tuition status) are established through a combination of institutional accreditor specifications and institutional policy, and these criteria can change over time. For example, some states lowered their residency requirement (for degree completion) from 30 to 15 credits after the institutional accreditation agency modified its policy on residency, citing reverse transfer as the impetus for the change.
• Federal policy: The federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) law is a primary impetus for the consent process, which is required for reverse transfer. A key issue with FERPA and reverse transfer is that many universities lack the authority to send learner transcripts to community colleges for reverse transfer without learner consent. The U.S. Department of Education (USDE) provides FERPA guidelines to clarify learner consent pertaining to reverse transfer, and states also seek assistance from the USDE’s Privacy Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) to address reverse transfer in their particular state and system contexts. These policies influence a state’s student consent policies.

Examples

• Colorado's Re-Engaged (CORE) Initiative
  • Enables the state’s four-year institutions to award an associate degree to eligible learners who have stopped out from a baccalaureate program after earning at least 70 credit hours. Through HB21-1330, the Colorado Legislature recognized that the COVID-19 pandemic forced many learners, particularly those from low-income communities, to stop attending the state’s colleges and universities before obtaining a bachelor’s degree. These stop-out students have invested a significant amount of time and money in advancing their knowledge and skills through higher education, but lack an academic credential to reflect this investment.
  • The data the Colorado Department of Higher Education gathered showed that over 19,000 Coloradans may be eligible for an associate degree under CORE. By offering qualifying stop-out students (learners who stopped out up to 10 years before the current semester) an earned associate degree for credits they already completed, institutions participating in CORE can help degree recipients obtain higher-paying jobs and more secure employment, which improves economic prospects for these former learners and their communities; increase the number of Coloradans with academic credentials and degrees (could strengthen the state’s workforce and economy), and better position degree recipients to return to higher education to complete a bachelor’s degree or higher.
• Credit When It's Due: Hawaii
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• Credit When It's Due: Tennessee
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• National Student Clearinghouse
  • Through Reverse Transfer, a national automated platform for exchanging reverse transfer learner data operated by the NSC, four- or two-year institutions can securely send course and grade information to any two-year institution from which a student has transferred. If eligible, the learner is then awarded an associate degree.

Relation to Ecosystem

There is a broad consensus among states, philanthropic interests, and the business and labor communities that college attainment rates must increase to meet future workforce demands. This goal cannot be reached without innovative ways of increasing credential completion. One such innovation is the expansion of reverse transfer policy and practices.

Resources

Adelman, C. (2013). Searching for our lost associate’s degrees: Project Win-Win at the finish line. Washington, DC: Institute for Higher Education Policy. https://www.ihep.org/publication/searching-for-our-lost-associates-degrees-project-win-win-at-the-finish-line/

Institute For Higher Education Policy. (2022, May). Lighting the Path to Remove Systemic Barriers in Higher Education and Award Earned Postsecondary Credentials through IHEP’s Degrees When Due Initiative. https://www.ihep.org/publication/lighting-the-path-degrees-when-due/

Taylor, J. L., & Bragg, D. D. (2015, January). Optimizing reverse transfer policies and processes: Lessons from twelve CWID states. Champaign, IL: Office of Community College Research and Leadership, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Topic Brief: Credit When It’s Due (CWID) - Reverse Transfer | Learn & Work Ecosystem Library

Whinnery, E. and Peisach, L. (2022, July 28). 50-State Comparison: Transfer and Articulation Policies. Education Commission for the States.

Zanville, H. (2024, March 11).  The Colorado Re-Engaged Initiative: Recognizing Learning for Non-Credential Students. The EvoLLLution.