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How Faculty Members Influence Credit Transfer at Four-Year Institutions: Building Knowledge to Improve Transfer Student Outcomes

  • NISTS Team
  • Jun 24
  • 1 min read

June 2025


MDRC


Excerpt from the report website:


"Transferring credits from a community college to a four-year institution remains a crucial strategy many students must use to obtain a bachelor’s degree. However, effectively implementing this strategy can be difficult. Despite state policies intended to streamline credit transfer, students face significant barriers to having their credits accepted and, more importantly, applied to degree requirements at four-year institutions.


Faculty members in teaching, research, and administrative positions play a pivotal role in decisions about whether and how credits transfer, yet little research has examined how they approach these decisions or what factors influence their judgment. This mixed-methods study, funded by Ascendium Education Group and conducted by MDRC, addresses this knowledge gap by exploring faculty members’ decision-making within a large and complex transfer landscape...


The main findings of the report include:

  • The distinction between credit transfer and credit application matters.

  • Data systems can affect and inform transfer student success.

  • Faculty members often make significant decisions within large, complex institutional systems.

  • Disciplinary context shapes decisions about credit transfer and transfer pathways.

  • Departmental leadership approaches, along with faculty members’ perceptions of community college coursework and transfer students’ academic preparation, influence credit evaluations."



Additional Resources



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