A recent column “Beyond Transfer” made the very useful point that the transfer community needs to stop using different terms for the same thing. For example, if the same course is given different names at two different institutes, that may prevent the transfer of those courses between those institutes.
The purpose of this column is to urge the transfer community not only to use the same terms for the same thing, but to use the correct, correct terms for credit transfers (especially regarding the words “credits,” “lost credits” and “reverse transfers”). Doing so is important not only to avoid confusion for everyone, but also to promote good research and practice that can inform and implement useful credit transfer policies and practices.
Let’s start with the word “credits.” All public transfer districts must specify what type of debt they are talking about. Are they general education (basic), major or elective credits, or a combination thereof? Most institutions’ degree requirements include all three types of credits, as well as the total number of credits. However, some researchers or policy makers are only concerned with the transfer of large credits. Others focus on general education or selective financing, or a combination of all three types of loans. Also, the policies and procedures affecting the transfer of these three types of credits are different.
Therefore, if we want to ensure that students make the right decisions and have the most useful policies, we need to clarify what kind of credits we are talking about. For example, a state may establish policies that ensure that general education credits will be easily transferred between state institutions, then declare that credit transfer is now guaranteed within that state system. However, such actions do nothing to transfer major credits, the transfer of which is necessary to facilitate the student’s progress toward graduation. All three types of credits need to be transferred, so everyone needs to be clear about which type of credits they are writing or talking about.
So, please, pass it on to the public: Don’t use the word “credits” unless you mean all kinds of credits. If not, be more specific.
Second, let’s consider the term “lost credits” (or its variant, “credit loss”). Anyone who has ever been transferred, whether you are an exchange student, doctor or researcher, has heard this term hundreds if not thousands of times. But what does it really mean? Does it mean that (A) credits do not transfer at all from one institution to another? Or does it mean (B) the credits transfer but change from counting as a major to counting only as an elective? What about (C) the elective credits that were originally counted towards the degree, however, the student already has too many qualifications to choose the degree they are going to and so these elective credits have just been transferred into what we would call “special credits”?
A lot of concern has been expressed about all three of these types of credit transfers, and all three have been characterized as “credit losses.” There is no problem with this if what the writer or speaker means when they use the word “credit loss” are all three types of credit transfer problems. However, sometimes a writer or speaker only mentions type A, B or C, and that’s it is something problem.
The causes of these three types of “credit loss” are different, as are the strategies needed to prevent them. Therefore, when discussing type A only, using the general term “lost credits” may confuse readers or listeners. For example, suppose a state tells its universities that they must record incidents of “credit loss,” as Texas has done. If the state is not clear in its instructions about what type of “credit loss” it wants to be recorded, some universities may record one type of “credit loss” and another, making it very difficult, if not impossible, for researchers to study university records or for administrators or government officials to use the records and develop policies that allow transfer.
So, please, once again, convey to the public: Do not use the word “lost credits” or “credit loss” unless you mean all kinds of credit losses. If not, be more specific.
Finally let’s consider a third problem with the transfer community terminology: the term “reverse transfer.” This is another case where the same word can mean more than one thing. “Reverse transfer” is used as a term for a transfer from a degree to an affiliated program. But it has also been used as the term for a process where a student from an associate went to a bachelor’s program (direct transfer), without an associate degree, receives the bachelor’s program credits counted in the previous associate’s program and receives an associate degree.
In the first type of event called “reverse transfer,” the institution where the student matriculates changes, while in the second type only the credits are transferred (and in fact they do not transfer—they continue to count at the degree center as they also count toward obtaining an associate degree). These are two very different situations that require very different types of management and counseling for students to succeed.
Some people have resolved this terminology dispute by calling the transfer of students from bachelor’s to associate programs “down transfers”. However, using this different term has its own problems. The word “down” has negative connotations, but such transfers can happen for very good reasons, such as a graduate student who decides she wants to get a nursing degree. What about situations where vertical transfer students use bachelor’s credits to complete their degrees related to “retroactive associate’s degree completion” or, simply, getting a retroactive associate’s degree? The term “reverse transfer” will then be reserved for situations where students move from bachelor’s degrees to associate programs.
Perhaps readers of this column have their own suggestions. The goal is to pick one term for each transfer case and stick to it.
All regular readers of this column know how common it is for students to transfer from one institution to another and, in general, how often students receive college credits from multiple sources. More than 50 percent of recipients of bachelor’s credits come from colleges other than where they graduated. Readers of this column may also know how unsuccessful direct transfers are: While nearly 80 percent of community college freshmen plan to earn at least a bachelor’s degree (which they must transfer first), six years later only about 16 percent have achieved that goal. We need to do whatever we can to help these hundreds of thousands of students, and one way we can all do that is to be precise in our credit transfer policies.
