Transfer Articulation
Among the many and varied experiences that adult learners bring to writing programs, completion of one or more college courses prior to enrollment is not uncommon. These courses will have likely been completed at two-year colleges, as well as for-profit institutions (“Characteristics of Postsecondary Students;" see Adult Learner Basics), and in many cases will have been taken as a “planned part of completing a degree” (Schwalm 169). This is especially true for adult learners enrolled in community colleges, as the National Center for Education Statistics reports that 81% of all first-time beginning community college students maintain aspirations for completing a bachelor’s degree or higher. For adult learners, therefore, acceptance of this completed coursework as transfer credit, particularly at baccalaureate-granting institutions, represents WPAs’ recognition of the time and money these students have already invested in their postsecondary educations, and it likewise denotes the remaining time and money required to complete a degree (Ott and Cooper).
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Unfortunately, however, access to four-year universities remains elusive for transfer students, regardless of age and adult learner status. According to the National Student Clearinghouse, the transfer rate for students at two-year institutions is only 37 percent, including 5.6 percent who transferred after receiving a two-year certificate or degree ("Transfer & Mobility - 2018"). This worrying discrepancy between the number of students who desire to transfer and those who actually do cannot be attributed to the students themselves, however. Recent research estimates that more than 50,000 high-achieving community college students are academically ready to transfer but don’t, including 15,000 with a GPA of 3.7 or higher (Laviolet et al.). Community college students are therefore just as capable of succeeding academically as their four-year university counterparts, suggesting that something is happening at the institutional level that effectively bars these students – and by extension, adult learners – access to a baccalaureate education.
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Many of the institutional barriers that inhibit access to transfer students revolve around transfer articulation – how transfer credit is determined and awarded, how much transfer credit is awarded, as well as the resources available or unavailable to students regarding transfer articulation between institutions. Consequently, the purpose of this discussion on transfer credit is not to explicate the various ways in which WPAs may award transfer credit to adult learners but rather to detail the ways in which WPAs might mitigate these barriers and thereby increase postsecondary access, particularly university access, to adult learners.
Central Tenets of Transfer Articulation
Any attempt to address the challenges associated with transfer articulation must account for the fact that the transfer process begins long before students actually transfer from one institution to another. In a study of 26 part-time adult learners, for example, “students drew upon narratives that emphasized the acquisition of a degree” via strategic use of transfer credit when describing their postsecondary experiences (Pegg and Di Paolo). At the very least, this suggests that students looking to transfer institutions are attempting to enroll in courses they believe will count towards a degree well in advance of actually transferring. As a result, it is not enough to consider transfer articulation only upon receiving transfer students; WPAs must proactively provide resources and support to these students long before they even so much as apply for admission to their respective institutions. The central tenets of transfer articulation accordingly reflect this understanding, attending to the needs of students both before and during the transfer enrollment process.
Articles & Resources
Provide Transfer Articulation Information & Resources in Advance
In order to ensure that the courses adult transfer students complete are accepted and applicable towards their intended programs of study, adult learners must first know how the coursework they take at one institution will transfer to another (Schwalm). This enables them to make informed choices about what courses to take in the first place, thereby minimizing the potential for credits that do not transfer so that adult learners’ time to degree completion is not negatively impacted. However, students hoping to determine which courses to take in preparation for transferring institutions, as well as those who advise them, often have a difficult time anticipating course equivalencies and applicability (Fann), suggesting that institutions – and by extension, WPAs – are not providing this crucial information to students and their advisors.
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Even for those universities and WPAs that do, inconsistent course numbering between institutions make identifying course equivalencies a challenging and time-consuming process (Fann). This may be way many institutions simply advise students to take general education courses; however, this is probably not specific enough to truly benefit students hoping to transfer (Handel). Moreover, the faculty and academic advisors at the institutions these students hope to transfer to, who are better-positioned to aid them in navigating transfer articulation information and course planning, often will not even meet with prospective transfer students until after they have been admitted to the institution (Fann). Such issues make it extremely difficult for adult transfer students to identify the courses they should take in preparation for transferring, effectively guaranteeing that they will lose credits and extend their time to degree completion upon transferring from one institution to another. For some, this significant loss in time and money may deter adult learners from transferring and furthering their education altogether, as reflected in the low transfer rates from two-year colleges in particular ("Transfer & Mobility - 2018").
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The imperative that WPAs provide transfer articulation information and resources well in advance of the transfer admissions and enrollment process is therefore essential to adult transfer students’ access and participation in higher education, particularly at baccalaureate-granting institutions. This information likely resides with the registrar or academic advising offices already; however, WPAs and writing program faculty in particular are usually better positioned than staff to relay and assess whether and how writing courses at other institutions will transfer. Additionally, while articulation information and resources may be housed within other campus units, the extent to which this information is accessible and navigable to students may be negligible. As a result, WPAs might find it beneficial to partner with these offices in order to make such information more comprehensible, much like they may already be doing in terms of the information WPAs make available to students for the purposes of directed self-placement. To that end, and if at all possible, developing a common course numbering system for writing courses that corresponds with writing courses at institutions students typically transfer from is also recommended, as this will enable students and their advisors to more easily identify course equivalencies and therefore plan which classes to take (Fann). WPAs should likewise endorse the creation of an electronic database that includes “all articulated/approved courses to provide clarity, transparency, and consistency in the acceptance of articulated coursework” (Strempel 15), and they should also make this resource highly visible for prospective transfer students on their departmental websites. At the very least, however, WPAs must be willing to meet with prospective transfer students before they are admitted in order to assist with their course planning. Only by providing articulation information and resources well in advance of the transfer admissions and enrollment process can adult learners identify and complete courses guaranteed to count towards their writing curriculum and overall programs of study.
Accept Course Equivalencies Whenever Possible
One of the most significant impediments to adult transfer students’ participation and success at the postsecondary level, which is also inextricably tied to the availability (or lack thereof) of articulation information and resources, is the lack of transfer credit awarded for students’ prior college coursework. For example, a 2017 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that students who transferred to a different institution between 2004 and 2009 lost, on average, 43 percent of their credits. In addition, the extent of credits lost upon transferring varied by institution type, with “students who transferred between public schools — which accounted for almost two-thirds of transfer students — [losing] 37 percent of their credits, on average” (U.S. Government Accountability Office 15). Conversely, “students who transferred from private for-profit schools to public schools — which accounted for 4 percent of students who transferred —lost an estimated 94 percent of their credits, on average” (U.S. Government Accountability Office 15). The amount of credits lost upon transferring also varied by transfer direction, with “students who transferred vertically from 2-year to 4-year schools” – which accounted for 40 percent of all transfer students – “[losing] an estimated average of 26 percent of their credits” (U.S. Government Accountability Office 16). “Students who transferred laterally between 2-year schools,” on the other hand, “lost an estimated average of 74 percent of their credits” and “accounted for 17 percent of transfer students” (U.S. Government Accountability Office 16).
The fact that adult transfer students must in effect start over should they choose to transfer from for-profit institutions, which enroll much greater proportions of adult learners than non-profit institutions and are statistically less likely to serve them well (see Adult Learner Basics), to non-profit public institutions is highly problematic, and it is likely one of the principal reasons why only 4 percent of all transfer students represented in the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s report were from for-profit institutions. And while students who transferred from public two-year institutions to public four-year institutions fared much better comparatively, the fact that they are likely to lose approximately 1 out of every 4 credits they have earned upon transferring is still concerning and warrants WPAs’ attention. Furthermore, even among the courses that do transfer, there’s no guarantee that they will actually count toward a student’s degree requirements.
This represents a significant loss in time and money for any student transferring from one institution to another, but it is perhaps especially upsetting for adult learners, whose life circumstances often involve juggling numerous responsibilities that make completing college coursework particularly difficult and therefore all the more meaningful. Adult transfer students in a recent study, for example, described how “credit transfer was not only about speeding up the time required to achieve a degree but also about recognizing the importance of the effort and learning that had taken place” (Pegg and Di Paolo 214). As a result, institutional recognition of these students’ existing credits corresponded with adult learners’ self-worth, identity, and internal sense of capability (Pegg and Di Paolo). To be informed that such efforts and perseverance are not recognized by the institutions adult transfer students seek to transfer to thus sends the very disheartening and damaging message that their experiences and resiliency do not matter, which may and in all likelihood does explain the lack of adult learner enrollment at four-year non-profit universities.
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For this reason, WPAs should accept course equivalencies for their programs’ writing classes whenever possible so that adult transfer students – and all transfer students, for that matter – may be awarded as much credit as possible. This will likely involve revisiting articulation policies and agreements perhaps more often than WPAs would prefer, and it may also necessitate amending existing views about curricular autonomy and the level of preparation transfer students receive in previous writing courses (Schwalm). The acceptance of transfer credit for writing coursework does not necessarily arrest WPAs’ control over the content and structure of their programs’ writing classes, nor does it undermine the legitimacy of the programs’ coursework by acknowledging that writing classes completed at another institution facilitate the same or similar outcomes in terms of students’ writing development. If anything, WPAs should approach determinations of transfer articulation with the assumption that faculty at other institutions are just as capable and invested in fostering students’ writing proficiency as they are and that transfer students are accordingly just as well prepared as writers as non-transfer students (Schwalm). In so doing, WPAs become more receptive and therefore better able to design pathways for transfer student enrollment and success within their respective writing programs.
Provide Transfer Credit Evaluations & Advising as Early as Possible
Adult transfer students’ difficulties accessing transfer articulation information and resources do not end upon admission and enrollment at the institutions that they transfer to. In many cases, incoming transfer students find themselves waiting until it is time for them to register for classes or attend orientation before they finally meet with an academic advisor and receive an official evaluation of their existing coursework (Fann; Ott and Cooper). Worse still, many transfer students are well into their first term before receiving an official credit evaluation (Handel; Strempel), which may result in these students enrolling in courses that their prior coursework already fulfills. Adult transfer students, in other words, may be enrolling in courses they ultimately do not need simply because institutional administrators and faculty fail to provide transfer credit evaluations and advising before classes start.
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That adult transfer students often need to pay institutions significant amounts of money to even receive access to the information necessary for them to make informed enrollment decisions in the first place is grossly irresponsible, if not unethical. Adult learners transferring from public two-year colleges in particular are among the most vulnerable and often economically disadvantaged students in higher education (Bowen et al.; Ott and Cooper). Consequently, withholding transfer articulation information and credit evaluations until a student makes a nonrefundable enrollment deposit, or even tuition payment, only further disadvantages “those who are already at a disadvantage in their pursuit of a college degree” (Ott and Cooper 16).
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It is therefore essential that WPAs provide adult transfer students with credit evaluations of their writing coursework as early as possible, ideally before they are required to submit their nonrefundable enrollment deposits and certainly before they must make their first tuition payment (Ott and Cooper). Indeed, while WPAs might not be able to provide the comprehensive credit evaluations that typically fall to registrar and/or advising offices to perform, they can nonetheless assess transfer students’ prior writing coursework and advise them on what writing classes they will need to take upon enrolling. This will help empower adult transfer students to make more informed enrollment decisions, and, with any luck, other departments and campus units will follow suit.
