User:Ehrl9500/Transfer credit

ORIGINAL:

Historically, two-and four-year college transfer and articulation agreements were primarily institutional initiatives rather than state mandates. Now, nearly every state has some policy on college transfer of credits for students moving from public two- to four-year institutions. States and institutions advertise and promote transferability, pathways and methods differently across the education sectors.

State legislatures have enacted bills to mandate state oversight, audit and development of procedures that would provide uniformity and increased transparency.[1] '''In Canada, the Pan-Canadian Consortium on Admissions & Transfer ("PCCAT") facilitates the implementation of policies and practices that support student mobility both within and among Provinces and Territories and granting of transfer credit in order to improve access to post-secondary education in Canada Pan Canadian Consortium on Admissions & Transfer. Provincial jurisdictions in Canada may have their own agency or council that supports and facilitates their respective transfer systems and manage online tools that support student & transfer mobility.''' Yet, there still remains striking differences across the United States because there is no federal or national policy to support college transfer. Much debate has arisen around college transfer from its effect on affordability to how it has extended time to degree.

Student mobility is not just within states though. Some 40% of students transfer across state boundaries. College transfer policies and practices among the states usually avoid the cross state issues. As a result, these differences include not only how policies and practices were initially established, but also their degree of selectivity, granularity, coverage and uniformity is applied in practice at the institutional level.

There is no single model of college transfer and course articulation processes can be identified as the universal standard or even as the preferred model. In the United States, most states employ a combination of approaches ranging from informal efforts of transfer professionals that try to do right by the student, to more formal institution-based agreements, to state-mandated policies. College transfer has been very problematic and costly to students, institutions and the states subsidizing higher education. States such as Florida, Minnesota,[2] Ohio,[3] Arizona, New Jersey, Indiana, Illinois, Washington, California, Texas and Pennsylvania[4] have stepped in to define regulations, methods and standards of practice for institutions to follow when evaluating college transfer applicants.

In particular, the state of Texas is actively looking at transfer issues as part of the Closing the Gaps 2015 initiative. The National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students hosted a statewide conference on May 22, 2009.

EDITS:

Transfer Credits in Canada

In Canada, the Pan-Canadian Consortium on Admissions & Transfer ("PCCAT") facilitates the implementation of policies and practices that support student mobility and granting of transfer credit to improve access to post-secondary education within and among Provinces and Territories in Canada. Provincial jurisdictions in Canada may have their own agency or council that supports and facilitates their respective transfer systems and manage online tools that support student & transfer mobility. These councils include Alberta Council on Admissions and Transfer (ACAT), British Columbia Council on Admissions and Transfer (BCCAT), Council on Articulations and Transfer of New Brunswick (CATNB), Campus Manitoba (CMB), Nova Scotia Council on Admission and Transfer (NSCAT), Ontario Council on Articulation and Transfer (ONCAT) and Saskatchewan Transfer Credit and Learning Pathways Council (STCLPC).

Ontario

In 2011, the Ontario Council on Articulation and Transfer (ONCAT) was established to facilitate the transfer of completed post-secondary credits to other institutions and support the development of articulation pathways between institutions within the province. ONCAT is a non-profit organization that holds collaboration as its core value to create appropriate and accessible pathways for student mobility. All 45 public colleges, universities and Indigenous institutes in Ontario are members of ONCAT. As of January 2020, there are over 1,900 unique transfer pathways between Ontario institutions and over 800,000 transfer opportunities available for student mobility. Each year, there are over 60,000 students who utilize these pathways and transfer opportunities. Within Ontario, there are two different types of transfer credits: course to course transfer credit and block program transfer credit. Course to course transfer credit, or course equivalency, refers to when a course at one institution covers the same or similar content as a course at another institution and the original course completed transfers to count as a similar course. A block program transfer credit refers to the type of transfer credits a student is awarded when they graduate from a specific program and continue their studies in a similar program at another institution where an articulation agreement has already been established. Enough transfer credits are awarded through a block program transfer credit pathway to admit a student to the second year of study, also referred to as the student receiving advanced standing. As an example, Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU) has an articulation pathway with all 21 colleges for the Social Service Worker program to WLU’s Bachelor of Social Work program. Through this articulation pathway, if a student graduates from the Social Service Worker program and meets the minimum overall average for the Bachelor of Social Work program, they will receive 7.0 transfer credits. This number of transfer credits is equivalent to over one year of full-time studies at WLU.

To help assist students to explore their transfer opportunities within Ontario, ONCAT created a free resource for students called ONTransfer. This online resource provides students with the chance to find out how the courses they have completed at one institution may transfer to another institution, and it can also highlight any possible articulation pathways for their current program to another institution. Since all 45 post-secondary institutions are members of ONCAT, ONTransfer has all the most up to date transfer details for each institution, including website links for transfer credit policies and contact information.