From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: Cuppa GAO: Coffee With Our Experts - Transferring
College Credits

Description: Director Melissa Emrey-Arras discusses challenges students
face transferring college credits.

Related GAO Work: GAO-17-574: Higher Education: Students Need More
Information to Help Reduce Challenges in Transferring College Credits

Released: January 2018

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Welcome to Cuppa GAO. This is your coffee break
with our experts where you can sit down and ask us questions about our
latest report. I'm Sarah Kaczmarek. Thanks for everyone who is already
tuning in. Be sure to like and share this feed. If you're watching and
wondering, "What's GAO?" Well, we're an independent legislative branch
agency, which means we work for Congress. We investigate federal
programs and spending to make sure they're meeting their goals and
spending your taxpayer dollars effectively. One area where the federal
government spends money, particularly for student loans, is higher
education. I'm here in GAO's cafeteria with Melissa Emrey-Arras, a
director on our Education, Workforce and Income Security team, to talk
about her team's latest report on challenges students are having when
trying to transfer their college credits. So, before we get too deep
into this topic-- and thanks again for everybody who's joining our first
Facebook Live, Melissa, could you give us a little bit of a background
on your work at GAO?

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] Sure, Sarah. I work on everything related to
higher education. So basically anything to do with college. So that
could be, in this case, what it's like when you try to move from one
college to the next and bring your credits with you. And it could also
be issues like what is the cost of the student loan program for the
federal government?

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] And so give me an overview about some of the issues
with transferring college credits. What did you find there?

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] Well, Sarah, we just issued a report yesterday
which found that about one-third of all students transfer from one
college to the next. And they lose about half of their credits in that
process.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So why is that happening? You know, they've gone to
a lot of work to get these credits. What are some of the main issues
that is driving that?

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] Oftentimes students don't have the information
they need about what types of credits they should take. So they may
take, for example, a very technical course that won't transfer later on.
Or they don't know what the requirements are of the school that they
want to go to, so they take courses that don't meet those requirements
and then can't then transfer those credits.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Thanks, everybody who is tuning in and watching.
This is Cuppa GAO: Coffee with our Experts. We are here in GAO's
cafeteria. My name is Sarah Kaczmarek. I'm with Melissa Emrey-Arras, a
director in our Education, Workforce and Income Security team. We're
doing our first ever Facebook Live to talk about Melissa's report that
just came out on challenges students are having when trying to transfer
credits between colleges. So, Melissa, you were just giving us some
information about the challenges that students are facing. Let me ask
you, do some school have partnerships that make this process a little
bit easier?

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] They do, Sarah. Some states actually have
agreements for example for their public schools, and some specific
schools also have agreements with other schools. And those types of
agreements, whether they're within a state or from school to school, can
be tremendously helpful for students. Because it lays out what will
transfer. So for example, they may know that certain general education
classes will transfer from, perhaps, a community college to the
four-year public college in their state. If you don't have an agreement,
it's very difficult to know what will transfer. And you don't have that
information going in.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] That sounds like it's going to be very frustrating
for students who would need this information if it's not very
transparent.

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] Exactly. And because students can lose credits,
that can mean real consequences for them. Financially it can mean that
they would spend a lot more going to college. And it can mean that it
can take a lot longer to graduate from college. And if you think about
it, students are losing on average a whole semester's-worth of credits.
So that could be a whole semester added on. So they're not going to
graduate within a four-year period. They're going to have to tack on
those extra classes. And that's going to take them longer timewise. And
it's going to cost them-- and the federal government-- money.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Oh, thanks to all of our 55 viewers who are tuned
in and watching already. As you join, be sure to like and share this
live video. My name is Sarah Kaczmarek. I'm here in GAO's cafeteria for
our first ever Facebook Live Cuppa GAO: Coffee with our Experts. I'm
sitting here with Melissa Emrey-Arras, a director on our Education,
Workforce and Income Security team. Talking about her team's latest
report on the difficulties that students can have when trying to
transfer their college credits. So, Melissa, let me ask you-- you're
saying that some of this information is just not really publicly
available to students about the policies. So where should students be
able to expect to find this information?

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] Well, what we found was that while schools have
general information on their websites about their credit transfer
policies, about a third of schools do not list the agreements that they
have with other schools. So if you're a student and you want to know,
does my school have an agreement with this other school that I want to
go to, you may not be able to find that out by looking on the website.
Because in a third of the cases it just wasn't there. Even though
schools are required by law to provide that information, they don't
currently have to provide it on their website. Which can make it
difficult for students who may want to go to that school and who don't
live nearby.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Oh, that's a really good point. I see we have a
couple of comments coming in on our feed. And I just want to remind our
viewers that this is your chance to ask questions. So you're welcome to
send in your questions on the feed. We're here to help answer what you
want to know about transferring college credits. So if you know a parent
or a student or an educator who you think might also benefit from this
information, be sure to like and share this feed. Again, we're doing
Cuppa GAO: Coffee with our Experts. I'm Sarah Kaczmarek. We're here in
GAO's cafeteria. I'm with Melissa Emrey-Arras, a director in our
Education, Workforce and Income Security team. Talking about her team's
latest report on challenges students have when trying to transfer their
college credits. So for those people who are just tuning in now--
because we have more people joining us-- tell us again about some of the
highlights from this report.

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] Well I think one of the interesting things is
that, in addition to the fact that one-third of students transfer and
about half of them lose credits, even for those that do manage to get
those credits transferred, they don't necessarily get transferred and
applied to their new major. So that can be an issue as well. So for
example, if you've taken a biology class at your first school and you
want to major in Biology, you think oh, this, will naturally apply to my
major at my new school. But it may not. It's generally up to the school
that you're trying to transfer credits to, to decide whether or not to
accept those credits. And then beyond that, whether or not to apply them
towards your major. So they may say, fine, we're going to give you
credit for it but it doesn't count towards your major. In which case,
even though you got credit, you still need to take that additional
class. Which could also prolong the time that you're in school and could
also cost you more money.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Alright, we have a question in from Corrine, who
would like to know, how does this affect international students?

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] The -- I think the issue is I think in general
whether or not a school will accept your credits. So if you are
currently, Corrine, in school, I would suggest contacting the school
that you want to go to, for example, in the United States. And asking
them what their policy is for recognizing the credits that you've
received in your current location. It's very helpful to know what that
school's requirements are. Because schools can really vary in what they
require. And some schools may accept more of your credits. And other
schools may not accept any of your credits. So you really need to talk
to the school that you want to go to.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Let me ask you another question we have in. What
about for-profit colleges, do they have partnerships as well?

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] Some for-profits and nonprofits do have
partnerships as well, although the partnerships are most common amongst
public schools. What's interesting, though, is that credit loss is
higher actually with the for-profit colleges. So it's particularly
important in those situations to really get information to make sure
that you know what's going on and what credits will transfer. Because we
found that in some situations students lost over 90% of the credits that
they wanted to transfer when they were transferring with a for-profit
school.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So here's an interesting comment that we got from
Troy. Thanks, Troy, for sending this in. Troy says transferology.com can
help, and that that might be a resource-- though it's not comprehensive.
Let me ask you in this review, did you find websites that maybe weren't
associated with schools that could help?

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] There are various resources out there. And
thank you, Troy, for talking about other possibilities. What we were
concerned with was the fact that the Department of Education really had
very little available to help students. And we thought that this was
particularly challenging, given that not all the information is
available on school websites the students might want. And a lot of
students don't even realize what's involved in transferring. So we made
a recommendation to the Department of Education to provide more
information and resources for students. So that they could know, for
example, what some general criteria are for transferring credits. For
example, if you get a D in a class, it might be harder to transfer that
credit than if you get an A in that class. Similarly, I think it's
helpful for the Department of Education to let people know that they
could potentially run out of their federal student aid. A lot of
students rely on Pell grants and federal student loans to fund their
college education. But there are limits on how much you can get, and how
long you can receive that money. And you could, in this process of
trying to transfer from one school to another and having to take more
classes, you could potentially exhaust that time period and run out of
aid.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] And that's a really kind of an important point
about the federal connection to and the tie-in with student loans.
Thanks, everybody who's continuing to tune in. My name is Sarah
Kaczmarek. I'm here with Melissa Emrey-Arras, a director on our
Education, Workforce and Income Security team. We're doing GAO's
first-ever Facebook Live. It's a new series that we're starting, Cuppa
GAO: Coffee with our Experts. This is your chance to tune in, talk to us
live, ask us your questions, we'll get you answers. We're talking about
our latest report on challenges that students are having with
transferring college credits. We have a few more questions in here.
Thanks, everybody who's sending in your questions. Be sure to like and
share this video and continue to send your questions in. So I'm going to
go to our next one from Iraciz, "If you didn't finish a degree and would
like to go back, could your credits possibly be transferred?" In other
words, do your credits ever expire?

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] That's an interesting question. I haven't heard
of that issue; that did not come up during the course of this study.
That said, I think it's an excellent question to ask the school that you
might want to go to. So if you could contact that school and ask them
that question, that will help you. And I think additionally it's good to
talk with the school about the classes that you have taken. Some classes
are more likely to transfer than others. And it really varies again
depending on the schools. So I think that's an excellent question for
the school.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] We have another comment in from Troy who said,
"Speaking with an advisor or your goal institution is great advice,
though accessibility to those advisors could be difficult."

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] That's an excellent point, Troy. And that's one
that we actually made in the report that came out yesterday. We spoke
with a lot of experts in the area of higher education, and many of them
said just that, Troy. That getting advising is particularly tough. I
think there are schools-- for example, community colleges-- where there
are many students and not enough advisors to go around. And it's
possible that not every student who's interested in transferring has
that opportunity to speak with an advisor. And yet that advising and
that early information is so critical. If you don't have that, you may
go ahead and register for a whole lot of courses that are just not going
to transfer. And in the end you'll have to end up re-taking those
classes and paying a lot more money. So we think advising and
information are really helpful. And that's one of the reasons why we
said that the Department of Education should help students. They should
provide more information so that students have additional knowledge for
this process.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Well, we have a question here from Erin, who is
asking about if your report looked at technical degrees. And if that
might be different than other colleges, especially considering that
technology is constantly changing.

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] Right, that's a great question, Erin. We did
look at 2-year schools as well as 4-year schools. And there are
variations in how frequently you can move your credits. I would say one
of the things that we did here in the course of our work was that
classes that are particularly technical might be harder to transfer. It
would again depend on the school that you're intending to go to, so that
may not be an issue for your particular area. But that was one thing
that the experts told us, what that some technical classes as well as
remedial classes were ones that were difficult to transfer.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] I'm going to go right to our next question from
Jeff, who wants to know with the focus on first-time, full-time student
graduation rates and funding models and university rankings, did you see
similar incentive for state universities to commit resources to
transferring students?

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] That's a good question, Jeff. One of the things
that we did here is that schools often provide less aid from their own
pocket to transfer students than they do provide to first-year students.
So it is possible that transfer students may get less aid directly from
the school than they would get if they were a first-year student.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] And I'm going to go to your question about aid.
Thanks to all of our 85 viewers who are tuned in and watching us now.
This is Cuppa GAO: Coffee with our Experts. We're here live from GAO's
cafeteria. So our question about aid, this comes from Nathan who
appreciates that you mentioned financial aid as part of this piece. He
said, "We've run into a number of students who have exhausted their aid
at community colleges before transferring. And unfortunately there
aren't many options available to that population.

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] Right. So, Nathan, this gets to that issue of
limits on federal student aid. Which again are significant. Because we
found that about half of the students that do transfer receive Pell
grants. About two-thirds receive federal direct loans. And yet there are
limits to those types of aid. For Pell grants, you can receive them for
12 semesters, which is six years. And similarly for direct loans, if
you're going for a four-year program, you can receive loans for up to a
six-year period. So like one and a half times. But beyond those periods,
the aid ends. So that's a real consequence. So it could leave students
with not having a degree and having student loan debt at that point.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So with the loans and the time frames you were just
talking about, Anthony wants to know, does the government end up loaning
more money to transfer students?

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] That's an excellent question, Anthony. It
really depends on the extent to which they're able to take their credits
with them when they go from one school to the next. So if a student is
able to take their credits with them fully and have them apply to their
major and not have to make up credits or stay longer, then there won't
be a cost. But if there is that credit loss and they have to prolong
their time, then there is going to be an additional cost to the federal
government.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] We have a comment here from Yuri, who says that-- I
think in maybe their experience-- that maybe college credits do expire.
But many schools' credits are valid for eight to 10 years. I'm going to
go to another question from Mike, who mentioned that, "Some states had
agreements to facilitate college transfer for students. Did you find
certain best practices that states could or should follow in designing
these agreements?"

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] So we agree-- we've looked at this and there
are many states that have such agreements. And they can be incredibly
helpful for students. There are, for example, states that lay out what
types of general education classes you can take at your local community
college. And know that those will transfer to the 4-year college in your
state. So having those agreements in place can reduce some of that
uncertainty and can help guide students into taking classes that will
ultimately transfer. The challenge is, though, is if you then want to
move out of state. So that doesn't help you in that case. You know,
there is an agreement in the western part of this country for a
multi-state arrangement with many schools. But unless you're in that
situation, if you're going from one state to another, you're going to
need to contact where you want to go and find out if they're going to
accept your credits. So it is much easier when there are these more
global agreements in place. Because then there's less negotiating that
has to happen at the level of the student.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Well, we have a few more comments coming in. One
from Jimbo, who says that may schools have time limits for specific
courses. Like five years for anatomy and physiology, but not maybe for
other courses. Did you find that?

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] Well, we didn't look specifically at this time
limit issue. But I think what this discussion is raising is the fact
that there's real variation. People pointing out that there's variation
across types of courses, types of schools in terms of how long credits
could be transferred. And that's the challenge, is that students really
don't know going in what the rules are. And so we think it's really
important that schools put information on their websites about these
agreements. Lay out what the rules are. And have [Department of]
Education tell students what's going on.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] That's a really good point. Thank you, for
everybody who's tuning in to watch our first-ever Facebook Live. This is
Cuppa GAO: Coffee with your Experts. I'm Sarah Kaczmarek going live from
GAO's cafeteria here with Melissa Emrey-Arras. I'm going to go to our
next comment. And please continue to send your comments in and your
questions. And again, be sure to like and share this video. So our next
comment comes from Corinne, who -- she was really clear, she says, about
her goals in college and was advised to take certain courses. When she
transferred initially, that was not the case. And she ended up spending
all of her summers trying to graduate in four years. Is this a common
story?

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] Unfortunately, it's a story, Corinne, that we
have heard. We have a quote in our report that has something very
similar about a student telling us that they met with an advisor at
their first school, got advice on what to take, but then it turned out
that they had to take many more courses when they went to their second
school. Unfortunately, the advisor at your first school may not have all
of the information about the school that you really want to go to
ultimately. So in some ways you need to talk to the advisor at the
second school where you want to go, and find out from them what the
rules are at that school.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So Dija wants to know, are students who study
abroad more likely to lose their credits when they transfer?

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] That's a good question. We did not look into
that issue. And it would really depend on the policies of their
particular school.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Beata commented that it was excellent to go live on
Facebook and to give students an opportunity to ask questions about this
topic. Thank you. We have one from Sean, "If community colleges are an
entry point for most transfer students, why don't community colleges
heavily influence the standards at 4-year institutions to help solve
this problem? Transfer students are more important than ever."

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] Right. And that is one of the most common
pathways. We actually found that the transfer from a 2-year public
school, also known as a community college, to a 4-year public school was
the most common transfer path for students. And many states and colleges
do have agreements to help with that transfer. But unfortunately not all
do. And that's where that information would really be helpful. And to
the extent that community colleges and others can help create those
agreements, it will only benefit students.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] We're going to start to wind things down here. We
have a few more questions that we're going to try to get to. Yuri noted
that October 9-13th is National Transfer Student Week. So there might be
some more information there. We have a comment from Karen about students
who would like to transfer can always reach out to the school he or she
is thinking of transferring to. She actually is a counselor. And she
said she's happy to work with students in that situation. Is that
something that you've found?

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] I think, yes, talking to the counselor at the
school that you want to transfer to is the best solution. Because that
person is in a position to know what the general rules are. However,
they may not know the specifics. They could say, you know, generally
this is how we apply credit to courses. But ultimately oftentimes that
comes down to a review of the student's transcript. So the student would
need to submit their transcript to the school and then have someone look
at that transcript and decide on a case-by-case, course-by-course basis
what credits would transfer.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] We have an interesting question here from Ginny.
"With the emphasis on degree completion, what about-- I'm going to
paraphrase this a little bit, but-- what about earning an associate's
degree before you transfer?

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] So that is something that people can do, to
have that degree in-hand before looking for their bachelor's. Yet it's
also important to think about potential costs for you. So it depends
really on if you want to ultimately get that 4-year degree, is that
going to cost you more? Is that going to take you more time? And that
really comes down to, can you bring your credits with you? And how much
does that school cost, tuition-wise?

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So we have a few more comments. I'm looking through
for some questions. We did get a question from Sean, who asked about,
have you looked at the websites of specific schools, and can you find
the information there?

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] So we did look at the websites. And we actually
did a generalizable survey of the websites. And we found that most do a
very good job of putting general information on the websites. However,
if you're looking for more specific things, like you want the phone
number for someone to talk to about transfer issues, far fewer schools
actually have that on their website. So it really can vary. And like I
said, one-third of schools do not have those agreements listed on their
websites. They don't even list the names of the schools that they have
agreements with. So that's where we think more could be done.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Alright, so I want to ask you-- I know your report
did make some recommendations-- so could you tell us about the
recommendations to try to help address some of these issues?

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] Sure, Sarah. We made two recommendations in the
report. The first was to have the Department of Education require
schools to list those names of partner schools that they have agreements
with on their websites to make it really easy for students to get that
information. And then secondly, we made a recommendation to the
Department of Education to provide more information to students and
their families about the transfer process. So they can know about the
issues that we've been talking about today. Like the fact that it can
affect their financial aid eligibility. Just general information about
the process. So those are the two recommendations that we made to the
Department.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] And if you were to take a step back and think about
all the students and really even their parents that this can affect if
they're helping pay for the kid's education, what do you see as the
bottom line here?

[ Melissa Emrey-Arras: ] I think the bottom line is that students and
their families need early information about the transfer process for the
schools that they're thinking about. So that information is helpful to
have before you register, even, for classes at your first school. You
don't want to be thinking about transfer after you've already taken a
year's worth of classes only to find out that none of them are going to
transfer to the school that you want to go to, and you're going to have
to tack on an extra year and pay that much more.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Well, thank you so much for joining us today and
for answering everybody's questions. Thanks to all of our viewers who
tuned in to watch Cuppa GAO: Coffee with our Experts, our very
first-ever Facebook Live here in GAO's cafeteria. If you want more
information about Melissa's report that we've been talking about, you
can find that on our website. That's gao.gov. And you can look for her
report; it's GAO-17-574. Thank you again for everybody who tuned in. We
know we had a few questions here that we didn't get to. You can send us
an email and we'll get back to you. The email address for that is
opanewmedia@gao.gov. We will be sure to post this video to our timeline
shortly. So if you know any parents or students or educators that you
think could benefit from this infor - [The audio cuts off at this point
and returns at the very end with: ] Cuppa GAO. Be sure to join us next
time.