The New Reverse Transfer: A National Landscape

Abstract

For decades, higher education professionals and researchers have used the term reverse transfer to describe a specific group of students. A current review of community college literature and higher education policy reflects a contextual change of the term, and today reverse transfer has grown to include students who transfer from a two-year college to a four-year institution and retroactively receive an associate’s degree with their newly earned university credits. The purpose of this study was to provide an overview of the new reverse transfer and the current status of reverse transfer participation and implementation procedure within each of the 50 states. This study also provides a review of the best practices for implementing the new reverse transfer. Results were obtained through an extensive literature review and a qualitative study that used document analysis. Findings show that 18 states had no participation, 11 states had emerging participation, and 21 states had strong participation in implementing state-wide reverse transfer programming. Recommendations for implementation were identified through a second document analysis. Recommendations include ensuring that institutions form multiinstitution/department taskforce committees, automating the degree evaluation process and credentialing, and identifying the process for sharing student information across institutions. Future research should include tracking new reverse transfer participants over time to determine if such programs are improving completion rates.