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.