Transferring credits from a community college to a four-year institution remains a crucial strategy many students must use to obtain a bachelor’s degree. However, effectively implementing this strategy can be difficult. Despite state policies intended to streamline credit transfer, students face significant barriers to having their credits accepted and, more importantly, applied to degree requirements at four-year institutions.

Faculty members in teaching, research, and administrative positions play a pivotal role in decisions about whether and how credits transfer, yet little research has examined how they approach these decisions or what factors influence their judgment. This mixed-methods study, funded by Ascendium Education Group and conducted by MDRC, addresses this knowledge gap by exploring faculty members’ decision-making within a large and complex transfer landscape.

The study involved three University of Texas System institutions: the University of Texas at Arlington, the University of Texas at El Paso, and the University of Texas at Tyler. MDRC researchers conducted interviews and focus groups with faculty and staff members, analyzed institutional data on transfer student outcomes, and reviewed state and institutional transfer policies and documentation on credit evaluation processes. The main findings of the report are summarized below.

• The distinction between credit transfer and credit application matters. This analysis found that, at some institutions, over 40 percent of transferred credits did not apply to degree requirements at the time of graduation. The disconnect between credit transfer and application often leads to excess credits and extended time to graduation.
   
• Data systems can affect and inform transfer student success. Institutions vary considerably in what kinds of transfer student data they track. The lack of centralized and standardized data collection across institutions makes it challenging to identify where students encounter barriers and to respond with evidence-based improvements.
   
• Faculty members often make significant decisions within large, complex institutional systems. At some institutions, faculty members exercise substantial discretion in credit evaluation decisions, particularly regarding major requirements. However, these decisions occur within complicated institutional processes involving multiple stakeholders and competing priorities, and this environment can undermine efforts to implement consistent credit evaluation practices.
   
• Disciplinary context shapes decisions about credit transfer and transfer pathways. Different academic disciplines approach transfer credit evaluation in different ways, based on their unique contexts and requirements. There is also disciplinary variation in the nature of the challenges encountered in aligning curricula to create seamless transfer pathways to a bachelor’s degree. These nuances reflect the need for field-specific approaches to improving transfer student outcomes.
   
• Departmental leadership approaches, along with faculty members’ perceptions of community college coursework and transfer students’ academic preparation, influence credit evaluations. Department chairs and program leaders significantly influence transfer credit practices through both formal policies and informal departmental culture. Also, while some faculty members expressed concerns about transfer student preparation, institutional data show many transfer students perform well academically—with 41 percent increasing their grade point average in their first semester after transfer—highlighting the importance of using evidence to inform departmental practices and policies.