Pat Shea, senior advisor, Academic Leadership Initiatives and Jane Sherman, Passport state coordinator, met with provosts and chief academic officers during the AASCU 2019 Academic Affairs Summer Meeting where they presented a pre-conference workshop on Interstate Passport.
With more than one million students transferring each year and 31 million Americans with “some college, no degree,” the Interstate Passport initiative needed to develop both a rational basis to transfer prior learning and a mechanism to inform and improve the transfer process. With its access to transfer information and its matching mission to improve student success, the National Student Clearinghouse—a unique national asset—epitomized the logical and best-suited partner for developing a strong and continuous relationship with the Interstate Passport. The introduction below by Pat Shea, WICHE senior advisor, Academic Leadership Initiatives is followed questions on the relationship with the Clearinghouse answers coordinated by Rob Groot, director of Product Management for the National Student Clearinghouse.
In 2011, with funding from Carnegie Corporation of New York, academic leaders in seven participating WICHE states finalized the design for developing Interstate Passport’s proof of concept. They called for the program to be student-centered and faculty-driven, and to respect institutional autonomy, and to include quality assurance measures. The latter called for relying on faculty at each institution to determine how a student could achieve the learning outcomes while tracking student performance post-transfer using the principle of “trust and tracking.”
Registrars and institutional researchers from the same seven states worked together to design the tracking process. Utah State University graciously agreed to set up a data collection and reporting system model for testing the process with 16 institutions during the proof of concept work. We learned a great deal during our two-year testing phase with USU, including that to scale Interstate Passport participation nationally, we needed to find a national organization with the skill and expertise to automate the processes and handle data from hundreds of institutions. National Student Clearinghouse was the obvious and ideal solution.
In 2015, with funding from the U.S. Department of Education in a First in the World Grant supported out work with Clearinghouse subject matter experts and with WICHE states’ registrars and institutional researchers to further define the specifications for the tracking processes. Our goals were to automate tasks as much as possible by using Clearinghouse processes, that were already familiar to registrars and institutional researchers.
To participate, institutions sign an addendum to their existing Clearinghouse agreement that gives permission to share Interstate Passport data among participating institutions. Thus, institutions submit data to the Clearinghouse and reports are generated by the Clearinghouse, not through WICHE. Also, the Clearinghouse sends aggregate data to WICHE annually for use in evaluating the overall effectiveness of the program.
Q1: How does the Interstate Passport/Clearinghouse partnership fit the Clearinghouse mission and vision?
The mission of the National Student Clearinghouse is to serve the education and workforce communities and all learners with access to trusted data, related services, and insights. In doing so, we are proud to work with WICHE and other national education organizations in pursuit of making data actionable to build process and program improvements that facilitate better outcomes for students.
Just like WICHE’s Interstate Passport, the Clearinghouse aims to provide insights that allow institutions and organizations to deliver programs that improve graduation rates, shorten time to degree, and save money for postsecondary transfer students. The Clearinghouse wants to further education and enable the learner, and the Interstate Passport is a great method for the learner to have portability of their achievement between institutions. The partnership amplifies our mission at its core.
Q2: How did the partnership between Interstate Passport and the Clearinghouse develop?
It all started with WICHE Interstate Passport verifications with participating colleges. Because the Clearinghouse was an established trusted name for degree and enrollment verifications, this led to WICHE’s interest in using the same platform for their Interstate Passport verifications. Stakeholders from WICHE were very involved and hands-on throughout the project’s conception to ongoing activities in the creation of this unique partnership.
Most importantly, because registrars and institutional researchers are familiar with the Clearinghouse’s technology and benefits to institutions nationwide, it makes for a robust relationship that efficiently and effectively supports students with the transfer of their credits.
Q3: Many Clearinghouse reports provide information on transfer students. How important is it for institutions to understand transfer dynamics if school leaders want to improve student completions?
Understanding completions, transfers and persistence sits at the core of every institution in the nation. The Clearinghouse data provides a level of understanding and information that is unsurpassed and with that it allows decision makers and analysts in education to improve their programs continuously. It also helps identify trends in performance across colleges and enables sharing and learning best practices from all the participants.
For example, our report Transfer and Mobility: A National View of Student Movement in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2011 Cohort, which was released in 2018 and is our third report on transfer and mobility, examines multiple transfer pathways for the cohort of students who started postsecondary education in fall 2011. It analyzes student enrollment patterns across different institutions and across state boundaries, including, for the first time, disaggregation by race and ethnicity.
The report revealed that two-year institutions served almost 1.5 million students of the fall 2011 cohort, including those who started in two-year institutions and those who transferred. This figure represents more than half of the entire fall 2011 cohort and all transfers, indicating that two-year institutions not only served most of the starting cohort, but most of the transfer population as well. However, many two-year students who transfer from community colleges do so without a degree. Only 5.6 percent of this cohort transferred after receiving a credential from their starting institution, either a certificate or an associate degree. The vast majority transferred without a degree.
Our 2019 transfer report will come out this fall.
Q4: How quickly are the dynamics of student enrollment and transfer patterns changing?
The postsecondary and undergraduate enrollments are cyclical, but they are also influenced by other recurring factors as well. Among them is the economy, in which low unemployment rates make the job market more attractive for students than attending college. Also, regional population demographics affect the number of high school graduates. We also know that cost of attending an institution, the rise in students’ need to work and attend school at the same time, preparation for college and career readiness, declining international student enrollments and other contributing factors have a significant impact on enrollments.
The Transfer and Mobility report showcases that student mobility is complex and on the rise. This report helps institutions go beyond first-time, full-time cohorts to understand non-traditional students, part-time and full-time, who transfer in and out of multiple institutions. While enrollment and transfer patterns can be stable for up to several semesters, macro-economic events can also cause them to change quickly and significantly.
Q5: The Clearinghouse provides Interstate Passport with not just the statistics describing the changing nature of the transfer process but also is collecting and analyzing the post-transfer success information to be used for Interstate Passport quality control. How unique is this second part of the relationship?
The National Student Clearinghouse is committed to providing actionable data and insights that afford all education organizations, including WICHE, the ability to measure post-transfer success. Clearinghouse data indicates that the national completion rate for the fall 2012 cohort of first-time post-secondary students is 58 percent. Black and Hispanic student total completion rates increased considerably, to 48 and 57 percent, respectively, for four-year starters. Our services provide institutions data, research and insights to support and strengthen those institutions that enroll diverse students to help close equity gaps nationwide, in urban, suburban, and rural areas in the United States. For example, the completion rate for Hispanic students who started at four-year public institutions increased 8.3 percentage points, from 55 percent at the end of six years to 63.3 percent at the end of eight years. This was the sharpest completion increase of any race and ethnicity group. In addition, institutions are actively seeking more data on learners who have “some college, no degree.”
In addition, as statewide adult education initiatives expand across the country, there is a subset of adult students who need particular attention when it comes to improving access to and success through postsecondary education: more than 31 million adults have “some college, no degree.” This is why we launched our Reverse Transfer initiative and will continue to partner with institutions that seek this student data from us to improve college outcomes for all students. Watch for our Research Center’s fall 2019 report on this topic.
Q6: What do you see for the future of the Interstate Passport/Clearinghouse partnership?
In the next few years, the education community will contend with the emergence of competency-based education, block chain, AI technology, and alternative pathways for students, among others.
It is also important to note that today’s students are more mobile than ever in obtaining the credentials they desire, and we foresee this trend to continue. They have gained credits at two or three institutions over time either in the classroom or online. It’s essential that students are awarded the credentials they’ve earned along the way. We see our continued collaboration through Interstate Passport as a mechanism to offer learners the opportunities to succeed in their academic journey.
Inside Higher Ed featured several articles this past month that discussed topics related to student transfer.
Interested in joining the Interstate Passport Network? Follow these steps to become a member.
Sherry Simkins is one of the key personnel who has been involved in NIC’s Passport success. Simkins serves as both the Institutional Liaison for North Idaho College and the Idaho Passport State Facilitator. In her role as Institutional Liaison she ensures that the institutional team is aware of Interstate Passport and its benefits to students. As the Passport State Facilitator, Simkins is a resource to other potential member institutions within the state and is able to speak about the program at the state level.
“Today’s community college student faces many barriers. At North Idaho College, we recognized that transfer does not have to be one of them. While we had a statewide general education program, many of our students were transferring outside of Idaho. By joining the Interstate Passport our students now have every opportunity to successfully transfer their credits and meet their educational goals.”
Simkins has served as division chair for Communication and Fine Arts at North Idaho College since 2012. As chair, she oversees programs in Communication, Journalism, Fine Arts, Music, and Theatre. She has been an instructor of Communication since 2005. She also serves as a faculty discipline representative for the Idaho Statewide General Education. Simkins received her B.S. and M.A. in Communication at Southern Utah University. She is currently pursuing her Doctorate in Educational Leadership at Idaho State University.
By Mike Hillman, co-chair of the Passport Review Board
Mike Hillman, co-chair of the Passport Review Board, recently interviewed Richard A. Detweiler, the founder of HigherEdImpact, an international effort working to better educate people for lives of consequence, wisdom and accomplishment. Detweiler serves as a foundation fellow at Oxford University’s Harris Manchester College, and he is also the founder of the Global Liberal Arts Alliance, a union of 30 institutions committed to strengthening education in the tradition of liberal arts. He is a social psychologist specializing in intercultural relations and holds master’s and doctorate degrees from Princeton University.
The results of Dr. Detweiler’s research on the link between the higher education experience and life outcomes of 1,000 college students is expected to be published in book form in 2020. His data indicate that a strong liberal arts education prepares graduates for fulfilling lives and financial success. Although the study targeted the impact of a liberal arts college experience, his comments below suggest a strong link between lower-division general education practices such as those used to achieve Passport Learning Outcomes and later personal and financial success in life.
Interstate Passport: What led to your interest in the benefits of a liberal arts education?
Detweiler: My interest was two-fold. 1) My entire professional life I have been in liberal arts institutions and I have been a strong believer in this approach to higher education and, 2) in recent years the critique of liberal arts education has become more strident and liberal arts education has been rolled back at so many institutions. The defense of liberal arts was always weak and unconvincing. That is, the rhetoric for a believer is very strong and very impressive and very convincing, but for those who are not already believers, the defense of the liberal arts either didn’t make sense or was unpersuasive. That led me to ask myself the question: Are there ways to explore the meaning and intent of the liberal arts that would give new or different insight or perhaps more persuasive information as to its value and importance? If one approached the question objectively rather than defensively, are there benefits that could be demonstrated? That was the beginning of my research effort.
Interstate Passport: Your research seems to be very timely with the recent Presidential Executive Order addressing education outcomes and now a new Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation effort to examine postsecondary value (see links below). Do you think your research can inform those discussions?
Detweiler: I would like to believe it will. I don’t believe any one research project will ever convincingly answer all of the questions or even the fundamental questions, but what I wanted to do with this research was move beyond the questions of what students are like when they are in college or what are students like when they get their first job to look at longer term impact. There is really little research on long-term impact other than opinion surveys regarding what students think or how they feel about their liberal arts education. My hope is that as this new research becomes known it will influence the nature of the questions that are asked and the kinds of outcomes that people are seeking to identify for higher education. Most of the outcomes assessed for elementary education, such as mathematics or reading proficiency, can be assessed directly. Higher education is in a different category: you are trying to educate people with outcomes that will result in them living their lives in personally and socially beneficial ways, and these outcomes are less easy to assess.
Interstate Passport: Your research really didn’t ask people directly about their liberal arts college so much as it asked them about their interactions with faculty members or the number of humanities courses taken. In that light, how does your research on liberal arts colleges relate to a liberal arts education generally?
Detweiler: How to approach the question of impact was a very interesting issue I explored. The dilemma we face in liberal arts education is that there are almost as many definitions of what liberal arts means as there are people to define it. I ran many workshops with the participation of faculty, college presidents, academic deans, etc. One of the exercises was to develop a description of liberal arts education. Every one of those descriptions was interesting and compelling and, to me as a liberal arts educator, each felt right. But they seldom fully agreed – there were dozens and dozens of different statements, just as there are hundreds of books on the liberal arts, thousands of articles on the liberal arts, and tens of thousands of speeches on the liberal arts. So instead of beginning the research by arbitrarily accepting a single contemporary definition, this extreme diversity of ideas caused me to go back systematically through the millennia-long history of the liberal arts, focusing not only on the philosophy and content of study but also on the educational practices used and the purposes being fulfilled. This analysis generated several dozen consistent aspects of study associated with the liberal arts. These aspects weren’t intended to be an authoritative definition of the liberal arts or description of what a liberal arts college is or must be, but rather a description of educational principles and practices most consistently characterizing liberal arts study. While presumably these principles and practices would be very prevalent at liberal arts colleges, some of them could also describe liberal arts experiences students might have at a major university or state college. So rather than beginning with a defense of the liberal arts as a single concept, I began with a question: What is it about a liberal arts education that makes a difference? What aspects of this approach to a higher education are valuable? Is it aspects of the content of study, such as the number of humanities courses taken, or completing more than half of your coursework outside of your major or being required to write papers in most classes? Or is it aspects of the educational context – how the education is delivered – such as interacting with others with different life experiences, or time with faculty outside of class, or the use of pedagogy? Rather than starting with an a priori definition of what the liberal arts is we asked people how often they experienced various liberal arts-associated practices as undergraduates. Then, as a separate set of questions, we asked people about liberal arts-associated life outcomes: leadership, altruism, continued learning, cultural involvement, life satisfaction, and personal success. We could then look empirically at relationships between their undergraduate experience and how they live their life and identify the attributes of the college experience that actually appear to make a statistically meaningful difference. The outcome focus was on the long term: what are people like as adults 10, 20 or 40 years after graduation? It turns out that the liberal arts educational context has a consistently significant relationship to virtually all of the aspects of adult behavior we investigated, whereas the specific content of study was less consistently associated with adult behavior. Among the several dozen key findings are these examples: while specialized study is associated with success in first job, over the longer term this advantage disappears and more successful people have taken more than half their courses outside their major and have learned a broader range of perspectives; altruistic adults are more likely to have had college faculty who knew the student’s first name and who spent more time with students outside of class; and those who report living a more fulfilled life took more humanities courses and also took more classes in which there was not a single right answer to questions posed.
Interstate Passport: Have you come to view liberal arts or general education as a desirable end in itself, outside of, or in addition to, an academic major?
Detweiler: What my research has told me is actually a stronger case than what I would have made before the project. Liberal arts practices – breadth of content, the development of intellectual skills, development of larger perspectives and those kind of things – invariably have a much greater and more valuable impact on people’s lives over the longer term; living fulfilled, involved, and successful lives does not depend on the major content of one’s studies but on liberal arts learning. There are short-term advantages to certain kinds of majors such as a business or engineering; otherwise, differences in academic majors seem to make little short-term difference and, as one’s life goes on, differences related to the specialization of academic major disappear in importance. Education occurring in the context of an authentic learning community, the diversity of subjects studied, the development of larger perspectives and other liberal arts-related practices are associated with long-term success, personal fulfillment, intellectual engagement, cultural involvement and other desirable outcomes. I now view many kinds of liberal arts practices as, in fact, much more important than the major per se. I am not arguing against having majors or against specific courses but I am arguing that the major really is not the driver of life’s outcomes; it’s other kinds of liberal arts experiences.
When I started this research I had financial support from foundations so I knew that whatever I found – whether liberal arts principles were supported or not – I wasn’t going to be able to sit on it or hide it. I thought: What is going to happen if I don’t find a positive impact for liberal arts educational approaches? For me personally that would have been very sad because I spent decades working on behalf of the liberal arts and it is certainly an approach to education that many people thought had value. If positive effects were not found it would have felt like a tragedy on many levels. Happily that did not turn out to be the case. It is actually a much more positive and stronger case than I would have dreamed.
Interstate Passport: How does the AAC&U LEAP program align with your research on the benefits of a liberal arts education? Does LEAP’s view of liberal arts align with the view of liberal arts in your study?
Detweiler: I would say “alignment” is the right word. Are they the same? No, but they are certainly aligned. Issues like Essential learning Outcomes identified by LEAP overlap with what I identified, but I was not trying to create a discrete list as in LEAP. Certainly there is overlap in ”high impact practices” and what I ended up calling “effective pedagogy.” I used the “effective pedagogy” label because many of the ideas that LEAP includes did not exist if a person graduated 20 or 40 years ago – yet many faculty did make use of impactful teaching and learning practices, including many of those listed by LEAP. I asked things like, “How often did most of your courses require you to write papers?” That is clearly an overlap. Internships per se were not found much 40 years ago so I did not ask about them. I did not ask about “First-Year Experiences” because that concept also did not exist then, though I did ask about having small classes and seminars with discussion in the first two years. So, yes, overlap certainly with the questions I asked but not quite identical.
One of my fundamental views is that the liberal arts is not prescriptive – it has evolved in important ways – and LEAP feels somewhat prescriptive because it identifies a list of characteristics that comprise a LEAP-defined liberal arts education. Because the research shows that different parts of the liberal arts educational experience affect different aspects of life’s outcomes, I don’t believe one should start with a list of educational attributes. Instead, in my view every institution needs to start with a question: What kind of life outcomes are you trying to create? Are you trying to create people who are culturally engaged, who exercise leadership or who are altruistic to society or who are leading fulfilled lives or who are personally successful? Start with that question and then go from the answer to identifying the kinds of liberal arts educational practices that are associated with those outcomes since different types of liberal arts-related educational experience are related to different life outcomes. In that sense, there may be a different list of educational experiences for one liberal arts institution than for another and that is fine and good as long as the starting point is to first identify the purpose and then select the educational principles and practices that will fulfill the institution’s purpose.
Interstate Passport: If LEAP were to be improved to align better with your research, what kinds of improvements would you suggest we look at?
Detweiler: What I would say goes back to my previous comments. For me, LEAP, as it is presented and to some degree implemented, involves satisfying a specific list of identified practices. My research indicates there is not a single list of learning outcomes that are appropriate to and for every liberal arts institution. This is not an objection to the content of LEAP, but for me, it feels too “check off the box,” prescriptive, and short-term focused. It has too much of that character relative to what I think liberal arts institutions really ought to be doing.
Interstate Passport: Is there any reason that a liberal arts experience should not be transferrable between institutions?
Detweiler: No, I would say quite the contrary. The challenge is in the definition of what liberal arts is and what general education includes. Institutions need to be clear on what purpose they are trying to fulfill and then implement a liberal arts program design, not just courses but out-of-class activities and those kinds of things that contribute to those outcomes. In that sense, there could be differences among institutions in course content or design because there could be differences between institutions in terms of what purpose they are trying to fulfill. For example, if the highest priority is to create lifetime learners there could be differences in general education experiences as contrasted with an institution that wants to focus on helping people to live fulfilled lives. Those differences may call for different kinds of educational experiences. I don’t think that in any way decreases the reasonableness or viability or likely success of being able to transfer general education courses, but I do think it requires thinking carefully and clearly to assure that a student, particularly if they are consciously planning to go to one institution for two years and then to continue at another institution, takes courses that are aligned inter-institutionally.
Interstate Passport: Recent best practices in general education suggest that general education concepts should extend into upper-division level (junior and senior) coursework. Interstate Passport specifically addresses the lower-division (freshman and sophomore) general education requirements. Do you think this upper and lower division distinction provides the opportunity for liberal arts experiences to be transferrable at the lower-division level and institutionally specific at the upper-division level?
Detweiler: I think that is an elegant idea. From my research, studying broadly outside the major and engaging in issues of significance to humanity in most courses, for example, have significant long-term life impact. But the coursework or other experiences associated with these could easily be separated into inter-institutionally similar courses at the lower level and institutionally tailored courses at the upper level.
Interstate Passport: Do you have any advice for the Interstate Passport initiative now that you have had a chance to study it?
Detweiler: I am fascinated [by the Interstate Passport concept] and feel guilty that I had not known anything about it previously. I have to say it is so logical. I understand why faculty in a psychology department or a physics department at every institution may have different ideas about what content should be included in major requirements. But there should just not be that much difficulty for students at the general education level. It seems so compelling to me, so I commend you for what you are doing.
Links to Presidential Executive Order and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation study on the value of postsecondary credentials:
In addition to requiring the Secretary of Education to report on state and institutional efforts to facilitate successful transfer of credits and degree completion, the new Executive Order [https://www.insidehighered.com/sites/default/server_files/media/White%20House%20Executive%20Order.pdf] requires the annual College Scorecard to report on estimated median earnings and student loan debt and default rates for former students receiving federal financial aid.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is supporting a new 30-member panel [https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/05/16/gates-and-state-college-group-co-chair-postsecondary-value-commission] to study the value of postsecondary credentials. The panel is co-chaired by Gates CEO Sue Desmond-Hellmann and AASCU president Marcia Garcia.
Staff from Interstate Passport Network institutions – Salt Lake Community College and Western Oregon University – who also participate in the Western Undergraduate Exchange program, presented in May along with staff from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education at the RMACAC-PNACAC-WACAC 2019 Super Conference in Phoenix, AZ.
On June 28, 2019 Adams State University became the first institution from the state of Colorado to join the Interstate Passport Network, bringing total membership to 31 institutions in 13 different states.
Adams State University is a public four-year institution located in Alamosa, Colorado that serves over 1,700 undergraduate students. Adams State University is dedicated to fostering Inclusive Excellence, recognizing that the University’s success depends on valuing, engaging and celebrating the rich diversity of its students, staff, faculty and administrators. Since its cornerstone was laid in 1921, Adams State University grew from a teachers’ college into a fine liberal arts university. Adams State is the first federally designated Hispanic Serving Institution in Colorado and is the Regional Education Provider for southern Colorado. About 45 percent of undergraduate students represent minority groups, and 35 percent identify as Hispanic. Today, students can earn a bachelor’s degree in 30 different areas, with 56 emphases, five teacher licensure programs, and 10 pre-professional programs, in addition to 7 master’s degrees and 1 doctoral degree offered in Counselor Education.
President Cheryl D. Lovell states that “Adams State University sees tremendous benefits and advantages to the Interstate Passport, and we are excited to be the first institution in Colorado to become a member. We are also very excited to provide additional ways to serve students, especially historically under-served populations, by providing a seamless transfer option into one of our high quality undergraduate programs.”
Deadlines for reporting Passport Completion and Academic Progress Tracking files for the 2018-2019 year are fast approaching. The Passport Completion file should be submitted by June 15th, 2019, and the Academic Progress Tracking file needs to be submitted by August 15th, 2019. Submitting the Academic Progress Tracking file by August 15th ensures that the data will be included in the Interstate Passport Annual Report. The Interstate Passport website and the National Student Clearinghouse have several resources available to assist in submission.
To learn more about the value of Academic Progress Tracking read recent article published in the Interstate Passport Briefing here.
A recent article, Universities that are recruiting older students often leave them floundering, published in the Hechinger Report examines what institutions are doing to serve non-traditional student who are older, have children, and are transfer students. Read more to find out what is working and what lessons have been learned.
An Inside Higher Ed blog, Strategies for Improving Student Success, discusses eight common sense strategies for improving student success including better ways to serve transfer students.
The Community College Research Center released a report, American Honors: The Life and Death of a Public-Private Partnership, which examines the role of the public-private partnership and its impact on transfer students.
A recently released report, Recommendations for Providing Community Colleges with the Resources, from The Century Foundation explores how funding and resource levels at 2-year institutions affects student success and those that transfer.