Northwestern High School students work on an electrical project in the lab as an introduction to the Ivy Tech programs Oct. 6, 2023. A new Indiana law seeks to award more associate degrees through “reverse transfer,” which allows students to combine credits they have earned at a state four-year school with those they’d previously earned at Ivy Tech or Vincennes University. Kokomo Tribune file photo
A new Indiana law seeks to award more associate degrees through “reverse transfer,” which allows students to combine credits they have earned at a state four-year school with those they’d previously earned at Ivy Tech or Vincennes University.
Four-year college credits are “transferred back,” and an Ivy Tech or Vincennes University associate degree is awarded retroactively.
It would benefit those who attended Ivy Tech or Vincennes, didn’t complete a degree there, went on to a four-year state institution and are working on either a bachelor’s degree or didn’t complete the baccalaureate program.
“We have thought for a long time that is a really good thing to do because a number of students don’t complete,” said Chris Lowery, Indiana commissioner for higher education.
Often, something in life gets in the way, whether a family issue, finances or other factors.
Those who could benefit have earned many college credits and invested money in their education, but have no credential to show.
Reverse transfer can already take place, as enabling legislation was put in place several years ago. But “the fact of the matter is it was just clunky — it was very well intended but all the mechanisms to really make that happen smoothly were not put in place,” Lowery said.
SEEKING A SMOOTHER PROCESS
Now, Senate Enrolled Act 8 launches a formal, statewide process for reverse transfer, he said.
The law mandates that by next summer, the Indiana Commission for Higher Education puts a framework in place to at least semi-annually notify eligible undergraduates and former students of the voluntary option to receive an associate degree from Ivy Tech or Vincennes University, at no cost.
SEA 8 has other components impacting higher education, including:
• It requires institutions to offer at least one three-year degree program and review all programs to determine if a three-year pathway is feasible.
• It requires four-year institutions to submit a study on the feasibility and advisability of offering an associate degree to students in limited circumstances.
SEA 8 also impacts high schools.
• It requires all high schools to either offer the Indiana College Core or provide implementation plans to the Commission, “which should effectively more than double the schools offering it,” the Commission stated.
The Indiana College Core is a block of 30 credit hours of general education, college-level coursework. All public institutions are required to accept it to meet the student’s general education requirements. That was legislatively required prior to this year.
INDIANA LAGGING IN DEGREE ATTAINMENT
Overall, SEA 8 “is continuing our push around post-secondary attainment by focusing on accessibility and affordability,” Lowery said.
Indiana ranks 39th in the nation at post secondary attainment for associate degrees and higher, he said.
The reverse transfer provision could potentially significantly increase the number of Hoosiers with an associate degree.
The current reverse transfer process is done by agreements between individual institutions, Lowery said. “Although great work has been done by our institutions, the typical number of reverse transfer degrees awarded annually is around 200 to 300.”
One barrier has been that it’s a “manual process,” he said.
Awarding more associate degrees would benefit the individuals in terms of career advancemen t , ma ke the state more competitive and assist employers who are struggling to find qualified talent, Lowery said. A degree “signals to employers and the marketplace the skills and capabilities an individual has,” Lowery said.
The goal is for Indiana to be a top 10 state in post secondary attainment by 2030 (associate degree and higher).
3-YEAR PROGRAMS AT 4-YEAR INSTITUTIONS
SEA 8 describes a “mandatory three-year degree policy and review process.”
By Nov. 1, the state’s colleges offering bachelor’s degrees must establish a policy to review fouryear programs to determine if it’s feasible to provide them in three years.
By July 1, 2025, each state fouryear institution must offer at least one baccalaureate program structured to allow a full-time student to complete the program within three years.
By November 2025, the colleges must report to the commission information including numbers of programs being offered in a three-year format and estimated cost savings to students.
Lowery said “Purdue started leading the way on this a few years ago” and offers more than 50 bachelor’s degree programs that can be earned in three years.
It doesn’t involve fewer courses or less rigor, he said.
“It’s a matter of literally helping the students know how to schedule them and offering the courses so they can be taken in an accelerated format over three years instead of four,” Lowery said.
The benefits, he said, are that it reduces the cost of an education, and it gets students “into the marketplace sooner and earning income.”
ISU’s vice provost for academics, Susan Powers said she has a number of questions related to a three-year degree program because the legislation is not entirely clear.
With the Indiana College Core, Advanced Placement and students who are strong academically, many finish their 120-credit degree program in three years.
“We have a number of degree programs that we can fashion into three-year degree programs for the students who can do the work and/or bring in the credit,” she said.
For other students, it would be necessary to have state and federal aid increased for summer classes, Powers said.
OPINIONS VARY ON SEA 8
State Sen. Greg Goode, R-Terre Haute, co-authored SEA 8.
“As someone with extensive experience in higher education, co-authoring and supporting Senate Enrolled Act 8 was an easy decision,” he said in a statement.
It will require state higher education institutions to take a look at their bachelor’s degree programs to see if they can be completed in three years by a full-time student, he said.
That and other provisions, including expansion of the Indiana College Core, “will help lower the cost of receiving a college education and help increase our state’s workforce with talented young adults,” Goode said.
Early this year, the proposed legislation caught the attention of Michael T. Nietzel, a former university president who wrote an article about it for Forbes online, where he is a senior contributor.
“It tended to put together some innovations or reforms in a package you don’t often see” and made it state policy, said the president emeritus of Missouri State University.
It recognized the student benefits of having different pathways to a final credential.
“Dropouts in college remain a significant problem,” Nietzel said. “You have a lot of students who may go to a community college or even start at a four-year institution and complete a number of credits, but then something happens and they don’t complete.”
Michael Hicks, a Ball State University economist, said Indiana has a shortage of college graduates and an excess supply of non-graduates.
SEA 8 aims at fixing postsecondary outcomes, but the challenge is how to streamline or speed post-secondary education, thus reducing costs, without sacrificing quality. “I doubt these reforms will show much success,” Hicks said. Most students who drop out of college do so because they lack experience with the rigor of college academics, particularly in core areas of mathematics and writing, he said.
“This is a consequence of lax academic standards in high schools. As more courses are pushed down to high school, the problem is likely to be worsened. I don’t think the problem is with the instruction, but in the rigor and grading,” he said.
Very few school boards would allow the rigor of undergraduate grading for college preparatory classes that most research universities would apply.
Another problem is that the accelerated program could water down an already spare curriculum in Indiana, Hicks said.
Since reforms under former Gov. Mitch Daniels, an undergraduate degree was, for most majors, pared down to 120 credit hours, he said.
“My undergraduate degree in economics was 141 credit hours. All three of my children attend or graduated from universities that required 139-145 credit hours for a bachelor’s degree,” Hicks said. None of those universities were in Indiana.
“Accelerating an undergraduate degree sounds thoughtful until the mechanics of less rigor are made apparent,” he said.
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