College & Career Pathways

Students who transfer between institutions of higher education may face loss of credits while transferring, or their classes do not count towards their major. This forces them to repeat courses, extends the time to graduation, and cuts into the savings that generally accompany transfer.

Estimating how much these lost and repeated courses cost students, taxpayers, and even institutions is a complex but important task. It quantifies the scale of the problem, provides a baseline figure that can be tracked over time, and suggests what manner of interventions might be justified. 

This analysis produces an estimate of the annual cost of unused transfer credit for Texas public bachelor’s degree graduates who also earned or attempted credit at a Texas community college.