CHAPEL HILL (Nov. 18, 2020) – Transfer students – from community colleges or from other UNC System schools – make up a growing percentage of UNC System students. Some 57,000, or 31% of fall 2019 enrollees, were transfer students.
Yet too often, transfer students encounter course numbers that don’t align with the courses they’ve already taken.
The result is that credits either don’t transfer, which sometimes causes students to leave school in frustration; or excess credits that the new school accepts but doesn’t count toward the student’s major, extending how long it takes to earn a degree, said Andrew Kelly, the system’s Senior Vice President for Strategy and Policy.
So two committees of the UNC Board of Governors voted Wednesday for a new policy that would require UNC System campuses to adopt common course numbers. The full board will take up the policy Dec. 17.1
Kelly told the committee that 18 states have adopted common course numbering. And the NC Community College System has done so at its 58 colleges.
But even from advocates of common course numbers, committee members heard repeated warnings that it’s more difficult than it sounds.
“Everybody mentions it’s painful. It’s a lot of work,” particularly for faculty and registrars, UNC Greensboro Provost Jim Coleman told committee members. “It’s a huge lift for campuses, even though it sounds like it shouldn’t be.”
Kimberly van Noort, the system’s Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, said faculty systemwide will be involved in the numbering project, which officials hope to implement by the 2022-23 school year.
Kim Gold, the Chief Academic Officer with the Community College System, said common course numbers at community colleges have made it easier for UNC System schools to credit transfer students, but primarily it has benefited students.
“It has allowed our students to move easily between our institutions,” Gold said. “Their pathway to completion leads frequently through multiple institutions.”
Gold noted that the state has adopted myFutureNC’s goal to have 2 million North Carolinians with a college degree or credential by 2030, and said common course numbers could help the effort to achieve the goal.
“If we can reduce the loss of credit transfer, that will increase completers,” she said.
1https://www.northcarolina.edu/apps/bog/doc.php?id=65026&code=bog, pp. 2-5.
Dr. Ronald_plummer@hotmail.com says
If it helps the students, isn’t that what our tax money is about? Do it or get off the Board or out of GA! Otherwise, you are wasting taxpayer dollars.