By Ashley A. Smith, Inside Higher Education

One of the largest barriers to completing a bachelor’s degree is losing credits when transferring from a community college. Even with articulation agreements between two-year and four-year institutions, a significant number of credits may end up lost in the shuffle.

These missing credits are driving colleges from one side of the country to the other to try to fix a problem educators have been trying to fix for years and in the process boost completion rates across the board. Now, with more political and education leaders convinced that smooth transfer is essential to more people earning more degrees, the issue is attracting more attention.

Last month Gateway Community College in New Haven, Conn., released a study that followed 479 two-year students who transferred last year from Connecticut community colleges to the University of Connecticut. The transfer students had an average of 54.17 credits earned at community colleges, but only 42.57 credits per student were applied by the university toward major or general education requirements.

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