INDIANA IN-DEPTH: Done the work? Then accept the degree

At a certain point, “I got burned out,” she said. While she was close to an associate degree, she never completed it. That was around 2001. In hindsight, she wishes she would have finished her degree. “I was younger ... and at a different point in life,” she reflected.

Several years later, she began pursuing her bachelor’s at Indiana State University — where she also worked — and through “reverse transfer,” she also obtained that Ivy Tech associate degree in general studies.

“I put in the work,” she said, and she wanted that two-year credential.

Pierce, 38, who works as a scholarship coordinator at ISU, now better understands the importance of the two-year degree as far as job promotion and increased pay.

And in her present work, she sees transfer students miss scholarship opportunities because they didn’t complete an associate degree. “Any time you have have a certification or degree, an employer always looks at that,” Pierce said.

She obtained her bachelor’s degree from ISU in 2012.

At a time when Indiana is pushing hard to increase the number of adults with a college degree or credential, Ivy Tech Community College president Sue Ellspermann is advocating for more “reverse transfer,” which would benefit students who have transferred to a four-year college before earning an Ivy Tech associate’s.

Just as its name suggests, “reverse transfer” is the transfer of credits from a four-year institution back to a two-year college a student first attended. If a student is eligible for the associate, credits are combined from the two-year and four-year colleges.

At Ivy Tech, students must have at least 15 credit hours from the community college to qualify.

Ivy Tech officials say there are several why reverse transfer makes sense:

• The student has earned it.

• Bachelor degree completion rates were 10 to 20 percent higher for transfer students who receive an associate degree, according to Lumina Foundation research.

• If “life happens,” and a student can’t continue at a four-year college, the associate degree gives the graduate an advantage in the job market.

• It would significantly increase Indiana’s educational attainment.

• For part-time, working students, the associate degree could lead to a higher wage job while the student pursues a bachelor’s.

Often, Ivy Tech students intending to pursue a bachelor’s degree transfer to a four-year college without obtaining an associate’s first.

“They don’t feel it’s critical they finish the associate’s,” Ellspermann said. But if for some reason they don’t finish the bachelor’s, “They’ll end up with nothing.”

That’s something she’d like to see rectified with reverse transfer. Currently, Ivy Tech reverse transfer degrees are granted, but usually less than 100 per year statewide. “Our high water mark is 100 in one year,” she said.

Each year, Ivy Tech has about 25,000 students statewide who transfer to four-year institutions.

“It would cost the student zero. It would cost the state zero,” she said. She suggests it could generate as many as 10,000 associate degrees per year, when looking at Ivy Tech and Vincennes University combined.

And that fits in with the state — and Lumina Foundation — goal of 60 percent of adult Hoosiers having a postsecondary degree or credential by 2025.

About 750,000 Hoosiers have had some college, but never obtained a degree or certificate.

The issue is important because an associate’s degree could pave the way for a pay raise or promotion, Ellspermann said. Someone might be able to go from an entry level job to a manager’s job, even as they pursue the bachelor’s.

Also, she said, research indicates 10 percent more of those students will complete a four-year degrees because they have an associate’s degree. “It motivates them to keep going,” she said.

She’s aware of two major concerns of some our-year partners.

One relates to the state’s use of performance funding, which financially rewards state colleges for graduation/degree completion based on a formula. If, all of a sudden, Ivy Tech and Vincennes awarded 10,000 more associate degrees each year, it could shift the pie on what institutions received, with Ivy Tech receiving more, and other four-year institutions receiving less.

Ellspermann said she’s spoken to the Indiana Commission for Higher Education and suggested, “Let’s hold four-year colleges harmless. We [Ivy Tech] don’t have to get more money,” she said. “We know they are doing probably half the work and we did half the work. We would either split it or take it out of the formula.”

A second concern relates to student privacy issues through FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a federal law designed to protect the privacy of student education records. Ellspermann believes that concern can be addressed so that information and transcripts can be shared.

Ivy Tech would benefit from reverse transfer because it would improve its graduation/degree completion rates. Its two-year graduation rate is about 6 percent, while its three-year rate is about 13 percent.

Reverse transfer also is receiving attention from the Commission for Higher Education.

House Bill 1281, approved by both the Indiana House and Senate this session, requires the commission to study and make recommendations regarding the benefits of a reverse transfer policy for Indiana students. By Nov. 1, the commission must submit a report to the state budget agency and legislative council.

“I think a reverse transfer program can have a significant benefit for students,” said Teresa Lubbers, commissioner for higher education. The commission has discussed it for a few years and looked at other places across the country that do it.

The commission wants to “design a program that has clear student benefits. That should dominate the discussion,” Lubbers said.

One of the big concerns is the impact on performance funding and “who gets credit,” since the associate degrees combine coursework from two institutions, she said.

“I think there are indications there is support for reverse transfer policy, but we want to make sure we do it the right way,” one that considers implications for other institutions involved, Lubbers said.

Also, “We don’t want to create incentive for students not to pursue a bachelor’s,” Lubbers said.

Regardless of the potential role of the Commission and Legislature, colleges can continue to work out individual reverse transfer agreements. Ivy Tech has agreements with four-year colleges that include ISU, University of Southern Indiana, Trine, Purdue and Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College.

Indiana State has had a statewide agreement with Ivy Tech since March 2015, and prior to that, it had an agreement with the Wabash Valley campus, said Ken Brauchle, ISU dean of extended learning. To be eligible, current ISU students must have 75 credit hours, with at least 15 of those from Ivy Tech.

Also, students must have maintained a 2.0 GPA at Ivy Tech. The Ivy Tech associate degree could be in a specific program area, liberal arts or general studies.

So far, just 22 ISU students have completed an Ivy Tech associate’s through reverse transfer since 2015, Brauchle said. ISU has a similar agreement with Vincennes.

Each semester, ISU determines what students might qualify and asks whether they want to opt in or opt out.

“We need their permission to send transcripts to Ivy Tech,” Brauchle said. If a student opts out, there is no further communication.

“It’s a little of an administrative burden for us, but not huge,” Brauchle said. “We’re doing it because it’s in students’ best interest. Quite often, students who come from Ivy Tech have other life roles, and they stop in and out ... It’s not a nice, neat four-year path to a bachelor’s degree.”

ISU President Dan Bradley said he is “very supportive of reverse transfer as a service to students. It is somewhat cumbersome, but it is the only option since ISU does not generally award associate degrees in various disciplines. We have been doing [reverse transfer] for many years.”

Vincennes University has reverse transfer agreements with Purdue and ISU. “It’s a relatively new concept,” said VU president Chuck Johnson. Vincennes also is not seeing a lot of participation.

Asked why more eligible students don’t pursue it, Johnson said, “I don’t think we’ve done a good enough job selling students on the benefits of getting an associate degree along the way,” Johnson said.”I think we need to do a better job of letting students know why it makes sense, especially if it doesn’t cost them additional money.”

According to Ellspermann, the Lumina Foundation — a private foundation focused on higher education — “is super excited about us pursuing this” and has encouraged states across the country to take advantage of reverse transfer.

Reverse transfer “is the right thing to do by the student, and it’s right for the taxpayer,” Ellspermann said. “It’s good all the way around.”