Increasing Equity Through Common Course Numbering
The legacy of the community college is built on increasing access to higher education by providing local opportunities to take college-level courses that will quickly transfer to four-year universities. Because of this reputation, the community college has become known as “democracy's college” (Kisker et al., 2024). However, transfer rates have yet to live up to this reputation. Eighty percent of community college students profess a desire to transfer to a four-year institution and earn a bachelor’s degree, yet fewer than 44% do so (Bailey et al., 2015; Jenkins & Fink, 2016).
The impact of low transfer rates among community college transfer students includes multiple college transfers and credit loss (Hossler et al., 2012; Giani, 2019). A swirling-like process is a common phenomenon in which students complete multiple lateral transfers to different community colleges or reverse transfer from a four-year to a two-year institution; however, they are still enrolled in classes and no closer to achieving a bachelor’s degree (De los Santos & Writing, 1990; Taylor & Jain, 2017). This process results in the loss of credits at an alarming rate; it is estimated that with each transfer, students lose approximately a semester’s worth of coursework on average (US GAO, 2017; Giani, 2019). Moreover, a study involving community college transfer in multiple states found that nontraditional students were likelier to lose credits but that traditional students lose a more significant percentage of credits that apply toward their degree (Giani, 2019). The same study also found that rates of credit loss varied but that Black, Asian, and non-citizens studying in North Carolina were more likely to lose credits than white U.S. passport holders in the state. Losing credits means that students must repeat classes, will often get off track within their course-offering sequences, and must add time and money toward pursuing their degree.
The so-called ‘cooling out’ process (Brint & Karabel, 1989) has become the expected paradigm of community college, an insurmountable problem too integral to the system to be fixed. Nevertheless, what has become normalized is still concerning, especially once the demographics of community college students are brought to the foreground. Racially minoritized students are more likely to attend two-year institutions, and more than 50% of community college students in Illinois are racially minoritized (ICCB, 2023). This trend is likely to continue in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturning of affirmative action, meaning that more and more racially minoritized students will turn to community college as the most accessible higher education access point available to them. Therefore, the road to racial equity in higher education must intersect with the existing community college to a four-year transfer pathway. The time for a change in basic assumptions about community college transfer and what is possible should be now.
The transfer process from community college to a four-year institution, often called vertical transfer, is a well-studied aspect of higher education, and equity concerns are well-established in the literature (Baber et al., 2019; Schudde et al., 2020). For example, it is well known that racially minoritized students are less likely to transfer and complete a bachelor’s degree than their White peers (Crip & Nunez, 2014). Moreover, racially minoritized college students are often also low-income and first-generation college students, further decreasing the statistical likelihood of successful transfer and completion of a bachelor's degree (Sherman & Shea, 2020). The difference between the likelihood of transfer based on race is known as the “racial transfer gap” (Martinez-Wenzl & Marquez, 2012). Steps have been identified to effectively move the needle on reconceptualizing what is possible. However, committing to close the racial transfer gap requires a large collective effort by educational leaders and thought partners at the institutional, local, state, and federal levels. One policy put forth has been common course numbering.
Common course numbering (CCN) is a straightforward policy that requires institutions to standardize the naming and numbering conventions used to identify courses. For example, Texas has used the Texas Common Course Numbering System (TCCNS) for many years (Stanback-Stroud, 1995; TCCNS, 2024). Under TCCNS, all first-year English composition and rhetoric courses are known as English 1301. Thus, by simply looking at the name and number, students can readily identify that their course is equivalent to a class at an institution they wish to transfer to or from. This simple concept has proven effective in increasing credit transferability, a leading predictor in successful degree completion, especially for low-income and first-generation college students (Sherman & Shea, 2020). TCCNS removes the ambiguity by clarifying which courses would transfer and how. Another version of CCN operates in Arizona through the Shared Unique Number (SUN) system. Although SUN is not a wholesale renumbering of every course at every college (as in some other states), it provides a straightforward way for students to identify equivalent lower-division courses that will be accepted at all Arizona community colleges and public universities. When a course is part of the SUN System, it is assigned a three-letter code plus a four-digit number (e.g., SUN# MAT 1151). Each institution keeps its traditional course title and number but cross-lists the SUN number to show that it meets statewide standards. If you see a course with a SUN number at one college (e.g., MAT 1151 for College Algebra), you know it will directly transfer and satisfy the equivalent course requirement at any other institution participating in the SUN System. Twenty-one states have already adopted some version of CCN (in red below), which has proven successful and has increased the transfer of college credits (Education Commission Report, 2022). With the Illinois Articulation Initiative, Illinois is among ten states with a course equivalency database that aligns similar courses across postsecondary institutions. However, the database is separate from institutional course catalogs, requiring extra steps for students to understand course alignment.
Recent studies have shown that the successful transfer of college credits is a strong predictor of degree completion (Kuneyl, 2022; Schudde & Bicak, 2023). However, one established hurdle is adoptionism, given the logistical hurdle of implementing a CCN system for all institutions. Concerns about adoptionism led one researcher to say that the strongest predictor of whether a state will adopt a transfer policy is whether neighboring states have already done so, thus creating enough pressure to facilitate buy-in from the legislative body (Iskandarova &d Sloan, 2023). It is worth noting that Illinois borders two states that have already adopted CCNs: Missouri and Indiana (Education Commission Report, 2022).
Hesitation to adopt CCN may stem from concerns about agreement between institutional partners. For example, if Illinois adopted CCN for all its public colleges and universities, the number of parties needing to agree on this path would be up to 60 individual institutions, 48 community colleges, and 12 public colleges. Some may question the efficacy of this undertaking, lowering their expectations and arguing for adoption at the community college level rather than full adoption by all public colleges and universities. Doing so would help address the swirling degree path, but only at the two-year education level. Nonetheless, adapting to CNN at the community college level is a valuable first step that would open doors for four-year universities.
There are three main reasons CCN should be considered for adoption in Illinois. One is that it would reduce stress on college personnel because it would no longer require acquisition and maintaining individual articulation agreements with various programs and institutions for lower-level courses (Giani, 2019; Kuneyl, 2024). A recent statewide meeting on transfer policies noted that a single community college has more than 40 articulation agreements with institutions across the Midwest. Multiplied by the number of public institutions in the state (60), the efficiency of CCNs suddenly becomes clear. Secondly, CCNs would increase credit transfer across institutions, which predicts transfer success (Kuneyl, 2022; Schudde & Bicak, 2023). Finally, CCN is one of the few state policies that can have a direct impact on the racial transfer gap because it increases the likelihood that low-income and racially minoritized students retain credits during transfer (Sherman and Shea, 2020).
Conclusion
The accepted narrative and reputation of vertical transfer is that few students will be successful, and fewer will complete a bachelor’s degree. However, change is right before us if we can only recognize it, just like the strange red spade cards in the original paradigm shift study mentioned in Dr. Lorenzo Baber’s Director’s Note in this issue. It is time to question what we know about credit transfer and start again. We must reimagine the narrative of the transfer process from a community college to a four-year institution, and then we should act to make that goal a reality.
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