What We’re LEARNing

Picture three different individuals on their unique paths to college: One is enrolling for the first-time after years of full-time work experience, another is enrolling directly after high school—where they earned college credit through dual enrollment—and a third is returning to higher education after time off, having previously completed courses at another institution. Varied as their paths have been, they each face the same challenge: figuring out if their previous learning will count toward the credential they seek. 

As the number of Americans entering higher education with some type of prior learning continues to grow, institutions must think differently about how they recognize such learning. For this reason, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers and Sova launched the Learning Evaluation and Recognition for the Next Generation (LEARN) Commission, bringing together a diverse group of forward-thinking campus leaders, issue area experts and institutional accreditors to help evolve policy and practice for recognizing undergraduate learning in the 21st century.

While learner transfer has become a new norm in higher education—nationally, more than one third of all undergraduate learners transfer across postsecondary institutions and, of those who do, 45 percent transfer more than once—many long-standing approaches to evaluating, accepting and applying learners’ previously earned credit have gone largely unexamined. The LEARN Commission provides a necessary table to take stock of current approaches, respond to new patterns in learning mobility and learning acquisition, and consider how emerging technologies can support more equitable pathways for learners.

In addition to examining “traditional” credit transfer between institutions, the commission will also make recommendations for improving the mobility of postsecondary credit earned as part of the high school curriculum through dual enrollment and the recognition and mobility of learning that occurs outside of a traditional postsecondary environment (i.e., credit for prior learning).

To support the commission’s learning and generative thinking in these areas, AACRAO is publishing a set of green papers that synthesize the existing evidence base and pinpoint key pain points and areas of opportunity, as well as surface pressing questions for the commission’s consideration. The first two of these green papers, authored by AACRAO senior director of research Wendy Kilgore, are complete and publicly available on the LEARN Commission webpage. A second set of green papers is expected in 2025, to focus on the mobility of postsecondary credit earned in high school and the potential to harness emerging technologies—including artificial intelligence—to create greater transparency, consistency and efficiency for both learners and institutions.

The commission has already kicked into high gear. Since the July 2024 launch, commissioners have regularly met virtually, delving first into the areas of institution-to-institution traditional-credit transfer and credit for prior learning recognition and mobility. Here are just a few insights that have already bubbled up in commission proceedings.

1. We must refocus around and stay relentlessly focused on learning outcomes. Learning evaluation processes should all be driven by the same end goal—to identify and award academic credit for learning experiences that meet the same learning outcomes as “homegrown” courses. However, as Commissioner Marjorie Dorimé-Williams, senior research associate for postsecondary policy at MDRC, pointed out, “Research shows that many variables cloud the evaluation process in practice.”

For example, institutional decisions about whether or not to accept and apply transfer credit may be swayed by such variables as where the credit was earned, including whether it was earned at a comparable “peer” institution, such as an institution of the same degree level or an institution with the same accreditor; when the credit was earned, with a preference for greater recency; what type of grading basis was used, such as pass-fail or letter grading; what mode of instruction was used, such as online, in person or hybrid; or even such granular details as what textbook edition was used.

Maintaining a relentless focus on learning outcomes can protect against bias and improve fairness and consistency in credit determination decisions. Commissioner Alexandra Logue, professor emerita at the CUNY Graduate Center, reflected, “We need to focus our attention on courses’ learning outcomes in order to provide fair evaluation for all learners. Fixating on a course characteristic such as where it was completed or its mode of instruction, without any evidence that this characteristic has any bearing on learning outcomes, just introduces biases into our decision-making.”

2. We must move toward systematic approaches, for the benefit of both learners and institutions. Across institutions of all types, opportunities abound to create more intentional, connected and systematic approaches to learning recognition that would greatly improve the experience for both learners and the professionals supporting them. For example, it is common for institutions to have highly manual and time-intensive credit evaluation processes that require many actors with distinct responsibilities to collaborate across differently resourced—and frequently siloed—divisions. This can make current approaches to credit evaluation opaque and slow-moving.

The commission is keen on identifying ways to advance learning mobility that ensure consistency, transparency and timeliness for learners and help institutions reach a positive ROI for transfer. As Commissioner Emily Kittrell, assistant director of the National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students, observed, “If institutions had access to better systems for tracking and using data related to course equivalency decisions, they would be able to reduce the burden of manual review and shorten the time for learners to receive a final decision.”

To this end, the commission will also explore where new technologies, including artificial intelligence, may hold promise. Commissioner Heather Perfetti, president of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, reflects on the potential to incorporate such technologies while preserving quality: “The faculty have already done the rigorous work of evaluating hundreds of courses and creating equivalency rules. The question now is whether we can responsibly leverage technology to apply that information to make accurate and consistent determinations about transfer credit when new learners come before us and how we ensure that we take a data-informed approach to drive more efficient decisions that are grounded in established student learning outcomes and student success.”

Commissioners have expressed excitement for how such advances could shift the field away from evaluating most courses individually–typically with opaque criteria–to a more systematic approach that recognizes learning and applies credit unless there is an evidence-based argument against doing so.

3. We cannot expect institutions to go it alone—building next-generation learning-mobility practices will require supportive policies and investments and moving toward national coherence. Commissioner Carolyn Gentle-Genitty, founding dean of Founder’s College at Butler University, acknowledges the challenging ecosystem in which institutional leaders operate. “Transfer and learning mobility remain some of the thorniest issues within higher education because they are problems that everyone touches but no one can singularly own,” she noted.

While the LEARN Commission digs into the immediate actionable steps institutions can take, it is also contending with the larger structural conditions that hold the status quo in place. These include the lack of financial resources to support this work, such as incentives for administrative and faculty leaders who are already pulled in many directions, the need to coordinate and fund new data and technology infrastructure at scale in order to ensure interoperability across institutions, and the need for technical assistance and support from the regulatory triad, such as in areas like guidance for use of artificial intelligence.

The commission will grapple with the long-game strategies needed to effectively partner with the many stakeholders who hold a piece of the puzzle.

With many questions still on the horizon, we look forward to learning alongside the LEARN Commission as it continues its work through 2025. We invite you to join us on this learning journey by subscribing to receive periodic updates on the commission’s work.