Making Financial Aid Work for Transfer Students

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Description

For most students, the transfer experience in U.S. higher education does not work very well, and that was true even before the Covid-19 pandemic. In this session, the editors of a forthcoming Stylus publication will present a synthesis of the best thinking of 53 higher education leaders, scholars, researchers, and transfer professionals. Their book, The Transfer Experience: A Handbook for Creating a More Equitable and Successful Postsecondary System, introduces a new construct for understanding the transfer challenge and what must be done to improve it. To achieve equity in design and outcomes, we must move beyond the traditional, limited view of transfer as the articulation of credits and a “stage” or “phase of development.” We must instead consider transfer as the entirety of a student’s undergraduate educational experience at both sending and receiving institutions and be less focused on the mechanics of transfer and more upon producing academically successful transfer students.