FIU president Mark B. Rosenberg has been named to the American Council on Education’s National Task Force on Transfer of Credit, which will focus on best practices and emerging strategies for improving the transfer and award of credit, with the goal of advancing student success, promoting equity, and making college more affordable.
“I am grateful for the opportunity to be at the forefront of the national effort to make higher education more accessible and flexible for FIU students and students across the country,” said Rosenberg, who is the only Florida university president on the task force.
“At FIU, we know that not all paths to higher education are linear. The transfer of traditional college credit together with recognition of prior learning are critical to helping transfer students and adult learners accelerate their education and meet lifelong goals,” he said.
FIU offers credit for prior learning, competency-based fully online courses, and workforce training. The university also maintains strong partnerships with local and regional state colleges as part of FIU Connect4Success, a recognized transfer pathway for the thousands of Associate of Arts graduates who transition to FIU annually.
Over one million students in the U.S., or 38 percent of the 2.8 million entering college for the first time in fall 2011, transferred to a different institution at least once within six years, according to a 2018 snapshot from National Student Clearinghouse. However, as these students transfer, many of them lose academic credit.
The Task Force is comprised of presidents and chancellors of two- and four-year, public and private nonprofit colleges and universities from across the country. It is supported by the Strada Education Network and the Charles Koch Foundation.
The Task Force will meet several times throughout 2020 to engage with leading experts in the field, identify challenges and craft solutions to better serve students. A final report will be released in early 2021. The work of the task force also will support ACE’s new Learner Success Lab.
