Empowering college students to discover paths to diploma completion

Credit score loss and lack of transparency round switch insurance policies and credit score applicability can stymie a scholar’s journey to diploma completion, prolonging commencement and growing school prices. Typically, college students study after switch that most of the programs earned at one school usually are not accepted at their new establishment, forcing them to repeat programs and limiting their alternative to discover various profession paths. Older college students, first-generation college students, lower-income college students and college students from traditionally marginalized communities face these challenges extra acutely than others. Thus, bettering switch scholar outcomes and reducing credit score loss have turn out to be a number of the most tough challenges establishments of upper schooling face at this time.

To deal with these challenges immediately, Ithaka S+R and the Metropolis College of New York started collaborating in 2019 on the Articulation of Credit score Switch (ACT) challenge to offer clear, accessible, and straightforward to know info on the switch course of and credit score applicability. An end result of this collaboration is the groundbreaking CUNY Switch Explorer (CUNY T-Rex), a public, student-supporting switch device that gives, in actual time, clear and clear info on how course credit and credit for prior studying (CPL) earned by way of trainings and exams switch and apply throughout CUNY establishments. CUNY T-Rex supplies college students, and those that assist them, with essential info to assist them perceive how present or future school programs apply to their supposed main necessities to assist them attain their objectives. Since its launch in 2020, CUNY T-Rex has had over 110,000 distinctive customers.

In January 2023, the ACT staff and CUNY launched a number of new options on CUNY T-Rex, which included a refreshed homepage, a scholar portal for CUNY college students to entry their transcript and discover how their programs are utilized throughout CUNY faculties, and performance to let customers discover how course credit (from each CUNY and non-CUNY establishments) and CPL apply at varied CUNY faculties and to main and minor necessities.

In the present day, we’re happy to announce the launch of further new options that enhance CUNY T-Rex’s functionality and the transparency of credit score switch and switch scholar outcomes:

Map credits to CUNY main necessities: This characteristic permits customers to pick a school and main, enter earned (or deliberate) programs and/or CPL experiences, and see which credit switch and what’s remaining to satisfy main necessities. This permits for enhanced exploration by permitting college students to map hypothetical (or precise) paths to finish a significant at CUNY.

Public-facing switch info and outcomes leaderboards: A public dashboard accessible to all customers on CUNY T-Rex with no log-in supplies customers with switch scholar end result and school efficiency metrics for every CUNY bachelor’s school, together with:

CUNY T-Rex help middle: A number of quick video tutorials on how one can use CUNY T-Rex.

The enhancements to CUNY T-Rex assist make the switch course of a extra knowledgeable one for present and potential CUNY college students and those that assist them. Extra enhancements to the positioning are deliberate for 2023–24, together with absolutely scaling the switch plans characteristic to assist early switch planning.

CUNY T-Rex supplies novel instruments that make credit score mobility for college kids a actuality, catalyzing college students’ progress to the school levels they need and deserve. We’re grateful to our funders of the ACT Undertaking, Ascendium Training Group, ECMC Basis, the Carroll and Milton Petrie Basis, the Heckscher Basis for Youngsters, the Ichigo Basis, and the Michael & Susan Dell Basis, for supporting this work.