Imagine three different individuals on their unique paths to college: one enrolling for the first time after years of full-time work experience, another enrolling straight out of high school—where they earned college credit through dual enrollment—and a third is returning to higher education after leave, with previously completed courses at another university. Different paths have been, they all face the same challenge: to find out if their previous learning will count towards the qualification they are seeking.

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 has American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers and Sleep launched Learning Evaluation and Recognition for the Next Generation (LEARN) Commissionwhich brings together a diverse group of forward-thinking campus leaders, subject matter experts, and institutional accreditors to help develop policies and practices for recognizing undergraduate education in the 21st century.

While student transfer has become a new norm in higher education — nationally, more than one-third of all Undergraduate students transfer to institutions and, of those who do, 45 percent transfer more than once—many long-standing practices for evaluating, accepting, and applying students’ previously earned credits 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” cross-institutional credit, the Commission will also make recommendations to improve the mobility of postsecondary credits 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 education setting (i.e., points for prior learning).

To support the Commission’s learning and generative thinking in these areas, AACRAO publishes a set of Green Papers that synthesize the existing evidence base and pinpoint key pain points and areas of opportunity, as well as most pressing issues for the Commission’s consideration. The first two of these Green Papers, authored by AARAO Senior Research Manager Wendy Kilgore, are complete and publicly available at LEARN Commission website. A second set of Green Papers is expected in 2025, to focus on the mobility of post-secondary credits earned in high school and the potential to harness emerging technologies – including artificial intelligence – to create greater transparency, consistency and efficiency for both students and institutions.

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

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

For example, institutional decisions about whether to accept and apply transfer credit may be influenced by such variables as where the credit was earned, including whether it was earned at a comparable “peer” institution, such as an institution with the same degree level or an institution with the same accreditor; when the credit is earned, with a preference for greater timeliness; the type of grading basis used, such as pass-fail or letter grade; what mode of instruction was used, such as online, in-person, or hybrid; or even such details as which textbook edition was used.

Maintaining a relentless focus on learning outcomes can protect against bias and improve fairness and consistency in scoring decisions. Commissioner Alexandra Logue, professor emeritus at the CUNY Graduate Center, reflected, “We need to focus our attention on the learning outcomes of the courses to provide a fair evaluation for all students. To fixate on a course’s nature, whether it was conducted or how it was taught, without any evidence of that this characteristic has any bearing on learning outcomes only introduces bias into our decision-making.”

2. We must move towards systematic approaches, to the benefit of both students and institutions. Across institutions of all types, there are many opportunities to create more intentional, interconnected and systematic approaches to learning recognition that would significantly improve the experience for both learners and the professionals who support them. For example, it is common for institutions to have highly manual and time-consuming credit rating processes that require many actors with clear responsibilities to collaborate across different resourced – and often siloed – divisions. This can make current approaches to credit scoring opaque and slow.

The Commission is keen to identify ways to promote educational mobility that ensure consistency, transparency and timeliness for learners and help institutions achieve a positive return on investment for transfer. As Commissioner Emily Kittrell, deputy director of the National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students, noted, “If institutions had access to better systems for tracking and using data related to course equivalency decisions, they could reduce the burden of manual review and shorten the time for students to get a final decision.”

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

Commissioners have expressed enthusiasm about how such advances could move the field away from evaluating most courses individually — usually 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 do it alone – building the next generation of learning and mobility practices will require supportive strategies and investment and moving towards national cohesion. Commissioner Carolyn Gentle-Genitty, founding dean of the Founder’s College at Butler University, recognizes the challenging ecosystem in which institutional leaders operate. “Transfer and learning mobility remain some of the most difficult issues in higher education because they are issues that affect everyone but no one can own individually,” she noted.

While the LEARN Commission digs into the immediate actions institutions can take, it also grapples with the larger structural conditions that keep the status quo in place. These include the lack of financial resources to support this work, such as incentives for administrative and faculty leaders that are already stretched, the need to coordinate and fund new large-scale data and technology infrastructure to ensure interoperability between institutions, and the need for technical assistance and support from the regulatory triad, for example in areas such as guidance on the use of artificial intelligence.

The Commission will grapple with the long game strategies needed to effectively engage with the many stakeholders who have a piece of the puzzle.

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