Yeah, I never heard of it either. Students Can Earn an Associate Degree Through Reverse Transfer at Atlantic Cape - Cape May County Herald: Business
I read about 'reverse transfers' before, but it was from Florida https://www.floridacollegesystem.com/sites/www/Uploads/Publications/TAPPs/Reverse%20Transfer%20-%20Final%20Report.pdf I think other states might have it too.
Sounds like "award degrees for the sake of awarding degrees" to me. I considered a sort of reverse transfer myself. I left Scranton with an A.A. Transferred to CTU and earned my B.S. Over time I accumulated a respectable smattering of other courses taken as personal interest so I did try to go back to Scranton to wrap up a B.A. But despite having most of the courses I would need to pull that off what I lacked was a three credit course Scranton would have considered to fulfill their "diversity" requirement. I wasn't about to go out and take an extra course just for that. That's the main reason I went with TESU. Were I still living in Scranton, however, I would have had 1/2 price tuition to take any remaining classes I needed. Their rule is that you only pay half price for undergrad courses if you already have an RA bachelor's.
these are getting more popular- they started offering them in NC last year too. The only real reason I think a person might want to do this, is to have the AA on their resume for the period of time between AA and BA graduation - maybe it's for the purpose of employment, etc. But then, of course there is the reason the colleges want people to do this - that it reflects favorably on the state. Community College graduation rates nation wide are dismal, 10-13% depending on the source. I'm guessing that 100% of the students enrolled in the 4 year college are eligible to reverse transfer, what a clever way to boost their numbers.
Agreed. I will say that I am a strong believer in after-the-fact associate's degrees for certain professionals. It can enhance a resume if done properly. If your B.S. is in Business but your A.S. is in Accounting (or vice versa) then it can, potentially, open up certain doors that might have been closed had a person made a snap judgment on the face of your bachelor's major.
I don't know the trend, but in NC, we only have the option of using the AA and AS which are non-specific transfer degrees, so not really adding that same kind of boost.
Sounds good. I think there was a similar discussion some months back. As I said then, I think it's a great idea for people to see what their Associate degree options are because most never even consider them on their way to a BA or BS and come away with nothing, never realizing there may have been options. It never hurts to try as some schools will work with you, some will do it straight up if you meet the requirements as a prior student of the school, and some will require at least one course, but that's not bad at all. A friend of mine was able to go back and get his Associate degree by petitioning the school based on his number of credits. He only had to take one more class but he got it. Getting the Associate degree changed his life pretty dramatically.
