Abstract
Using interviews with transfer personnel at five community colleges and seven public universities, we examine competing institutional logics—or belief systems—for how personnel approach vertical transfer and implement statewide reforms that call for transparency in programs’ recommended course sequences. Personnel who relied more on developmental logic viewed degree plans as customizable to individual needs, whereas those who relied more on functional logic viewed degree plans as a rigid sequence of courses. These two logics illustrate key tensions for vertical transfer, with important implications for competing recommendations for practice, even within the same institution.
Keywords
More than one third of college students in the United States begin their postsecondary education at a community college (National Center for Education Statistics, 2018). Most first-time community college entrants aspire to earn a bachelor’s degree, but fewer than one third transfer, and only 16% earn a baccalaureate degree within 6 years (National Student Clearinghouse, 2024). The vertical transfer function of community colleges, including programs and policies to allow students to transition to public universities, has not been optimized (Bailey et al., 2016; Taylor & Jain, 2017). Explanations for the faulty transfer function vary, but scholars, policymakers, and practitioners agree that a lack of transparent vertical transfer pathways contributes to confusion among both students and college staff (Bailey et al., 2016; Fink & Jenkins, 2017; U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO), 2017).
Although there is agreement on some factors that contribute to an inadequate transfer function at community colleges, other characterizations of the problem are contested—particularly the extent to which student choice in coursetaking is a culprit in stymieing student and credit transfer. Jenkins and Cho (2013) described ineffective community college pathways where “students had too many choices of courses” (p. 31). At the same time, researchers have characterized challenges in vertical transfer as stemming from a lack of coherent program plans and pathways and student supports to enable informed choices (Bailey et al., 2015; Dougherty, 2024). We argue that these differing characterizations of the role course sequences play in suboptimal transfer outcomes inform competing institutional logics—or belief systems of institutional actors—for how personnel approach transfer strategies and reforms. Functional logic aligns with centering the transfer problem around student course choice and, by extension, designing solutions to limit choice. In contrast, developmental logic aligns with a liberal arts curricular approach of flexibility in course selection to build breadth of knowledge (e.g., Becker, 2023) where variation in student needs necessitates flexibility in academic pathways combined with individualized support. The tension between these two logics may inform competing recommendations for policy and practice, even within the same institution.
We apply this framework to the study of the interpretation and implementation of state transfer legislation in Texas. In 2019, Senate Bill 25 (SB25), also referred to as the “transferability bill,” described its goal as “facilitat[ing] the transfer, academic progress, and timely graduations of students in public higher education” (Texas Senate Bill 25, 2019). The bill mandated the publication of at least one recommended course sequence (RCS)—a list of courses by semester that satisfy program requirements—for every undergraduate degree or certificate at all public postsecondary institutions (Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board [THECB], n.d.a). According to SB25, institutions must publish RCSs on their website and course catalog and submit them to the THECB. The bill’s sponsors described it as an informational intervention that would “sav[e] Texas college students time and money by giving them more direction on what courses to take and what courses will transfer to a four-year institution” (Texas Senate, 2019). The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) (n.d.a) elaborated that published RCSs “provide clarity and transparency by identifying at least one efficient, timely path for completing a higher education credential.” SB25 relies on reported RCSs from institutions, implicitly assuming similar definitions and structures of RCSs across institutions. The policy also does not clarify whether or how RCSs differ from student-facing documents like degree plans or transfer guides.
Personnel who serve transfer-intending students operate within a transfer system that requires both personnel and students to navigate competing institutional requirements and a complex web of information—including degree plans and transfer guides from many institutions—to discern efficient and effective transfer pathways (Schudde, Jabbar, Epstein, et al., 2021; Schudde & Jabbar, 2024). We seek to understand the belief systems undergirding personnel’s transfer practices, including guidance on coursetaking and the development of transfer resources, in the context of new policy directives like SB25. Using interview data collected from 22 transfer personnel at five community colleges and seven public universities, we ask:
What understandings and assumptions—or logics—underlie personnel’s description of community college transfer processes and recommended course sequences (RCSs)?
How do these beliefs shape their transfer practices and understanding of their own role?
By interrogating the institutional logics shaping transfer practices and the implementation of RCSs, we can understand whether and how to improve transfer policies.
Our findings suggest that there is variation in how personnel define and understand RCSs that makes the policy difficult to implement and may lead to further confusion among students attempting to navigate transfer resources. Transfer personnel demonstrate a mix of transfer logics, at times illustrating functional logic and at others developmental logic, with more selective programs like STEM eliciting beliefs aligned with functional logic regarding RCSs. University personnel were substantially more likely to describe their beliefs in ways that align with functional logic in varied program contexts (rather than only under the conditions of stricter major requirements). They argued that transfer-intending students should generally adhere to a rigid sequence of courses aligned with a given baccalaureate program. Community college personnel, however, were equally likely to lean toward a developmental transfer logic—viewing degree plans and RCSs as customizable according to individual students’ needs—or a functional transfer logic—viewing degree plans and RCSs as a rigid sequence of courses. The misalignment between dominant institutional logics illustrates key tensions that contribute to failures in the vertical transfer process. Institutional actors disagree about flexibility in transfer-intending students’ course sequences and about the extent to which misaligned credits should apply in the destination department. We describe the differences between these two institutional logics and the implications for how institutional actors perceive their responsibilities in the context of information-based reforms.
Literature Review
The process of postsecondary transfer is fraught with bureaucratic hurdles and complex information. Transfer-intending students—and the college personnel who support them—must navigate the requirements of both the college in which they are enrolled and their destination institution. Both groups defer to posted materials, with high expectations that students will curate information and devise and follow a transfer plan, even though posted information may be flawed or out-of-date (Schudde, Jabbar, & Hartman, 2021). To understand the beliefs that bolster the existing transfer system, we review research on challenges and policy interventions in the transfer process and how RCSs might further improve transparency.
The Status Quo Transfer Function: Structural Challenges and Information Constraints
Confusion about course (and program) selection and credit transfer creates hurdles for transfer-intending students (Person et al., 2006). Key barriers to transfer are opaque transfer policies, insufficient information about credit portability, and inadequate support services to promote and maintain progress on streamlined pathways (Bailey et al., 2015; Bailey et al., 2016). Research suggests that many community college students appear to have inadequate information as they navigate transfer (Allen et al., 2014; Schudde, Jabbar, Epstein, et al., 2021; Schudde, Jabbar, & Hartman, 2021). This dearth—also referred to as “information constraints”—means students struggle to achieve their educational goals (Schudde & Jabbar, 2024).
The community college pathway to a baccalaureate degree involves a large number of choices to be made by students who have information constraints and, often, little direct guidance. An array of choices and obstacles may result in poor decisions, loss of time and money, and movement away from the credential students intend to earn (Bailey et al., 2015; Scott-Clayton, 2015). Finding the information necessary to navigate institutional transfer is complex, as it requires comparing course sequences across institutions and seeking advice from various institutional actors (Schudde, Jabbar, & Hartman, 2021). Prior research illustrates that students struggle to find sufficient information through advising or elaborate information-gathering (Allen et al., 2014; Davies & Dickmann, 1998; Schudde, Jabbar, & Hartman, 2021).
To adequately support transfer, institutions can better illuminate transfer requirements during each phase of students’ educational trajectory, including as they enroll in courses, choose majors, consider destination colleges/programs, and attempt to transfer credits. Research on college structures highlights the scaffolding that colleges can build to support students, including information dissemination, advising, and provision of clear milestones that help students move toward their goals (Bailey et al., 2015; Fink & Jenkins, 2017; Rosenbaum et al., 2007).
State policies and organizational contexts may influence how community colleges provide information to students and staff. States with institution-driven transfer systems, which prioritize institutional autonomy over statewide policies, leave room for error because advising staff must customize advising from various transfer guides, unlike states with 2+2 transfer systems, where lower-division courses align across the higher education system (Hodara et al., 2017). Texas—from which our sample is drawn—relies on an institution-driven system where students and advisors often rely on conflicting and out-of-date information—from sources that include institutional websites and the state coordinating board’s website—to navigate the complex system of credit transfer and bilateral articulation agreements between specific institutional pairings (Bailey et al., 2016; Schudde, Jabbar, & Hartman, 2021). Both students and transfer-support personnel must navigate materials from the community college and prospective destination programs in order to compare course requirements and equivalencies, which requires triangulating across information (Schudde & Jabbar, 2024). At times, students may receive competing advice from different transfer personnel at the same institution.
Students’ transfer pathways are entangled with how institutions distill and disseminate information about credit portability (Hagedorn, 2010; Townsend & Wilson, 2006). Making clear and accurate information about transfer options available can help students overcome transfer barriers (U.S. Government Accountability Office [U.S. GAO], 2017). But many community colleges cannot meet the demand for effective transfer advising because of resource constraints (Allen et al., 2014; Bahr, 2008; Davies & Dickmann, 1998), so they turn to low-cost solutions. Changes in Texas aim to improve transparency of transfer pathways by requiring that course sequences be posted publicly.
Recommended Course Sequences: What They Are and Why They Matter
Postsecondary degree courses typically fall into four categories. First, general education courses—also referred to as “core” courses—are those in foundational subjects such as history, English/literature, and social sciences (Schudde et al., 2023); a distributional core curriculum aligns with the tenants of liberal arts education by building breadth across foundational subjects but depth through course selection within topical areas (Peterson, 2012). Second, both associate and bachelor’s degrees include additional lower-division credits specific to their major. Third, students may take elective credits within certain parameters. Finally, for a bachelor’s degree, students may take additional upper-division course requirements specific to their major, where the quantity of major-specific credits (and ratio to elective credits) varies across majors.
Given this construction of degrees, there are often multiple pathways to a degree. Of greatest concern for vertical transfer students is that institutions typically offer multiple courses that meet both general education and major-specific lower-division requirements. A transfer-intending student may enroll in courses that satisfy their institution’s requirements but do not apply to requirements at the receiving institution. In this context, RCSs are designed to: (a) specify the courses students should take that will apply to a specific major at a specific university to prevent the loss of credits; (b) clarify course equivalency, or which courses at the sending institution are equivalent to courses at the receiving institution; and (c) provide students with a recommended sequence of courses to ensure that students take courses in the correct order to satisfy prerequisites and make progress toward their degree (Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB), n.d.a).
Building resources like transfer guides often requires colleges to leverage RCSs—ordered outlines of courses that apply to given degrees—designed by faculty in both the sending and the receiving programs. Community colleges with strong transfer guides leverage such information from universities to “backward map” students’ educational pathways—this is a key component of Guided Pathways reforms at community colleges (Jenkins et al., 2018, p. 1). As part of Guided Pathways efforts, many community colleges enact curricular reforms, realigning recommended courses among related majors to create “meta-majors,” or broadly related majors with similar general education courses. This approach ensures that students take courses aligned with their educational and career goals, in contrast with the earlier “cafeteria model” of course selection at community colleges (Bailey et al., 2015). Under the cafeteria model, students select from an extensive “menu” of courses but might later discover that the courses did not align with their desired degree. Meta-majors create structured pathways while maintaining flexibility in recommended courses, enabling students to choose coursework within a broad focal area that they find interesting and developmentally appropriate. In this way, meta-majors differ from rigid interpretations of transfer pathways that advocate for students to strictly adhere to a degree plan from a specific destination institution and program. That rigid approach does not align with how many students approach transfer by considering more than one destination university (Jabbar et al., 2019), nor does it align with a developmental understanding of course sequences, despite the fact that most transfer-intending community college students are liberal arts or general studies majors, which allow for flexibility in course choice (Becker, 2003; Schudde et al., 2020).
RCSs serve as the basis for several student- and staff-facing resources in the transfer pipeline, including transfer guides (intended for students) and institutional articulation agreements (intended for staff)—particularly those that articulate credit transfer between specific programs. Transfer guides, at their best, offer students a clear map of courses, including indicators regarding which courses apply toward a given degree and which courses students should take at the origin as opposed to the destination institution (Fink & Jenkins, 2017; Schudde, Jabbar, Epstein, et al., 2021; Wyner et al., 2016). Articulation agreements (also referred to as transfer agreements) are interinstitutional documents that outline agreements between partnering institutions; program-to-program articulation agreements often rely on RCSs to describe how credits will transfer and apply from the origin to the destination program, though many transfer agreements are “generic” and do not get into specific course-by-course recommendations (Schudde, Jabbar, Epstein, et al., 2021). The development of program-to-program articulation agreements (made by negotiating equivalent courses across RCSs at two institutions) may be hampered by competing institutional priorities, as facilitating credit transfer may conflict with enrollment management policies and faculty preferences at the receiving university (Grote et al., 2020; Schudde, Jabbar, Epstein, et al., 2021).
Under Texas’s new policy, RCSs must be posted online and in course catalogs, and submitted to the THECB, for every undergraduate degree or certificate at a public postsecondary institution (Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB), n.d.a). The provision of RCS information for each program at every public institution should ensure that up-to-date information on degree requirements is available for each degree, thereby eliminating noted challenges with out-of-date information. At the same time, the addition of RCSs on their own to a landscape already filled with transfer guides of varying quality contributes still more complexity to an already complicated web of transfer information. Additionally, differing interpretations of the goals and content of RCSs among transfer personnel may limit the translation of RCS information into clearer transfer pathways. We examine belief systems—or institutional logics—that inform transfer personnel’s understandings of vertical transfer and RCSs in Texas, illustrating variation across institutional sectors and considering implications for practice and policy implementation.
Texas Policy Context
Texas educates 13% of the country’s community college students (authors’ calculations, IPEDS). Community colleges serve as a gateway to higher education for 40% of college students in Texas (THECB, 2014). Of Texas community college students, 81% enroll in transfer programs, but fewer than one quarter transfer, data that closely mirrors national trends (THECB, 2014). The public higher education system in Texas comprises 80 two-year institutions and 37 four-year institutions, including several university and college systems (THECB, 2024). These institutions, overseen by the THECB, form the public higher education pipeline for vertical transfer.
Texas has several initiatives and policies related to transfer. Although studies leveraging national data suggest that Texas has a statewide articulation policy (Anderson et al., 2006; Roksa, 2009), that classification is somewhat misleading. As of 2016, 35 states held guaranteed articulation agreements where associate degrees were fully transferrable for junior status at a public university in the same state—Texas is not one of these states (Education Commission of the States, 2020). In lieu of a statewide transfer agreement, Texas has a transferrable general education core of lower-division courses (pre-major coursework that should be universally accepted at public institutions). Although courses in the 42-credit core curriculum can be transferred between public colleges statewide, the core does not provide a comprehensive “map” for transfer. Each institution has the autonomy to create their own core curriculum and, although the credits must transfer, core credits do not need to apply toward major-specific requirements. In a small number of majors, the state’s field of study (FOS) curricula comprise additional lower-division courses that must transfer between colleges and apply toward major requirements. Although the core and the FOS should eliminate course duplication for students who switch between Texas’s public postsecondary institutions, in practice, some core courses may not align with lower-division requirements in certain majors, leaving those credits to count, at best, as electives (Bailey et al., 2016; Schudde, Jabbar, & Hartman, 2021). For example, any college-level math course could transfer under the core, but only certain courses would apply toward a STEM bachelor’s degree. Additionally, the Texas Common Course Numbering System, which is used by community colleges and serves to map course equivalencies between institutions, is not mandated for public universities. Many public universities continue to use institutionally specific course numbering, making it more difficult to compare course sequences across institutions.
In the absence of a statewide articulation agreement, transfer agreements in Texas are encouraged but not required (Bailey et al., 2016). Such agreements are bilateral—that is, made between individual institutions—and vary in availability and quality based on which college and program students transfer to and from (Bailey et al., 2016). Many transfer agreements are generic rather than articulating credits across specific programs (Schudde & Jabbar, 2024). Some institutions develop and disseminate transfer guides for students that describe how courses within a particular major should transfer between two institutions (Schudde, Jabbar, Epstein, et al., 2021). However, students do not know in advance which programs will admit them, which creates additional complications. Following a transfer guide that does not align with the requirements of a destination program may result in problems with credit transfer and applicability.
Almost all Texas community colleges have enacted “Guided Pathways”-inspired reforms, such as designing meta-majors with aligned lower division coursework within similar majors, advising students to select a major by the end of their first semester, and working to ensure major course requirements correspond with students’ career goals (Texas Success Center, 2022). Meta-majors should have similar core (general education) courses to minimize credit loss for students who switch between major pathways—up to 40% of community college entrants switch majors (Schudde, Ryu, & Brown, 2020). Even within meta-majors, majors leading to different degree programs require colleges to submit separate RCSs, per guidance for SB25. Furthermore, there is variation across universities in whether they require transfer students to declare a major upon entrance and advise specific core coursework within majors (Schudde & Jabbar, 2024).
Senate Bill 25: Recommended Course Sequences
To date, the Texas legislature continues to nod to “information-based” reforms, which leave decisions about credit transfer up to practitioners, resulting in variation across institutions. SB25, which was passed by the 86th Texas Legislature, requires all public postsecondary institutions in Texas to publicly post at least one RCS for every undergraduate credential. The bill contained several provisions to facilitate course transferability without mandating a common course numbering system or standardized degrees. Texas Senate Bill 25 (2019) specified that RCSs must:
Identify all required lower-division courses for the applicable certificate or degree program.
Include for each course either the course number or course equivalent under the common course numbering system approved by the coordinating board.
Be designed to enable a full-time student to obtain a certificate or degree within: a) 2 years for a 60-hr degree or certificate program; or b) 4 years for a 120-hr degree program.
Include a specific sequence in which courses should be completed to ensure completion of the applicable program within its stated time frame.
SB25 did not mandate that a RCS include a single path to a program’s credential, which means that RCSs could still include multiple course options to satisfy specific degree requirements, whether electives or major requirements, and that some majors may have more flexibility (or rigidity) in their RCS than others. Thus, SB25 left room for interpretation regarding how institutions should fulfill the new mandate to develop RCSs. Additionally, the policy did not specify how institutions should use RCSs—other than publicly posting and submitting them.
Beginning in fall 2021, institutions must post their RCSs online and submit them annually to the THECB using a THECB-provided template; THECB staff either approve the submission or return it with feedback to specify revisions for the RCSs to meet the above requirements (Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB), n.d.a). Through RCSs provided by institutions, the THECB plans to produce a new tool, called Map My Path, that will outline how courses will transfer and apply across majors and schools, but the tool has not yet been released (THECB, 2022).
Conceptual Framework
Institutional logics are the “organizing principles” and belief systems that shape the processes and practices used by institutional actors (Woulfin et al., 2022, p. 1). Through institutional logics, we analyze and interpret the belief systems that structure the transfer-related work of organizational actors (Bastedo, 2009; Woulfin et al., 2022). These belief systems endure because actors engage in a “collective performance” of practices that align with and reinforce the logics, thereby creating a self-sustaining system assumed to be the way things are (Lounsbury et al., 2021, p. 264). Institutional actors develop common identities and values that structure both their decision-making and their practices (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008). In the case of transfer, institutional logics provide underlying guidelines and norms that shape how actors engage with RCSs and related products, share resources with students, and make credit transfer decisions.
These belief systems frame not only the implementation of existing policies but also the potential for change. Many educational policies aim to “foster change in organizations”—such as colleges and universities—by “channeling” the behavior of institutional actors (Coburn, 2016, p. 473). In the cultures of practice related to vertical transfer, institutional logics provide the “rules of the game” that shape the thinking (and actions) of institutional actors (DiMaggio, 1997). Transfer personnel’s beliefs about transfer processes and resources, including their perceptions of RCS goals and purposes, are likely to inform their interpretation of transfer policies and guidance to transfer-intending students. By leveraging the concept of institutional logics, we can “articulate the theories of action” that underlie ongoing transfer practices and actions and how personnel approach implementing the RCS policy (Bastedo, 2009, p. 211; Thornton & Ocasio, 2008). How institutional actors structure their beliefs about RCSs likely shapes how much support they feel students should receive and the extent to which they view it as their role to offer detailed information about transfer pathways to a bachelor’s degree.
Our identification of two broad logics—functional and developmental—used by personnel to understand credit transfer and the development of related informational tools was driven by patterns in the data and by existing debates in the higher education literature about the extent to which college students’ course selection should facilitate credit transfer or enable breadth and depth of knowledge, respectively (e.g., Bailey et al., 2015; Becker, 2023; Jenkins & Cho, 2013). An institutional logics perspective enables us to link “seemingly technical rational routines and practices” related to building transfer tools and making credit transfer decisions to the values and “cultural assumptions” of institutional actors (Duncheon & Hornbeck, 2023, p. 5).
Methods
To explore how institutional actors understood RCSs and credit transfer, we drew on interviews with transfer-relevant personnel at public colleges in Texas. We used semi-structured interviews to gather data on transfer advising and the implementation of the RCS policy.
Sampling and Recruitment
To ensure we had variation across colleges, we used purposive sampling across community colleges and public universities to attain representation from community colleges and their common destination universities. We targeted an existing working group composed of college administrators in transfer partnerships organized by Texas OnCourse, a statewide initiative to bolster college and career advising created by the Texas Legislature in 2015 through House Bill 18. Texas OnCourse was housed at the University of Texas at Austin when the working group, tasked with examining credit transfer issues across institutions, was formed, but transitioned to the THECB in 2021. Given that Texas OnCourse staff were now housed at the THECB and relied on the working group to initially vet their template for the RCSs, the partnership colleges were ideal candidates to understand whether and how college actors understood the reforms and transfer pathways. We conducted interviews with personnel from five community colleges and seven of their common destination public universities, drawing from the working group institutions to access transfer personnel with in-depth transfer knowledge. Despite the involvement of administrators from these institutions in the working group, most student-facing personnel at the institutions (i.e., advisors) were unaware of their institution’s involvement, though participation among campus leaders may still mean that the findings from these colleges and universities may be more likely to generalize to other institutions with administrators investing time in understanding transfer challenges. Table 1 briefly describes participating institutions (we use pseudonyms for institutions and staff).
Description of Sampled Community Colleges and Universities.
Notes. Table presents description of community colleges and public universities in our sample, including enrollment size (rounded to nearest 100 to maintain anonymity), university type, and demographics of undergraduates (rounded to nearest 5) obtained from the 2023 Texas Public Higher Education Almanac.
THECB classifies public universities based on degree programs and research expenditures as: research, emerging research, doctoral (award at least 10 doctoral degrees annually), comprehensive (focus on undergrad and master’s, minimal doctoral degrees), and master’s (which focus more on undergrad and master’s degrees, no doctoral degrees) universities. Source: https://reportcenter.highered.texas.gov/reports/data/university-peer-group-categories/.
University 4 is a branch campus of a research university, which serves as a “multi-institutional research center” (community college and university courses share location). Because multiple institutions are represented, institution-specific demographics or transfer rates are not reported to the THECB for the branch.
We recruited student-facing advisors and administrators at the target institutions. In addition to recruiting from established contacts—typically administrators—from the transfer working group, we also used institutional websites to identify and recruit student-facing advisors at community colleges and universities, sending “cold emails” to all relevant transfer-related personnel who could be potential participants. In each interview, we used snowball sampling, asking for referrals of transfer-related colleagues, with a goal of recruiting at least two personnel per institution. We ultimately conducted 22 interviews with staff across the 12 colleges, ranging from 1 to 3 participants at each community college and 1 to 4 participants at each university.
Given the small sample size within institutions, individuals’ understandings of RCSs should not be interpreted as representing the logics of all actors at their institution. An institutional logics approach examines individual belief systems to consider the assumptions that underlie routines and behaviors of institutional actors; given the lack of evidence regarding how transfer-related personnel understand the goals of recommended course sequences, our sample still stands to offer new insights to the literature. We captured the perspectives of actors from various levels of the institutional hierarchy at both institution types. At the community colleges, we interviewed nine staff members, including one upper administrator (e.g., vice provost); five mid-level administrators (e.g., advising lead, transfer center director); and three advisors who worked directly with students. Among the university personnel, we interviewed 13 staff members, including three upper-level administrators, six mid-level administrators, and four advisors who interacted directly with transfer students. Table 2 offers a description of the participants.
Description of Participants.
Data Collection
In spring and summer 2023 (4 years after SB25 passed and over 1.5 years after colleges submitted their first RCSs to the THECB), we conducted 60-min semi-structured interviews via Zoom, which we audio-recorded and transcribed. The interview protocol included general questions about credit transfer processes, the provision of transfer information, and how those processes should work to capture views about vertical transfer. We also asked specific questions about the development of recommended course sequences, how they informed changes to academic advising, and the process colleges used to communicate information to students (e.g., “what is your sense of how your college developed their RCS/degree plan?,” “How much flexibility is there within a given degree plan or RCS for students to fulfill the requirements of their degree?,” “What steps do you recommend [students] follow to select courses that will transfer and apply toward at their desired institution and major?”). The full interview protocol is available in the Appendix. The focal colleges were in different stages of developing RCSs in response to SB25, and we observed variation in awareness of SB25 across institutional actors; for those with less awareness, we focused on capturing participants’ understandings of RCSs.
Data Analysis
We first coded transcript data in the qualitative software program Dedoose, using codes we developed based on the literature and knowledge of the policy, including the staff members’ perceptions of transfer credits; how they advised students based on transfer requirements; and their knowledge and perceptions of SB25 and the role they played in implementation. For example, some of our level-1 codes captured barriers to credit transfer, information provided to students, and state policy (with a specific subcode for SB25). We added subcodes to delineate between emerging themes. For example, under the “transfer information” code, we added subcodes to capture information provided to students, used by personnel, and specific to RCSs. To validate our findings and ensure the reliability of our codes, each team member independently coded a transcript, taking notes on codes that needed further clarification (e.g., this process led to the production of subcodes). The first author reviewed their coding and offered feedback, after which the team met to discuss discrepancies, resolve disagreements, and refine the coding scheme. Then the research team coded a second transcript, with the first author again reviewing the coding and the team meeting to address remaining discrepancies and further clarify the coding scheme. From there, each research team member was assigned a caseload of transcripts to code, and the team met weekly to address questions and calibrate coding decisions.
After the initial coding, we examined excerpts captured by our first-level coding and worked in teams to build qualitative matrices (Miles & Huberman, 1994). This approach enabled us to distill themes from the transcript data by extracting excerpts drawn from the Dedoose coding to systematically capture information from every participant about transfer implementation and RCS interpretation, including staff’s role in the transfer process, the meaning of RCSs, RCS development, and interpretations of credit transfer practices and policies. We synthesized the results across personnel and campuses to explore the interpretations of transfer implementation, roles, and policy reform. For each staff member, our initial matrix captured demographic data; role in the college; and a description of their interpretation of RCSs, with quotes as evidence. We then examined the data entered in the matrix to identify patterns and themes, meeting weekly to determine how to best understand these themes.
The emerging themes highlighted two underlying belief systems of administrators and transfer advisors that shaped how they generally understood credit transfer and RCSs. These differences in beliefs hinged on the extent to which community college students should have flexibility regarding pre-transfer course selection without sacrificing credit transfer. As our exploration progressed, we embraced the theory of institutional logics and incorporated additional columns into the matrix to classify each participant based on evidence related to their expressed beliefs. We captured beliefs that emphasized rigid RCSs and minimal room for course selection outside of adherence to a bachelor’s degree plan (i.e., pre-transfer courses should function within the destination program plan) as “functional logic,” and those that emphasized flexibility in course selection and RCSs to meet students’ needs (i.e., students should be able to select developmentally appropriate courses without sacrificing credits) as “developmental logic.”
Participants typically had evidence for each type of logic in the excerpts capturing their interview responses about RCSs, which were now populated into the matrix, but we found that each participant had more evidence (i.e., more quotes and/or stronger sentiment expressed in their quotes) for either functional or developmental logic. Based on the majority of their quotes and interpretations of RCSs falling into either logic, as illustrated in the matrix, we assigned each participant as predominately demonstrating functional or developmental logic. From the matrix, we created two memos describing evidence for developmental and functional logics, variation across institution type, and how logics informed the participants’ practices. This approach enabled us to compare the evidence across individuals whom we had classified as relying more on developmental logic separately from personnel who primarily emphasized functional logic.
To ensure the credibility and trustworthiness of findings, we verified interpretations by having pairs of team members individually flesh out each analytic memo and then review their counterparts’ version, asking clarifying questions and incorporating additional evidence before consolidating. We referred to original coding and the matrix to address discrepancies and resolved differences through conversation. We also triangulated data from various sources, including interviews with other personnel from the same and partnering institutions, as well as online information and materials provided by participants to ensure consistency and accuracy.
Results
Posting RCSs theoretically should help to illuminate credit transfer rules and practices at a given institution. Through our analyses, we examine how personnel describe credit transfer and RCSs and how those beliefs translate to their practices and use of transfer tools. We first examine how staff described the goals and rules of RCSs to capture their primary underlying understanding of how credit transfer works (i.e., logics), where we identified two common institutional logics. We then examine variation in their practices and reform efforts across logics.
Belief Systems About Transfer and Recommended Course Sequences
Transfer personnel in our sample emphasized two types of logics in their descriptions of credit transfer rules, goals, and application. Developmental logic, primarily used by over one-third of the sample, stressed that RCSs should be adaptable, where institutions (both sending and receiving) allow flexibility in which courses transfer-intending students take to ensure their academic development; this logic aligns with and reflects the fundamental belief that students should have considerable choice over their coursework. Personnel primarily using functional logic, on the other hand, assumed that RCSs outline a strict set of courses that students must adhere to, where the purpose of the RCS is to offer rigid guidance on which courses transfer-intending students must take to avoid credit loss. Community college actors leaned more toward developmental logic (6 developmental, 3 functional), whereas university actors were overrepresented among those displaying primarily functional logic (2 developmental, 11 functional). These differing logics may produce conflicting interpretations of RCSs and credit transfer among institutional actors and different expectations for the practice, contributing to challenges in responding to the new mandate to post RCSs publicly.
Developmental Logic
Eight out of 22 participants described credit transfer and RCSs in a way that emphasized that transfer-intending community college students should have flexibility in the lower-division courses they take. The majority (n = 6) of those using developmental logic worked at community colleges—three as academic advisors and two as mid-level administrators. Both university staff (n = 2) who espoused developmental logic—an advisor and administrator—worked at University 1, an institution in a geographically isolated region of the state with a long history of partnering with its local community college, including through program-to-program transfer agreements.
When displaying developmental logic, staff described RCSs as a general guideline for credit transfer that still provides options. Xavier, an advisor at College A, explained: The goal is that we’re giving students as many options as possible. But if there are recommendations, whether it be from our faculty or the university faculty, those recommendations are included. It may be that the degree plan is reading [that] you can take college algebra or statistics, but statistics is strongly recommended. So, we would say statistics is recommended. But technically, they can still take the algebra to fulfill that requirement. It will give them the choices and then give them guidance as needed.
In this way, Xavier understood RCSs and related transfer tools as providing guidance while allowing students to take the course that they feel is developmentally appropriate—where they can learn their preferred content—so long as the course falls within the broader guidelines.
College actors leaning toward developmental logic saw rigid semester-by-semester sequences as unrealistic for community college students with external obligations like work and family, and that RCSs must be adjustable to student needs. Laura, an advisor at College C, said: We have 60 hours that a student needs to complete an associate degree. If we have a degree plan that has 18 hours in the first semester, that’s not realistic for a single young mother that’s trying to work and go to school.
Laura acknowledged that a RCS alone cannot guide all students uniformly on course selection. Instead, degree pathways should allow pacing course taking based on students’ needs. Natalia, an advisor at University 1, similarly described RCSs and related tools as requiring individualization: We use flow charts. The flow charts are, you know, a snapshot of what your degree plan looks like and what you should be doing every semester . . . I wish I could tell you, “Yes, it’s very easy for us to give a flowchart to every student and they keep it with them, and they follow it.” But, unfortunately, different students have different needs. And so not all of them are able to follow exactly the flowcharts or the program of study.
Natalia understood the flowchart as a general guideline that does not always align with a student’s coursetaking pattern. Because students have varied course histories, the flow charts must be adaptable. Natalia elaborated, stating that, at her university, “We’ve seen tremendous amounts of dual credit” where students “get here, [and] we’re like, ‘oh, okay, let’s see how we can manage it.’” Natalia acknowledged that RCSs, or “flowcharts,” seem strict on paper because they suggest that courses should occur in a specific order, but, she added, “it’s open to interpretation.” She explained, “That’s when we as advisors step in to tell the student, ‘Let me explain to you what the options are.’ But I think . . . [the] charts couldn’t be read without the support of an advisor.” Natalia and Laura described an understanding among advisors who use developmental logic that RCSs can be flexible as long as advisors approach them by providing students with options that are not outlined in published materials, including advice on which substitutions are permissible and how to take courses out of sequence if necessary.
The need for flexibility from university advisors stems from the fact that university departments tend to create degree plans under the assumption that students start at their institution rather than transferring in. Bethany, an administrator at University 1, explained: We have now realized that we need to go back to departments and say, “Okay, so now, let’s assume you have a student who comes to you with an [associate degree] in your field. They’ve completed the core [curriculum] . . . what would you recommend they take those first 2 years [at their community college] versus the 2 years here?”
Like Natalia, Bethany recognized that transfer students may not be able to follow the sequence outlined in their degree plans because it does not align with how students accrue courses when working on a sub-baccalaureate degree (which, like a bachelor’s degree, requires that designated core coursework be completed). She explained: “We had quite a few sequences that actually recommended people delaying some of their core curriculum courses to their junior and senior year and leading them in with other courses”; but, she noted, “that doesn’t work if you’re bringing somebody in from transfer.” University personnel who emphasized developmental logic, like Natalia and Bethany, therefore anticipated that transfer students may need to complete coursework in a different order than that prescribed in a published RCS or degree plan.
Functional Logic
The majority of transfer personnel espoused primarily functional logic regarding credit transfer and RCSs, describing RCSs as a strict outline of the courses that students should take and anticipating that students who followed this sequence tightly could avoid credit loss and/or an accumulation of excess elective credits. Personnel from various positions leveraged this logic, including upper administrators (n = 3); mid-level administrators in transfer (n = 4) and advising (n = 4); and advisors (n = 3). Most staff who articulated functional logic held positions at universities (n = 11), and a handful were at community colleges (n = 3).
Institutional actors who used a functional logic described a dual understanding for RCSs, which served both to avoid credit loss for transfer students and as an enactment of a department’s vision for student learning goals. Sheila, an administrator from University 5, a selective public university, described struggling to find a “balance” between “What do universities want their graduates to have?” and “How do you maximize transfer credit?” Most university actors prioritize their degree plans and will accept only coursework deemed equivalent to theirs (i.e., “what they want graduates to have”), even though students want to maximize credit transfer. At the same time, actors who used a functional logic shared concerns about credit loss but saw prescriptive RCSs as a means of avoiding it. Elias (director of advising, University 2) said: I do think students miss out and lose a lot of credits. Sometimes the coursework doesn’t transfer over exactly. . . the coursework will transfer as Gen Ed coursework or something vague. Instead of being a direct equate, it’ll transfer as, like, GenEd 1000.
Elias acknowledged that students who take core (Gen Ed) courses that are not aligned with their destination major may end up with excess elective credits that do not apply. He noted, If we make it a little bit easier for them to remember, it’s one less thing that they have to really spend their energy on—you know, trying to figure out which classes they are supposed to take—and they’re able to look at it and get a sense of it.
Elias argued that, through prescriptive RCSs, prospective students are “much more informed.” But prescriptive RCSs can lead to “other transfer issues” when “there’s not a lot of wiggle room [and] the requirements for the program and is what it is” (Debra, advisor, University 1). For instance, some students “don’t understand that they have to be calculus-ready for some of their programs of study” like STEM (Liliana, University 2). In those cases, students who took courses outside of prescribed sequences may find that those courses do not apply to their major.
Clear RCSs can help students navigate the differences between community college and university requirements. Vincent, who worked at a multi-institutional teaching center at University 4 where the personnel partnered closely with community colleges, reported: What RCS has done for us practically is it alleviated that stress of a community college holding on to students too long, or universities stepping in early to get students to start taking upper division courses—maybe before they’re ready. So, it’s solving both those problems and giving students a clear pathway to graduation.
In Vincent’s case, the institution had created 2 + 2 plans that clarified which courses should be taken through the community college and which through the university. Unfortunately, using clear and consistent communication about the classes required for university students is not effective in all cases, especially when schools do not agree on which classes should apply.
Personnel who emphasized functional logic argued that RCSs are most helpful if transfer students maintain the same major from the beginning of their coursetaking. Oscar (advisor, University 6) explained: “I think [that] if our students know what they’re trying to do from day one at the community college and are able to effectively communicate that, [RCSs] can line up really well.” However, university RCSs “are maybe not well designed for students with transfer credits, especially for students who are unsure of their major” (Cora, director of advising, University 3). Community college students with undeclared majors “might be getting shuttled into just, like, ‘here’s how you get the general studies associate degree; take whatever you want, for social behavioral sciences that’s fine’” (Oscar). But Oscar placed responsibility on students to know their major and career aspirations from the beginning of college—which may not be realistic—to avoid credit loss that might occur if switching to another RCS. Without clear goals when they begin classes at the community college, students may be more prone to credit loss.
How Institutional Logics Relate to Transfer Practices and RCS Implementation
Personnel with primarily developmental rather than functional logics of transfer described their transfer practices and engagement with RCSs differently. Those who espouse developmental logic described RCSs as student-facing documents, like transfer guides, and emphasized the provision of individualized guidance as essential to their practice. Those leaning on functional logic emphasized that RCSs served multiple purposes and had potential as a transfer resource, but they questioned the feasibility of individualized student guidance. Next, we describe the practices of staff who emphasized developmental and functional logics in turn.
Practices of Transfer Support Among Personnel Who Primarily Use a Developmental Logic
All participants who leaned toward developmental logic seemed unaware of the mandate to publish RCSs. They responded to our questions about SB25 and RCSs by referring to RCSs as student-facing documents and tools, using names like “transfer guides,” “program plans,” and “degree plans,” which are often tools derived from RCSs. They acknowledged flaws in those documents, often arising from institutional autonomy over transfer materials—with each institution producing its own sequences and guides with little consideration of others—and misalignment between partnering institutions (e.g., a feeder community college and a destination university’s materials do not result in the same RCS across 4 years of study), which led them to conclude that the transfer system required individualized guidance for students.
RCSs as Student-Facing Documents
When asked about RCSs, personnel who used a developmental logic immediately conflated them with transfer guides or degree plans. Many community college personnel described their program maps—and efforts to implement Guided Pathways—as their RCSs. For example, when asked about RCSs and credit transfer, Xavier (College A) responded: “If the university would accept anything in a certain core [component area], then our advising guides are going to say, ‘Take anything from the natural sciences core,’ you know, anything would facilitate [credit transfer].” College A, for example, produced transfer plans that outlined course options based on guidance available from universities. Wanda (advisor, College E) described how program plans structure her advising sessions with students: When the student sits down with an [advisor] . . . we give them the program map. It has their marketable skills. It has their transferability. And it literally lines up first, second, third, and fourth semester. When they leave, they will have a copy of their program map. And we also scanned that into the system.
Using developmental logic, transfer resources like a program map serves multiple purposes. In addition to outlining a sequence of courses, the “pathways” document described by Wanda can educate students about which courses are transferable to universities. At the same time, community college advisors have to walk students through the plan and ensure that both the student and the advisor have multiple ways (e.g., printed, online in their account) to refer to it.
Megan at College B explained how her college connected with personnel at common destination universities about credit transfer problems to develop a back-and-forth about how to adjust published guidance on course transfer. She spoke of a meeting between postsecondary institutions in their region that “pulled together institutions that were also experiencing core sequencing issues” (i.e., had challenges with identifying core coursework designated as lower-division requirements in the preferred major). The meeting helped actors weigh the implications of curricular changes at each institution. As Megan put it, “They’re open to having this discussion so that we can say, ‘When you make this change [to the core], it fixes this problem for you guys, but for advising, this is what it does to the students.’” The meeting, which included both advisors and “higher-ups” at sending and receiving institutions, allowed college personnel to discuss how to revise materials for transfer-intending community college students.
Some of the tension that arises across community colleges and universities related to RCSs may be due to the fact that RCSs are developed by faculty who prefer not to allow substitutions. Bethany (University 1) explained that faculty should understand that “yes, it really is the case that this person has met the core curriculum, and [another core course] is going to be additional for that student.” She argued that “faculty need to be sure that this course that [they]’re putting as a prerequisite is actually necessary” and advocated for university personnel to avoid requiring additional lower-division courses if at all possible. She places responsibility on faculty to understand that RCSs require some wiggle room to improve credit transfer.
Individualized Advising
Staff leveraging primarily developmental logic tended to view their role in the transfer process as going beyond published information about credit transfer. They emphasized one-on-one advising and developing individualized plans for students. Laura (advisor, College C) acknowledged that degree plans can be useful for transfer, but that students may be unable to fully adhere to them for various reasons, including lack of time to take a full courseload each term or that the 60 hr toward an associate degree does not prepare students for transfer. She explained, “We do the best that we can to put everything in [the degree plan], but every student is so unique, and that’s where it becomes difficult.” The provision of a degree plan or transfer guide is only the first step; individualized support allows further adjustment.
Community college degree plans must be compared with RCSs and degree plans at prospective destination universities—a challenge when those resources are out-of-date (something SB25 should theoretically help address). Megan, a transfer coordinator at College B, explained that with “some institutions, the closest catalog we can find is from, like, 2019–2020, so we already know there’s a couple of years out from there.” A lack of updated maps and sequences provided by universities can hamper the ability of community college advisors to adequately build guidance for their students. Developing these resources takes considerable effort because “each institution is different,” which means that advisors sometimes “really had to dig” to offer specific information to students about a destination institution, whereas for other institutions “it’s literal” and they can “click on it and there it is” (Wanda, College E). This variation means that advising staff seeking to support transfer-intending students at community colleges are constantly working to update information when guiding student pathways.
University advisors who use a developmental logic also emphasized that transfer students need individual guidance from advising staff. Natalia (advisor, University 1) explained: All of our students on campus, absolutely everybody, is required to get advice; they have a hold that prevents registration without getting advice. And so that’s primarily the way that we make sure that we are educating our students of their degree plans, informing them of what needs to be taken, when it needs to be taken, the consequences of not passing a course and delaying the graduation because they didn’t have the prerequisites.
By mandating one-on-one advising (and enacting advising holds that bar students from course registration if they don’t participate), the university ensures that students can adjust their individual semester-by-semester plans based on their progress and any unforeseen hurdles.
The Practice of Transfer Support Among Personnel Who Primarily Use a Functional Logic
Personnel who espoused functional logic were much more likely to communicate their awareness of SB25 and to describe RCSs as serving varied purposes. They often described their role, practically speaking, as adapting RCSs into student-facing documents to avoid the need for individualized advising. Whereas students were responsible for navigating the transfer process, the responsibility of transfer personnel was to provide the needed information—preferably through documentation rather than one-on-one support, which would be infeasible given the volume of transfer students.
RCSs Serve Multiple Functions, Including Informing Student-Facing Tools
Staff who use a functional logic often described RCSs as multifunctional, with the potential to fill various purposes and to serve different audiences, with adaptations that could be student-facing, personnel-facing, and/or policy documents. Half of the personnel who leaned toward a functional logic (n = 7) described RCSs as an internal document or a policy document, while acknowledging that RCSs also informed the student-facing tools like transfer guides and degree plans. These personnel understood RCSs in terms of policy compliance, viewing SB25 as a mechanism to streamline credit transfer. Carla, an advising lead at College A, explained: What I liked about [SB25]—and appreciated—was it also helped us as an organization to trim the fat, frankly. And that’s hard because there’s a lot of faculty who just love teaching, like, British literature from this [period] to this [period], but if there are no universities in the state of Texas who will accept British literature, then maybe we don’t need to offer it anymore. So, I think that was a great opportunity for us as a large organization to start being much more responsible, frankly, in the courses that we’re offering, and recognizing that they don’t transfer and what are we doing offering them.
Carla’s “trim the fat” interpretation emphasized that by requiring clearer documentation about course sequences, SB25 spurred internal conversation and processes to align the community college’s RCSs with those of common destination universities. Esme, a transfer administrator at College D, also described RCSs in terms of alignment between institutions: So, it should be a map that a student should easily follow to get to the end goal. So, for example, if it’s a core course in a certain program that they could take any core, there will be a note like “select any core.” If there’s a specific core, it will say “this is the one we recommend.” Some of them even go into detail, like “if you want to transfer to [University 5], take this math; if you want to transfer to [University 6], take this math.”
Esme noted that program maps often existed in various iterations depending on the potential destinations students might choose, which means a student could obtain a different version of the program map that recommended different course options depending on where the student was considering as a transfer destination. At the same time, community college personnel who used functional logic acknowledged that these student-facing guides can differ from basic associate degree plans that served as their college’s official RCS for SB25. This means there can be multiple student-facing documents for each RCS. As Esme explained: Our associate degrees are created to comply with the law. I mean, I don’t think there was a push of, like, “Hey, students, did you know about Senate Bill 25?” It was just: “This is what we’re presenting to our students because we know that this is the pathway that’s going to get them efficiently to their degree.”
In this way, Esme acknowledged a distinction between the RCS for the purpose of policy compliance and the student-facing tools that help students anticipate coursetaking and credit transfer, where products focused on credit transfer also consider students’ destination program.
University personnel were much more likely to refer to their related practices in response to SB25 as documenting existing RCSs rather than developing or revising them solely for compliance. Liliana (University 2) described the RCSs as posting something “already in use” at her institution because they “had to for SB25.” She explained: We were kind of very fortunate as an institution that we have an annual process of developing our own four-year roadmaps because we use those for advising purposes for our students. I’m very familiar with all of those, but I didn’t work on all of that data entry or reporting—that was actually our IR office that did that. They took all of those Excel templates that we already use and kind of fit that into the reporting template for SB25.
In this way, Liliana noted that her university saw the RCS mandate as a means of publishing existing procedures rather than of changing practices. Elias from University 2 similarly noted that his university used RCSs but did not see them as a student-facing tool. He said: [RCSs] are the type of thing that might be easy to read from a curriculum standpoint, you know, and associated up for curriculum; but from a student’s perspective, those were not very user-friendly or student friendly. We did them because we were asked to do them, but what students need to see is they have to see something that’s more visual.
He emphasized that RCSs are more “for curriculum”—that is, for faculty to think about the program requirements—and admitted that the final versions his university produced served to comply with the policy (i.e., “we did it because we had to”). He elaborated that the RCSs were not “broken down in a user-friendly, student-friendly road map,” which would ideally offer specific guidance by term, such as “in the fall, these are the recommended courses that you should take.” Producing user-friendly information for students would require additional labor.
Informing Students of Misalignment
Despite well-intentioned efforts to create tools that prescribe a rigid course-taking plan, ensuring that students follow those plans can be challenging. Cora, an advising director at University 3, stated that if a student goes out of alignment with the plan in any given semester, it throws everything off. She explained: “You register for three out of four of those classes, and you move something around, and then the next semester your whole plan is off a little, so that has been our biggest challenge.” When students do not follow the plan course by course, every subsequent term must be slightly updated. Providing individualized support to “update those plans regularly,” Cora explained, “is impossible” for advisors, “given our caseloads.” Liliana (University 2) confirmed: “You get off that sort of road map one semester, and you’re off for a year.” She contrasted majors with more rigid RCSs to those with more flexibility, acknowledging variability across fields: “Our transfer students in liberal arts” have “lots of freedom to make mistakes, weave around—whatever.” In stricter majors and degree plans, students must avoid “weaving around” to avoid credit loss.
University personnel who espoused functional logic described their role as a messenger about pre-transfer coursework that does not align with the university. They relay when a core (general education) course that counted toward an associate degree does not apply toward the baccalaureate. If misaligned with the program’s RCS, at best, that course counts as an elective. Elias (University 2) described challenging prerequisites, particularly in STEM fields: “I’ve noticed [courses] like science or biology for non-science majors. It’s offered at a community college, but it’s not offered at a university. So, when the student transfers it over, it doesn’t really count for anything.” Ultimately, decisions about which courses count for program requirements are driven by receiving departments. Debra (advisor, University 1) described faculty concerns about the number of classes their department would need to accept into their major: “For them, it was like, ‘we have to accept so much. We’re having to change our degree plans to incorporate these transfer issues.’ And there was pushback on that.” Faculty did not want to change program requirements to accommodate transfer students. This leaves advising staff to inform students that they have not followed the correct course sequence for their desired major and will likely need to stay in college longer to follow the appropriate sequences for their educational goals.
Discussion
Despite continued emphasis on community colleges as an affordable pathway toward a bachelor’s degree, transfer pathways remain complex and confusing, putting transfer-intending students at risk of credit loss. In Texas, recent legislation required that all public postsecondary institutions publicly post recommended course sequences (RCSs) as a means of improving transparency during vertical transfer. Implementation requires transfer-relevant personnel to develop, disseminate, and interpret RCSs as part of their transfer work. Analyzing interviews with 22 transfer personnel at 5 community colleges and 7 public universities, we examined personnel’s institutional logics—or belief systems—for transfer. We describe two common institutional logics and examined how those underlying beliefs correspond to differing practices and understandings of staff roles regarding RCSs and related transfer information. Additionally, our results highlight the tension between the stated purpose of RCSs, per the public descriptions of the policy intent from the bill’s authors and state coordinating board, and the actual practice of complying with the RCS mandate and carrying out additional (separate) practices to improve transfer. We first describe how our interviews illuminated that tension, before turning toward the link between institutional logics and their consequences for practice.
Policy Intent vs. Policy in Action
Although the legislature referred to SB25 as the “transferability bill,” the requirements of the policy focus on the production and public posting of RCSs for each degree plan at each institution. Institutional actors illuminated the disconnect between what RCSs actually do and the stated policy intent to improve transfer. Many community college advisors in our sample appeared unaware of how RCSs differed from other sources of transfer information, often answering questions about RCSs by referring to degree plans and transfer guides (which do, indeed, refer to a set of required courses for that major/degree). Prior research illustrated that both transfer-intending students and community college advisors typically must compare across multiple existing sources of information to determine which courses students should take to avoid credit loss (Schudde & Jabbar, 2024). RCSs appear to be yet another source of information, but we do not see evidence that the RCS is more trustworthy than other sources, nor did staff describe it as a source that students should rely on compared with alternatives.
Other personnel—like Esme and Elias—explicitly acknowledged that RCSs are not student-facing documents and require additional translation to serve students. Elias emphasized that the development of RCSs was a process for faculty to think through their curriculum and course requirements. A finalized RCS could then serve as a basis to further develop a “student-friendly road map” that outlines those requirements in a document like a degree plan or, for transfer-intending students, a transfer guide. It is possible that the RCSs provided to the coordinating board may eventually produce student-friendly road maps as a result of the legislation—the THECB originally intended to use them to populate a tool called Map My Path, which would allow transfer-intending students to see how the courses they’ve taken would fulfill program requirements at various prospective universities. So far, the tool has not materialized, leaving RCSs as another piece of information in a crowded field, where transfer-intending students and advisors often struggle to determine which transfer information is reliable (Schudde, Jabbar, Epstein, et al., 2021; Schudde & Jabbar, 2024).
University personnel acknowledged that RCSs were based on program curricula that faculty created for native college students, anticipating 4 years of coursework at the institution (with little consideration that courses could come from elsewhere). This is despite the stated intent of the legislation to improve transparency in credit transferability. Such RCSs—based on the assumption of retaining college freshmen in the same program over time—require adaptation for transfer students (through transfer information like transfer guides or one-on-one guidance). Reports that RCSs are developed only for native students were present even at supposedly “transfer-friendly” universities like University 1, which works closely with its local community college in a geographically isolated area of the state and maintains several program-to-program bilateral transfer agreements with them. The conditions at University 1 seem optimal for personnel to consider transfer pathways when developing RCSs, yet, according to the personnel we interviewed, this was not the case. Although policy may “attempt to constrain or channel behavior in particular directions,” implementation depends on “shap[ing] individual and collective action to bring about desired goals” (Coburn, 2016, p. 469). If university actors’ underlying assumptions are consistently based on non-transfer pathways, they are unlikely to shift toward new individual and collective action without more intentional policy intervention.
Competing Transfer Logics
The differences in the institutional logics—those underlying beliefs and assumptions—of transfer personnel at community colleges and public universities illuminate additional tensions in the transfer system, which ultimately lead to misaligned guidance for transfer-intending students. Personnel who primarily relied on developmental logic viewed degree plans as customizable to individual needs, whereas those relying on functional logic viewed them as a rigid sequence of courses. Institutional logics are consequential because they inform organizational practices; institutional actors work to “produce and reproduce” the underlying rules and meanings within those logics (Thornton & Ocasio, 1999, p. 804). Logics become a self-fulfilling prophecy when practices and processes reinforce the logics, creating a “this is just the way things are” mentality.
The conflict between these two institutional logics illustrates key challenges for vertical transfer. Personnel espousing a developmental logic—particularly common among community college personnel and advisors—were largely unaware of the RCS mandate and defined RCSs in terms of the student-facing tools they provided in their daily practice. They described their role as providing one-on-one support to students, viewing individualized transfer pathways—or adaptations to the RCS—as essential for meeting students’ educational goals. Because staff in student-facing roles (advisors or even advising administrators) regularly interact with students, they may have more experience with students facing external obligations and challenges that interfere with their adherence to a strict course sequence, as described by advisors like Laura and Natalia—reinforcing their perspective that students need individualized support and flexibility. This perspective contrasted sharply with the practices and perceived roles of personnel using functional logic, who saw their role as developing clearer materials for students to follow, with an underlying assumption that students are responsible for adhering to that guidance.
The inclination toward functional logic among university personnel (held by all university personnel except Natalia and Bethany at University 1) suggests that functional logic at universities may be self-reinforcing. It may be the case that the logics at the university are more “deeply institutionalized” whereas there is room for negotiation—for “multiple salient logics” regarding transfer—at the community college level (Coburn, 2016, p. 472). In universities with deeply institutionalized “rules, roles, and logic,” the actions of personnel follow more “standard[ized] scripts” due to a shared understanding of transfer and how it works (Coburn, 2016, p. 472). Many university personnel noted that SB25 did not change their practices but merely required submitting information already in use. In the community college setting, on the other hand, staff espousing a functional logic were more likely to report adjusting their RCSs and related materials based on increased conversations with university partners.
Implications for Research and Policy
Future research should continue to investigate the constellation of beliefs, norms, and incentives that align with and reinforce the functional logic espoused by university personnel. Because public universities remain largely funded by enrollments, they have financial incentives to reject courses for transfer and require students to complete alternate courses at the university. At the same time, less selective universities may rely on transfer students for enrollment, which could push them to be more receptive to credit transfer (Schudde & Jabbar, 2024). We therefore hypothesize that functional logic may be more prevalent among faculty and staff at selective institutions than at less selective institutions. Future research could examine variation across universities by capturing a broader sample of university stakeholders.
Because institutional logics are shaped by “existing relations of power—shaped by history, politics, institutionalized roles, and positions in social networks,” purely informational reforms like SB25’s RCS mandate may “reinforce existing structures of inequality rather than interrupt them” (Coburn, 2016, pp. 470–471). Reforms aimed at shifting institutional norms are fundamentally different from informational reforms. Based on our findings, which illustrate that RCSs alone do not offer an improvement in student-facing information, we recommend reforms with greater institutional investment and accountability. One proposal would require receiving institutions to accept lower-division credits toward the major for students coming from the same field of study, reducing faculty autonomy over how pre-transfer credits apply toward the degree (Schudde & Jabbar, 2024). A 2023 policy that changed community college finance in Texas included the Texas Direct Transfer Degree, an associate degree that should allow students to transfer into the same major with junior status—however, the program has not been implemented and the THECB’s website about it has not been updated since the bill passed (Every Texan, 2023; THECB, n.d.b). We recommend that the state create a better infrastructure to support colleges and universities in implementing the policy and that the legislature offer the coordinating board support to hold universities accountable for accepting community college credits in accordance with the policy. Credit application reforms may face pushback from selective, non-transfer-receptive universities; however, enacting reforms for credit application could subsequently shift practitioners’ norms and belief systems (Schudde & Jabbar, 2024). For the time being, most reform efforts—including the state’s RCS policy—work within the dominant functional institutional logic held by many university actors, emphasizing information.
A key debate in whole-college reforms at community colleges, such as Guided Pathways, relates to how much choice students should have over their coursework; it stems from a pushback against the “cafeteria model” of course selection (Bailey et al, 2015). Indeed, several transfer personnel we spoke with noted that when student choice is constrained, advising is much easier. Under Guided Pathways, community colleges seek to allow some flexibility within broad fields of study—meta-majors—which strikes a balance between the flexibility desired by those using developmental logic and adherence to a strict RCS desired by those using functional logic. But curricular reforms at the community college must also translate to students’ destination pathways at universities. Some personnel (e.g., Oscar) emphasized that switching majors is of great consequence for transfer students, which suggests that, to avoid credit loss, any flexibility in lower-division courses within a meta-major should still align with the RCSs of related major programs at common destination universities. In addition to better state accountability for enacting credit transfer policies, we recommend that institutions—ideally with state support—form regional coalitions, like those noted by Megan (College B), to bring together faculty and staff across common sending and receiving institutions. Personnel can use these coalitions to improve alignment of RCSs and transfer tools across common transfer pathways.
Conclusion
States and higher education systems use several approaches to facilitate the transfer of students and courses across institutions. Statewide policies such as common course numbering, guaranteed course transferability, and transferrable associate degrees limit institutional autonomy related to transfer. In Texas, published recommended course sequences were touted as a solution to the problem of course non-transferability while allowing institutions to maintain autonomy and circumvent alternate state mandates such as universal common course numbering, which was proposed (but not adopted) in the same legislative session. The question remains whether posting RCSs promotes clear, consistent, and streamlined transfer pathways. If the state allows institutions to develop and disseminate RCSs according to their own institutional logics, we anticipate wide variation in RCSs across Texas, including continued variation between sectors.
Our findings suggest that the institutional logics most prevalent among staff at community colleges compared with those at public universities may be the reverse of what would be optimal to maximize transfer and minimize credit loss. Community college personnel appeared more likely than their university peers to espouse a developmental logic that privileges program flexibility; yet if universities adhere to a functional logic, limiting the course choice set of community college students may prevent them from taking courses unlikely to transfer and apply. In contrast, courses would be less likely to be lost if university personnel espoused beliefs in flexible RCSs; yet university personnel usually expected transfer-intending students to follow RCSs from universities. These conflicting views put transfer-intending students at a disadvantage as they attempt to select courses to meet their baccalaureate goals.
The implications of relying on publicly posted RCSs is likely to be more of the same: a heightened version of the status quo that may risk absolving institutions of their role in credit loss. If the information—no matter how hard to interpret—is posted, responsibility is placed on students to leverage it. Relying on error-prone information systems risks placing blame on students—rather than institutions—for credit loss.
Footnotes
Appendix
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by a Greater Texas Foundation grant entitled “Can Recommended Course Sequence Reforms Facilitate Transfer Student Success?” The authors were also supported by grant P2CHD042849, Population Research Center, awarded to the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The opinions expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the granting agencies or any director, officer, or employee thereof.
