The COVID-19 pandemic put higher education in a state of flux in 2020. Colleges and universities can no longer do “business as usual.” Making sure students are able to reenroll, receive credit for the work they completed before the pandemic, and help displaced workers retransition into the higher education pipeline will be extremely important once the crisis ends. Effective policies around transfer and applicability will need to be a key component of any strategy for how students, faculty, and institutions move forward from this disruption.

This brief summarizes recent work by the Texas Transfer Alliance, a collaboration of universities and community colleges in Texas led by the Dana Center since 2018. The brief further highlights some emerging practices from institutions in the state that show promise in improving student success and social mobility.