Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

A Study of State Policies Covering the 

Early Care and Education Workforce 

Volume 1 — Final Report
 
Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

A Study of State Policies Covering the 

Early Care and Education Workforce

Volume 1

Prepared for:

U.S. Department of Education

Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development

Policy and Program Studies Service

Prepared by:

Aleksandra Holod, Andrea Boyle, Jennell McHugh, Alexa Cinque, and Candice Handjojo 

American Institutes for Research

2019 
 

This report was produced under U.S. Department of Education Contract No. GS-00F-347CA/ED-PEP-16-

A-0004/TO02. Brian Fu served as the contracting officer’s representative. The views expressed herein do 

not necessarily represent the positions or policies of the Department of Education. No official 

endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education of any product, commodity, service, or enterprise 

mentioned in this publication is intended or should be inferred. For the reader’s convenience, this 

publication contains information about and from outside organizations, including hyperlinks and URLs. 

Inclusion of such information does not constitute an endorsement by the Department.

U.S. Department of Education

Betsy DeVos

Secretary

Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development

James Blew

Assistant Secretary

Policy and Program Studies Service

Gregory Fortelny

Director

September 2019 

This report is in the public domain. Authorization to reproduce it in whole or in part is granted. While 

permission to reprint this publication is not necessary, the citation should be: U.S. Department of 

Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, Policy and Program Studies Service, 

Higher Education Articulation Agreements: A Study of State Policies Covering the Early Care and 

Education Workforce, Washington, D.C., 2019. 

This report is available on the Department’s website at: 

https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/opepd/ppss/reports.html. 

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Content Contact:

Brian Fu

Phone: 202-260-1467

brian.fu@ed.gov
Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

A Study of State Policies Covering the Early Care and Education Workforce

iii 

Contents

List of Exhibits...................................................................................................................................... v

Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................................. vii

Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................ ix

Key Findings.................................................................................................................................... ix

Study Purpose .................................................................................................................................. x

Methodology and Study Limitations................................................................................................ x

Summary of Findings ...................................................................................................................... xi

I. Introduction...................................................................................................................................... 1

Policy Context .................................................................................................................................. 1

Overview of Study Purpose and Design........................................................................................... 2

Key Elements of Articulation............................................................................................................ 3

Study Methods and Limitations....................................................................................................... 9

Key Terms....................................................................................................................................... 11

II. Statewide Articulation and Transfer Policies .................................................................................. 13

Transfer Associate’s Degrees and Guaranteed Admission ............................................................ 13

Common General Education Requirements.................................................................................. 15

Common Course Numbering and Other Equivalency Systems...................................................... 16

The Role of ECE Industry Standards............................................................................................... 17

Other Statewide Transfer Policies ................................................................................................. 19

III. State-Level Governance and Oversight.......................................................................................... 21

Governance Structure: Articulation Oversight Committees and Agencies ...................................21

Governance Process and Roles...................................................................................................... 22

Stakeholder Involvement............................................................................................................... 25

Developing Policies for Academic Alignment ................................................................................ 27

IV. IHE-Level Implementation of Articulation Policies......................................................................... 29

IHE-Level Transfer and Articulation Policies.................................................................................. 29

Implementation Roles and Supports............................................................................................. 33

V. Transfer Supports for Students ...................................................................................................... 37

Advising.......................................................................................................................................... 37

Other Supports............................................................................................................................... 42

Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 45

References......................................................................................................................................... 47

Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

A Study of State Policies Covering the Early Care and Education Workforce

v 

Exhibits

Exhibit 1. Elements of articulation: Governance ................................................................................... 3

Exhibit 2. Elements of articulation: Academic policy............................................................................. 4

Exhibit 3. Elements of articulation: Articulation agreement provisions................................................ 6

Exhibit 4. Elements of articulation: Articulation and transfer supports................................................ 7

Exhibit 5. Elements of articulation: State context considerations......................................................... 8

Exhibit 6. Characteristics of the case study states................................................................................. 9

Exhibit 7. States with transfer associate’s degrees and guaranteed admission ................................. 13

Exhibit 8. States with common general education requirements and course numbering 

systems ................................................................................................................................ 14

Exhibit 9. States in which ECE industry standards played a role in statewide ECE articulation 

efforts................................................................................................................................... 17

Exhibit 10. Primary type of governing body for statewide articulation efforts, by state ..................... 21

Exhibit 11. Roles and responsibilities of states’ primary articulation governing bodies, by state ........ 22

Exhibit 12. Approaches to facilitating adherence to statewide articulation policies, by state ............. 23

Exhibit 13. Types of stakeholders engaged in developing or overseeing statewide articulation 

efforts, by state ................................................................................................................... 26

Exhibit 14. Methods for acquiring faculty stakeholder input, by state ................................................. 27

Exhibit 15. Number of two-year and four-year IHEs that reported various articulation policies 

and practices, by institution type ........................................................................................ 30

Exhibit 16. Number of two-year and four-year IHEs that reported various types of faculty and 

staff roles in implementing articulation policies, by institution type.................................. 33

Exhibit 17. Number of two-year and four-year IHEs that reported providing various types of 

advising supports to students, by institution type ............................................................. 38

Exhibit 18. Number of two-year and four-year IHEs that reported strategies to increase 

students’ access to advising supports, by institution type ................................................. 40

Exhibit 19. Number of states in which students reported challenges related to advising 

supports............................................................................................................................... 42

Exhibit 20. Number of two-year and four-year IHEs that reported providing other transferrelated supports to students, by institution type ............................................................... 43

Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

A Study of State Policies Covering the Early Care and Education Workforce

vii 

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank several individuals who contributed to the completion of this report. First, we would 

like to thank the state higher education administrators, policy staff, faculty, staff, and students whose 

participation made this study possible. We are grateful for the members of the Technical Working Group, 

who developed the elements of articulation that guided this study. We thank Brian Fu, Erica Lee, and 

Stephanie Stullich of the Policy and Program Studies Service for their guidance and support. Kerstin LeFloch,

Kelle Parsons, and Matt Soldner also made thoughtful contributions to the study design and the report. 

Although we appreciate the assistance and support of these individuals, any errors in judgment or fact 

are the responsibility of the authors.

Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

A Study of State Policies Covering the Early Care and Education Workforce

ix 

Executive Summary 

A barrier that students and mid-career professionals often face in attempts to advance their education 

level is that the coursework completed and credits earned in one institution of higher education (IHE) 

may not transfer to another. As a result, students who seek to extend their education and qualifications 

may experience a loss of course credit and a disruption of degree progress when transferring between 

two-year and four-year IHEs. These delays can then discourage or delay them from pursuing or 

completing a bachelor’s degree. Nationally, more than one third of community college students who 

transfer to a four-year institution do not earn a bachelor’s degree within six years. 

Recognizing the credit loss that these students experience during the transfer process, some states have 

developed articulation policies and agreements to facilitate the transfer of credits and coursework 

between degree programs in different IHEs within the state. Articulation policies are a particularly 

important issue for individuals who begin their higher education coursework in a two-year IHE and then 

seek to transfer to a four-year IHE to obtain a bachelor’s degree, which often is the case for teachers 

and caregivers in the early childhood workforce. In some states, articulation policies and agreements 

include specific provisions for degree programs related to early care and education (ECE). 

This report examines articulation policies and practices in six states with policies that include provisions 

specifically for ECE. The study involved telephone interviews and focus groups with state-level higher 

education administrators and staff, as well as administrators, faculty, and students from 20 IHEs within 

the six states (including both two-year and four-year institutions). The examples and experiences of 

these states and IHEs may be applicable to other fields as well and may be useful for policymakers, 

higher education administrators, and faculty seeking to improve the efficacy of their broader articulation 

policies and practices.

Key Findings

• All six states in the study used transfer associate’s degrees and general education block 

transfers, which allow students to transfer courses as a set rather than on a course-by-course 

basis, to facilitate course and credit transfer for ECE students; half of the states also used 

guaranteed admission or common course numbering.

• Four states established at least one statewide committee to oversee articulation; the remaining 

two states oversaw articulation through a state higher education agency or system office.

• Most IHEs (17 of 20) supplemented state-level articulation policies with intrastate and interstate 

regional articulation agreements formed between IHEs. 

• Most two-year IHEs (nine of 10) offered separate ECE degree pathways for students who 

planned to transfer and earn a bachelor’s degree versus students who planned to end their 

education with an associate’s degree.

• In nearly all IHEs (19 of 20), ECE faculty played several key roles in implementing articulation 

policies, such as evaluating course transferability (15 IHEs) and designing courses that reflect 

agreed-on competencies (12 IHEs).

• IHEs supported transfer students by providing online information about transfer (12 IHEs), 

transfer centers (six IHEs), outreach programs (six IHEs), and transfer student orientations 

(five IHEs).
Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

A Study of State Policies Covering the Early Care and Education Workforce

x 

• Faculty and staff advised students on topics including career paths (16 IHEs) and financial aid 

(15 IHEs), referred students to degree planning tools (14 IHEs), and referred students to transfer 

advisors (three IHEs). 

Study Purpose 

The purpose of this descriptive study was to identify the articulation approaches that states have used 

to facilitate higher education articulation for ECE professionals, allowing them to progress from 

subbaccalaureate coursework and credentials to an associate’s degree and then a bachelor’s degree 

without losing relevant coursework and credits. The study also examined implementation of articulation 

within states and IHEs. The study was designed to answer the following study questions: 

1. In the six states examined in this study, what higher education articulation policies and practices 

have been implemented to support students seeking a degree in ECE? 

2. What governance structures do these states have in place to oversee ECE articulation policy? 

How do the states involve stakeholders in policy development and oversight? 

3. How do IHEs in these states implement articulation policies? 

4. What supports do the states and IHEs provide for the transfer and articulation process? 

Methodology and Study Limitations

To address these questions, the study team conducted case studies in a purposive sample of six states 

and 20 IHEs that have statewide articulation policies that address ECE degree pathways. To identify 

states for inclusion in the study, the study team reviewed extant documents to identify those states with 

statewide articulation policies for students pursuing a degree in ECE. The team identified an initial list of 

11 states that met the study inclusion criteria and then narrowed the list to six states. Factors 

considered in selecting the six states included types of articulation policies, geographic region, higher 

education context, and ECE program context. States were selected to demonstrate a variety of state 

contexts and articulation approaches. The final sample included California, Florida, Indiana, 

Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania. 

The study team selected 20 IHEs (10 two-year and 10 four-year) in the six states. The IHEs were selected 

primarily based on the number of ECE degrees granted, with the goal of ensuring at least one IHE was 

selected from each public higher education system within each state. This approach to IHE selection 

allowed the study team to examine cross-system articulation and transfer. Other criteria considered 

included the presence of a staff person, faculty member, or administrator who was involved in creating

or overseeing statewide ECE articulation policy. In states with public Historically Black Colleges and 

Universities or minority-serving institutions that offered ECE degree programs, the study team 

endeavored to include at least one of those institutions in the study. 

Data collection took place between February 2018 and July 2018. Interviews were conducted at the state

level with representatives from state higher education executive offices, state higher education 

agencies, and state higher education system offices; state legislative analysts or policy staff; and 

representatives from articulation oversight committees. At IHEs, interviews were conducted with senior 

academic administrators and faculty. In addition, focus groups were conducted with IHE staff (such as 

registrars, student advisors, and financial aid officers) and with students. The study team coded the interview 

and focus group transcripts and information from extant documents to identify themes and verify evidence 

that emerged across the sites. 
Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

A Study of State Policies Covering the Early Care and Education Workforce

xi

Readers should note some limitations to the interpretation and generalizability of the study findings.

The six states were not nationally representative, and data should not be generalized to other states. 

Moreover, the IHEs selected may not be representative of all IHEs in each state, and findings for ECE 

may not generalize to other higher education disciplines or fields. Findings from the interviews and focus 

groups were based on self-reports of the specific individuals participating in the study and might not 

represent the views of other administrators, faculty, staff, students, and stakeholders in these states. 

Summary of Findings 

Statewide Articulation and Transfer Policies

All six states in the study used transfer associate’s degrees and general education block 

transfers to facilitate course and credit transfer for ECE students; half of the states also used 

guaranteed admission or common course numbering.

More specifically, all six states instituted transfer associate’s degrees in ECE that allow students to 

transfer their lower division coursework as a block and enroll in a four-year degree program with junior 

status. All six states established common general education requirements that allow for block transfer of 

30–35 credits. These common requirements reflected a shared understanding between two-year and 

four-year IHEs regarding the content, competencies, and learning outcomes expected of all first- and 

second-year students. Three states offered guaranteed or priority admission into a public four-year IHEs for 

students who earned transfer associate’s degrees. Requirements for guaranteed admission included a 

minimum grade point average, minimum grades for specified courses, and passing scores on teacher 

licensure examinations prior to admission. Three states implemented common course numbering 

systems, which assigned common course numbers for equivalent courses at participating IHEs. These 

systems allowed faculty, staff, and students to track which courses would transfer and how they would 

fulfill degree requirements.

State-Level Governance and Oversight

Four of the states established at least one statewide committee to oversee articulation; the 

remaining two states oversaw articulation through a state higher education agency or system office.

In four states, articulation was governed by a statewide committee appointed by a higher education 

executive officer or a state higher education coordinating board. In three of the four states with an 

oversight committee, the committee had an active, ongoing role in monitoring, updating, and enforcing 

the statewide policy after the policy was developed. In the remaining two states, articulation policy was 

overseen by a state higher education agency or system offices, and individual colleges and universities 

had more discretion in determining how articulation would be implemented.

IHE-Level Implementation of Articulation Policies

Most of the IHEs in the study (17 of 20) supplemented state-level articulation policies with 

intrastate and interstate regional articulation agreements formed between IHEs.

Even with the existence of statewide articulation policies, nearly all IHEs continued to use regional 

agreements to supplement state-level articulation policies. Agreements between four-year IHEs and 

their two-year feeder institutions served to clarify how courses from a two-year IHE would transfer, 
Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

A Study of State Policies Covering the Early Care and Education Workforce

xii

offer additional transfer benefits beyond those required under state-level policies, or extend transfer 

benefits to students not covered under state-level policies.

Most two-year IHEs (nine of 10) offered separate ECE degree pathways for students who planned to 

transfer and students who planned to end their education with an associate’s degree.

ECE students at nearly all the community colleges had to choose from two or more degree options, 

depending on their goals for educational attainment. Generally, these options included transfer 

associate’s degrees for students who planned to transfer plus other terminal associate’s degrees that 

trained students for work in the ECE field immediately after graduation. Students who earned the 

terminal associate’s degree and later decided to pursue a four-year degree often reported encountering

misalignment and loss of credits after enrolling in a bachelor’s degree program.

In nearly all of the IHEs (19 of 20), ECE faculty played key roles in implementing articulation 

policies, such as evaluating course transferability (15 IHEs) and designing courses that 

reflected agreed-on competencies (12 IHEs).

ECE faculty members — with their expertise in both the content and structure of their school’s ECE 

coursework — were largely responsible for determining whether and how courses from other IHEs 

would transfer. To evaluate a course’s transferability, faculty members reviewed syllabi, examples of 

student work from the course, and/or qualifications of the person who taught the course. ECE faculty 

also played a lead role in designing courses that reflected the skills and competencies outlined in 

statewide or locally agreed-on curricular frameworks.

Transfer Supports for Students

IHEs supported transfer students by providing online information about transfer (12 IHEs), transfer 

centers (six IHEs), outreach programs (six IHEs), and transfer student orientations (five IHEs).

Twelve of the 20 IHEs provided transfer information on their websites or through referral to statewide 

transfer websites. Six IHEs reported that their transfer centers provided prospective transfer students with 

information regarding coursework, degree requirements, scholarship information, and transfer timelines. 

Six of the four-year IHEs described sending representatives to two-year IHEs to meet with faculty, staff 

advisors, and prospective transfer students. In addition, several four-year IHEs offered orientations to help 

transfer students acclimate to their new campus and plan upper division course sequences.

Faculty and staff advised students on topics including career paths (16 IHEs) and financial aid 

(15 IHEs), referred students to degree planning tools (14 IHEs), and referred students to 

transfer advisors (three IHEs). 

Faculty and staff at most IHEs advised students on career paths, degree options, and financial aid. Less 

frequently, faculty and staff advised students on the transfer process. They also referred prospective 

transfer students to degree planning tools, such as degree maps and transfer guides, or to transferspecific advisors. Despite these resources, students reported receiving inaccurate or insufficient 

guidance from advisors about the transfer process and financial aid.
Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

A Study of State Policies Covering the Early Care and Education Workforce

1 

I. Introduction

A barrier that students and mid-career professionals often face in attempts to advance their education 

level is that the coursework completed and credits earned in one institution of higher education (IHE) 

may not transfer to another. To address this issue, states have developed a variety of articulation 

policies and agreements to facilitate the transfer of credits between degree programs. Articulation 

policies are particularly important for individuals who begin their higher education coursework in a twoyear college and later seek to transfer their credits to obtain a bachelor’s degree, which often is the case 

for teachers and caregivers in the early childhood education and care workforce. This study provides an 

in-depth examination of how six states and their IHEs have implemented articulation policies that 

include provisions specific to the early childhood field, including approaches to articulation, governance 

structures, roles played by various stakeholders, and supports provided to transfer students.

Policy Context 

IHEs offer multiple pathways for pursuing postsecondary credentials and degrees. Although some 

students begin and end their postsecondary education in a four-year college or university, others may 

seek a two-year associate’s degree and then enter the workforce, and still others may begin in a community

college with the intention of transferring to a four-year institution. In fact, about one third of all college 

students are enrolled in a public, two-year community college (Ginder, Kelly-Reid, and Mann 2019). 

Furthermore, approximately half of all students who complete a bachelor’s degree previously enrolled in 

a public, two-year community college (National Student Clearinghouse Research Center 2017). 

Individuals’ education and career plans often change across time, and graduates who earn an associate’s 

degree may decide to continue their education to increase their qualifications and skills (and potentially 

earn a higher salary), often at a different IHE than the one that conferred their associate’s degree. 

Whether seeking to make this transition mid-education or mid-career, such students often face barriers 

because of differing coursework requirements between degree programs and institutions. Coursework 

completed and credits earned at one IHE may not transfer to another; in particular, students who 

transfer between two-year and four-year IHEs may experience a loss of course credit and a disruption of 

degree progress (Jenkins and Fink 2015; Limardo, Sweeney, and Taylor 2016). On average, only 

60 percent of transfer students nationally have been able to transfer most or all of their credits, whereas 

15 percent were granted almost no transfer credit (Monaghan and Attewell 2015). 

These challenges can increase the cost and effort required to obtain a bachelor’s degree, as well as 

discouraging some candidates from pursuing or completing a degree. Nationally, more than one third of 

community college students who transfer do not earn a bachelor’s degree within six years (Jenkins and 

Fink 2015). Moreover, students who lost half or more of their credits were significantly less likely to earn 

a bachelor’s degree compared with students who were able to transfer most of their credits (Monaghan 

and Attewell 2015). 

To address these challenges, states have developed a variety of articulation policies and agreements to 

facilitate the transfer of credits and coursework between degree programs. The National Conference of 

State Legislatures (2013) found that all 50 states had one or more articulation policies. Thirty states had 

common course numbering systems across participating IHEs, 40 states had identified a general 

education core accepted across institutions, and 45 states had transfer associate’s degrees that allow 

students to block transfer their lower division coursework and enroll in a four-year degree program with 
Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

A Study of State Policies Covering the Early Care and Education Workforce

2 

junior status. Twenty-eight states enacted legislation to adopt such policies, whereas others had policies 

that were adopted by IHE boards or state agencies. In some cases, networks of institutions entered into 

voluntary agreements to facilitate transfers.

Articulation policies are important for students who are preparing for a career in the early childhood 

workforce. These students often begin their higher education coursework in a two-year IHE and then

seek to transfer to a four-year IHE to obtain a bachelor’s degree. In addition, students may obtain a twoyear associate’s degree, enter the early childhood workforce, and then later decide to continue their 

education to improve their qualifications and skills, often at a different IHE than the one that conferred 

their associate’s degree. In 2009, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) 

recommended that states require that colleges and universities implement articulation agreements to 

support early care and education (ECE) professionals in “moving seamlessly through and across 

undergraduate and graduate degree programs” (NAEYC 2009, 2). In 2015, a National Academies of 

Sciences’ report recommended developing comprehensive pathways for transitioning lead early 

childhood educators1 to a bachelor’s degree qualification, with specialized knowledge and 

competencies, while acknowledging that the empirical evidence on the effects of a bachelor’s degree is 

inconclusive, and a bachelor’s degree requirement alone is not sufficient to ensure program quality

(National Research Council 2015). 

Overview of Study Purpose and Design 

This descriptive study examined the articulation policies and practices used in six states that have

articulation policies that specifically address the ECE discipline. Understanding the practices and 

experiences of these states and IHEs may help others develop ways to provide smoother pathways and 

transitions to support both students and mid-career professionals in the ECE field who are seeking to 

increase their qualifications and skills. In addition, strategies used in these six states may be applicable 

to other fields as well and may be useful for policymakers and educators seeking to improve the efficacy 

of their overall articulation policies and practices.

The study was designed to answer the following study questions: 

1. In the six states examined in this study, what higher education articulation policies and practices 

have been implemented to support students seeking a degree in ECE? 

2. What governance structures do these states have in place to oversee ECE articulation policy? 

How do the states involve stakeholders in policy development and oversight? 

3. How do IHEs in these states implement articulation policies? 

4. What supports do the states and IHEs provide for the transfer and articulation process? 

The study involved telephone interviews and focus groups conducted in 2018 with state-level higher 

education administrators and staff, as well as administrators, faculty, and students from 20 IHEs within 

the six states (including both two-year and four-year institutions). 

 

1 The report defined lead educators as “those who bear primary responsibility for children and are responsible for planning 

and implementing activities and instruction and overseeing the work of assistant teachers and paraprofessionals” (National 

Research Council 2015, 6).
Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

A Study of State Policies Covering the Early Care and Education Workforce

3 

Key Elements of Articulation 

To provide a conceptual foundation for this study, the study team developed a framework of core 

elements of articulation. The development of the framework was informed by a literature review and 

with the input of 12 technical experts who had experience with articulation policies. These experts 

represented a variety of stakeholders, including two-year IHE faculty, four-year IHE faculty, policy 

representatives, higher education administrators, and early childhood representatives. They helped 

define the elements of successful statewide articulation during a technical working group meeting that 

took place during the early stages of the study. 

The framework is anchored by four core elements of articulation: governance, academic policy, 

articulation agreement provisions, and articulation and transfer supports. For each core element, the 

framework included a discussion of practices and considerations from the field. The study team used 

this framework to inform the questions asked of the study participants and to guide the process of

analyzing and reporting the information gathered from extant data review, interviews, and focus groups.

Policymakers and practitioners also may use this framework when thinking about how to develop and 

implement articulation policies. 

Governance

The literature on articulation suggests the importance of governance structures and has named statewide 

oversight committees as a potentially promising practice (Southern Regional Education Board 2013; 

Wellman 2002; Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education 2010). It also recommends involving

stakeholders, especially faculty with content area expertise (Ignash and Townsend 2000; Teacher 

Education and Compensation Helps [T.E.A.C.H.] Early Childhood National Center 2014; Western Interstate 

Commission for Higher Education 2010). Additional detail regarding the components of governance are 

provided in Exhibit 1, including oversight, administration, and stakeholder involvement and coordination. 

Exhibit 1. Elements of articulation: Governance

Elements Description 

Oversight and 

administration 

Types of 

administrative 

bodies

Administrative bodies that oversee articulation at the state level may have an influence on the 

development and implementation of articulation policies, and the type of administrative body used 

may shape its ability to establish and enforce such policies. Examples of administrative bodies 

overseeing articulation include statewide oversight committees, coordinating boards, governing 

boards, and higher education agencies.

Monitoring 

implementation

Administrative bodies may monitor whether IHEs are implementing articulation policies as 

intended. These monitoring efforts may serve as an accountability measure and also inform the 

need for additional implementation support or incentives.

Updating policies Administrative bodies may update articulation policies and processes regularly in response to changes in 

legislation and higher education policy or needs that surface within the higher education community. 

Enforcement and 

appeals process

Administrative bodies may oversee an appeal process for students who claim that the terms of the 

articulation agreement have been violated or who would like to appeal decisions about credit 

transfer at receiving institutions.

Funding for 

administration

Dedicated, ongoing funding may support the work of the administrative body. This funding may, for 

example, cover the cost of staff support and pay members for expenses involved in attending 

committee meetings.
Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

A Study of State Policies Covering the Early Care and Education Workforce

4 

Exhibit 1. Elements of articulation: Governance (cont.)

Elements Description 

Stakeholder 

involvement and 

coordination 

Involvement of 

multiple sectors

Involving stakeholders from a variety of sectors may inform policy development with diverse 

perspectives on articulation needs and challenges, add legitimacy to the policies, and promote buy-in.

Stakeholder types Stakeholders for ECE articulation may include internal stakeholders, such as higher education administrators, 

faculty, and students as well as external stakeholders, such as ECE employers, ECE teachers, teacher licensing 

agencies, nonprofit organizations, and state government and policy representatives. 

Role of faculty As content area experts, two-year and four-year faculty may play an important role in the 

development of articulation agreements. They may, for instance, promote the academic alignment 

of coursework across IHEs.

Academic Policy

Academic policies influence the internal practices of colleges, departments, or programs (Wellman 

2002). Statewide articulation considers a variety of academic policy issues in both two-year and fouryear IHEs regarding how and when credits will transfer. The research literature on articulation calls for 

several academic policies to support articulation, including common course numbering, other course 

equivalency systems, and common general education requirements (Cassidy 2015; Southern Regional 

Education Board 2013; Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education 2010). These components 

of academic policy and others related to degree pathways, teacher licensure, faculty and curricular 

alignment, and accreditation are detailed in Exhibit 2. 

Exhibit 2. Elements of articulation: Academic policy 

Elements Description

Degree pathways

Multiple degree 

pathways

Students may follow a variety of degree pathways to an ECE career. Comprehensive articulation 

policies that reflect these multiple pathways may benefit a broader range of students. 

Types of associate’s 

degrees

Articulation policies may acknowledge the multiple pathways to an ECE career by including various 

types of associate’s degrees, such as associate of arts, associate of science, associate of applied 

science, and associate of arts in teaching. They also may include degrees focused on preparing 

teachers to work with different ECE age groups (e.g., preschool teachers, elementary teachers). 

Stackable credentials Stackable credentials may streamline the path to a degree, particularly for students who initially 

pursue a certificate and later choose to pursue a degree. When courses associated with 

certificates are embedded in degree programs, students can apply course credits earned for their 

certificate toward a degree.

Dual-enrollment 

programs

Allowing credits earned in dual-enrollment programs (i.e., college credit earned while in high 

school) to count toward a degree also may streamline degree completion. For example, high 

schools may form partnerships with community colleges that allow students to acquire a Child 

Development Associate (CDA) credential during high school and transfer the credits into a twoyear program.
Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

A Study of State Policies Covering the Early Care and Education Workforce

5 

Exhibit 2. Elements of articulation: Academic policy (cont.)

Elements Description

Teacher licensure

Degree that leads to 

licensure

When states and institutions provide clear information about which degrees lead to licensure — 

and which ECE positions require licensure — this may help students make more informed 

decisions about which degree pathways align with their goals. 

Multiple licensure 

options

In some states, ECE careers have multiple licensure options. If two-year and four-year IHEs work 

together to ensure they are consistently applying standards for those licensure options in their 

courses, it may promote stronger alignment between two- and four-year degree programs. 

Competing demands Two-year IHEs may face competing demands in their efforts to educate both students who plan 

to enter the workforce after earning ECE-related certificates or associate’s degrees and students 

who hope to transfer into four-year IHEs to complete a bachelor’s degree. If the requirements of 

these two programs are not aligned, they may not offer clear and accessible pathways that serve 

the needs of all students. 

Faculty and curricular 

alignment 

Curriculum and 

learning standards

Alignment of curriculum and learning standards between two-year and four-year IHEs may help 

facilitate seamless credit transfer by ensuring that equivalent courses at different IHEs teach 

students the same core competencies. 

Course competencies 

and numbering

Common course numbering systems assign coursesthat teach the same core competenciesthe same 

course title, number, and prefix across IHEs. Such systems may support articulation between two-year

and four-year IHEs by enabling students and others to identify equivalent courses. 

General education 

common core

The existence of a common core curriculum for general education, in which a set of agreed-on 

general education courses are fully transferable across IHEs, may support articulation by 

guaranteeing students transfer credit for courses that fall within that curriculum. 

Faculty qualifications When two-year faculty have similar academic qualifications as four-year faculty, the faculties 

may be more willing to enter into articulation agreements because of a perception that courses 

at two-year IHEs are equivalent to courses at four-year IHEs. 

Accreditation

A symbol of quality Accreditation of ECE programs may reduce barriers to articulation by validating the quality and 

rigor of ECE associate’s degree programs.

Encouragement for 

articulation

Requirements or recommendations from institutional and programmatic accreditors, such as the 

NAEYC, may encourage institutions to develop student-focused articulation policies.

Mandate from 

licensing

When state educator licensing provisions require preparation programs at and beyond the 

baccalaureate level to receive both institutional and programmatic accreditation, those 

requirements may serve to reinforce specific articulation practices. 
Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

A Study of State Policies Covering the Early Care and Education Workforce

6 

Articulation Agreement Provisions

Statewide articulation often relies on agreements that facilitate credit transfer. These statewide 

articulation agreements typically describe how credits will transfer, which students will be covered, and 

which institutions are included (Ignash and Townsend 2000). Related provisions of articulation 

agreements are listed in Exhibit 3, including those that address the portability of credits, data sharing, 

and other issues.

Exhibit 3. Elements of articulation: Articulation agreement provisions

Elements Description

Portability of credits

Block transfer Articulation agreements specifying that all lower division coursework, including general 

education and early childhood credits, will transfer into the four-year degree program as a set or 

“block” may facilitate transfer students’ degree progress. 

Course-by-course 

transfer

Articulation agreements that require course-by-course review of prior coursework based on 

course equivalencies or that allow only a limited number of credits to transfer from the sending 

institution may hinder student degree progress.

Transfer without an 

associate’s degree

Articulation agreements that allow students who transfer from a two-year program to a fouryear program before earning their associate’s degree to earn transfer credit for their prior 

coursework may offer transfer students additional flexibility in their path to a bachelor’s degree. 

Reverse transfer Reverse-transfer provisions may help ensure that students who transfer from a two-year to a 

four-year IHE and then back to a two-year IHE do not lose credit. Reverse-transfer provisions 

could include the opportunity for two-year to four-year transfer students to complete an 

associate’s or certificate degree, even if they do not complete their bachelor’s degree.

Data sharing

Electronic record 

sharing

The extent to which transcripts are electronically and systematically shared between two-year

and four-year IHEs may help streamline the transfer process. 

Oversight of data 

sharing

The administrative body that oversees articulation also may oversee a shared data system 

between two-year and four-year IHEs to facilitate the transfer process or support efforts to 

evaluate articulation policies across IHEs. 

Other provisions

Guaranteed admission As an incentive for students to transfer, articulation agreements may offer guaranteed admission 

into ECE programs at four-year IHEs for students who complete an associate’s degree in ECE. 

Private institutions Inclusion of private IHEs in articulation agreements may increase the number of students who 

benefit from articulation agreements. 
Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

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7 

Articulation and Transfer Supports

Statewide articulation may help provide students with clear information about transfer pathways, offer 

accessible resources and supports, and promote degree affordability by reducing credit loss during 

transfers between two- and four-year IHEs. The research literature calls for a variety of articulation

supports, including written transfer guides, Web-based information on transfer, a transfer counselor 

network, student transfer fairs, and student appeals procedures (Southern Regional Education Board

2013; T.E.A.C.H. 2014; Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education 2009, 2010). Examples of

articulation supports that may benefit faculty, staff, and students are highlighted in Exhibit 4. 

Exhibit 4. Elements of articulation: Articulation and transfer supports

Elements Description

Transparency and 

accessibility

Clear information Clear, accessible information regarding transfer requirements, career pathways, and licensure 

options may help students make more informed decisions towards their career and educational 

goals. 

Web-based transfer 

resource

Transfer guides and other Web-based resources, such as online course catalogs and degree 

progress tools, may provide useful supports for students, advisors, and faculty.

Accommodations for 

nontraditional 

students

Considering the needs of nontraditional students, such as those who are working while pursuing 

a degree, may help institutions ensure that courses and academic and student services are 

accessible and convenient for more students. 

Student supports

Transfer advising 

services

Specialized advising for transfer students, such as transfer advising service centers, at both 

sending and receiving institutions might promote student retention and degree attainment.

Well-informed and 

resourced advisors

Before and during the articulation process, students may benefit from the support of wellinformed, accessible advisors. Advisors can help students determine which degree pathways are 

best aligned to their personal and professional goals.

Completion and 

affordability

Importance of 

affordability 

Statewide articulation policy that promotes the affordability of earning a bachelor’s degree may 

make degree attainment more accessible, particularly for lower-income students. 

Cost of degree versus 

earning potential

Articulation policies may promote affordability by helping students balance the cost of a 

credential with the likely future wage associated with earning it. 

Dimensions of 

affordability

Numerous factors can shape degree affordability, including the cost of college attendance, cost 

of student debt, opportunity cost of foregoing work while acquiring a degree.

Stackable credentials Stackable credentials may help students increase their salaries as they acquire additional 

credentials.

Dual-credit programs Providing pathways for high school students to take dual-credit college courses may help them 

save money.
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8 

State Considerations

State policy contexts can influence articulation efforts. For example, states may choose to develop 

articulation agreements for specific degree programs that are in high demand among employers (Ignash 

and Townsend 2000; Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education 2009). In addition, state

efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of articulation may provide insights on how to improve articulation 

policies or their implementation. In fact, the literature recommended that states set performance goals 

for two-year and four-year IHEs and collect data to evaluate implementation (Ignash and Townsend 

2000; Southern Regional Education Board 2013; Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education

2009, 2010). Several aspects of state context that influence articulation, including articulation and 

teacher licensing policy, economic considerations, and the extent to which states monitor and evaluate 

articulation, are highlighted in Exhibit 5. 

Exhibit 5. Elements of articulation: State context considerations

Elements Description

Policy context

Policy mandate Policies that mandate or facilitate articulation efforts may enable statewide articulation. 

Compulsory articulation 

agreements

State legislative or executive branch action can compel IHEs to create articulation agreements 

when they might not have otherwise. 

Licensing policy State policies that allow multiple options for teacher licensure may make the pathways into an 

ECE career flexible.

Economic context

Availability of funding The economic context and availability of funding within a state to support the implementation 

and oversight of articulation may influence the specific policies adopted. 

Workforce needs States may choose to tailor or prioritize articulation policies to address the state’s ECE 

workforce needs and reflect the demographics of the existing teaching workforce.

Evaluation and evidence

Purpose Evaluation of articulation efforts may serve multiple purposes, including monitoring transfer 

student outcomes, informing policymakers about adjustments needed to articulation systems, 

and gathering data to make the case that articulation is needed.

Data Statewide longitudinal data systems that contain information about student transfer and 

course-taking behavior, along with information about credit transfer, may help support 

evaluation of articulation policy.

Transparency Making the results of evaluations publicly available may help keep stakeholders informed 

about areas of need and progress. 
Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

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9 

Study Methods and Limitations

State Sample Selection

To learn more about how states and IHEs developed and implemented articulation policies and practices 

that specifically address the ECE discipline, the study team conducted in-depth case studies in a 

purposive sample of six states. To identify states eligible for inclusion in the study, the study team 

conducted an extant document review to identify states with statewide articulation policies with ECEspecific provisions. States were considered to have a statewide articulation policy if evidence existed of 

statutes, executive orders, or higher education department or board-directed initiatives to guide transfer 

and articulation. In addition, these policies were required to address systemwide articulation between 

public two-year and four-year IHEs. ECE-specific provisions addressed ECE degree pathways, including 

transfer and articulation between the CDA credential and other credentials, dual enrollment programs, 

certificates, associate’s degrees, and/or bachelor’s degrees in the state’s public two-year and four-year 

higher education institutions. Using these definitions, the study team identified an initial list of 11 states 

with statewide articulation policies with ECE-specific provisions: California, Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, 

Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. 

The study team then selected six focal states from this list of 11 states. Factors considered in selecting 

the focal states included types of articulation policies, geographic region, higher education governance 

structure, the size and complexity of the state’s higher education systems, the presence of Historically 

Black Colleges and Universities or minority-serving institutions, the number of ECE degrees granted

within the state, the existence of a statewide preschool program, enrollment in early childhood programs, 

and pay parity or baccalaureate degree requirements for preschool teachers. States were selected to 

demonstrate a variety of state contexts and articulation approaches. The final purposive sample 

included California, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania. Characteristics of 

these states are presented in Exhibit 6. See the state profiles in Appendix A for more information about 

the selected states. Appendix B provides additional detail about the study design and methodology. 

Exhibit 6. Characteristics of the case study states

State 

Number of 

higher 

education 

system(s) 

Number of 

HBCUs and 

MSIs

Total number 

of ECE degrees 

granted 

Percentage of 

4-year-olds 

served in 

preschool

Bachelordegree

requirements

Pay 

parity 

California 3 53 4,083 18% Yes No

Florida 2 36 1,006 76% No No

Indiana 3 2 642 64% Yes Yes

Massachusetts 1 5 1,039 8% No No

New Mexico 1 13 291 33% No Yes

Pennsylvania 2 11 2,039 12% Yes No

Exhibit reads: California uses a consolidated governing board structure to oversee higher education in the state.

Note: HBCUs = Historically Black Colleges and Universities; MSIs = minority-serving institutions. 

Sources: Barnett et al. 2017; Barnett and Kasmin 2017; Collegescorecard.ed.gov; state higher education websites; Collegescorecard.ed.gov; U.S. 

Department of Education 2016; U.S. Department of Education 2007. 
Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

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10

The study team selected 20 IHEs (10 two-year and 10 four-year) in the six states. The IHEs were selected 

primarily based on the number of ECE degrees granted, with the goal of ensuring at least one IHE was 

selected from each public higher education system within each state. This approach to IHE selection 

allowed the study team to examine cross-system articulation and transfer. Other criteria considered 

included the presence of a staff person, faculty member, or administrator who was involved in creating

or overseeing statewide ECE articulation policy. In states with public Historically Black Colleges and 

Universities or minority-serving institutions that offered ECE degree programs, the study team 

endeavored to include at least one of those institutions in the study. 

Data Collection and Analysis

The findings from this report were based on 106 semistructured telephone interviews and focus groups 

conducted by videoconference with key stakeholders from the six focal states and 20 IHEs (10 two-year 

IHEs and 10 four-year IHEs). State-level interview participants included representatives from state higher 

executive offices, state higher education agencies, and state higher education system offices; state 

legislative analysts or policy staff; two-year and four-year IHE representatives serving on state 

articulation oversight committees; state teacher licensure administrators; and ECE workforce 

development representatives.

2 Data collection from each IHE consisted of interviews with a senior 

academic administrator (e.g., ECE department chair, program director, school of education dean) and an 

ECE faculty member and a focus group of IHE staff members, including representatives from student 

advising services, registrar’s offices, and financial aid offices. The study team also conducted virtual 

focus groups with ECE students from each state who either were planning to transfer or had already 

transferred from a two-year to a four-year IHE. Appendix C contains the interview and focus group 

protocols. To supplement data collected through the interviews and focus groups, the study team 

conducted a review of extant policy documents and relevant websites.

The study team’s analysis of the interview, focus group, and extant data followed a multistep process

that was designed to examine ECE articulation policies and their implementation within and across the 

six states. First, using qualitative data analysis software, analysts coded transcripts of the interviews and 

focus groups to systematically organize the data according to important topics drawn from the study 

questions. (Appendix D contains the codebook that the study team used for analysis.) Analysts then 

summarized the coded and extant data for each state and IHE. They entered that information into a 

structured, spreadsheet-based data repository, which supported the analysis of important issues and 

themes across states and IHEs. Finally, analysts developed and applied criteria for classifying states and 

IHEs into categories to examine the prevalence of various approaches to articulation. The analysis 

identified general articulation policies that may apply to students pursuing degrees in the ECE field, in 

addition to examining ECE-specific provisions in states’ articulation policies. 

Study Limitations

This qualitative study was based on data collection and analysis in a purposive sample of six states with 

statewide articulation policies that address the ECE discipline and 20 IHEs within those states. Findings 

were based on extant data review and self-reports of the administrators, faculty, staff, students, and 

 

2 The workforce development representatives who participated in the study interviews included early childhood advocacy 

organizations, a university-based research center that conducts research on early childhood workforce issues, and state affiliates of 

the NAEYC. In general, the workforce development representatives who participated in the study interviews were familiar with the 

challenges faced by both students pursing degrees in early childhood education and employers who hire ECE staff.
Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

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11

other stakeholders interviewed in each state. Readers should note that the six states are not nationally 

representative, and these case study data should not be generalized to other states. The selected IHEs 

and individual respondents may not be representative of all IHEs in each state. Articulation for the ECE 

discipline may differ from that of other disciplines, given the National Academy of Sciences’ 

recommendation to develop degree pathways for lead early childhood educators to earn a bachelor’s 

degree (National Research Council 2015). Even so, the study described various policy approaches that 

states have taken, how states oversee policy development and implementation, and how IHEs have 

implemented them. 

Key Terms

Several terms used throughout this report may be unclear or unfamiliar to the reader. They are defined 

here for the reader’s reference. 

• Articulation. This is the process of comparing and equating the content of courses from one 

institution to courses completed at another institution. Courses determined to be equivalent 

through the process of articulation may be accepted for transfer credit.

• Academic alignment. Two-year and four-year IHEs align academic programs to facilitate 

transfer. This may include alignment of individual course content, curriculum, learning 

standards, or course competencies. Common course numbering systems, common general 

education requirements, and transfer associate’s degrees rely on academic alignment to 

facilitate the transfer of credit.

• Block transfer. Through articulation agreements, four-year colleges and universities accept a 

designated associate’s degree or course sequence as a block, rather than reviewing transcripts 

on a course-by-course basis to determine where transfer credit will be granted. Typically, block 

transfer is available only if the lower division course sequence or degree was completed in full. 

• Child Development Associate (CDA) credential. Issued by the Council for Professional 

Recognition, this credential is based on a set of competency standards. To earn this credential, a 

teacher must hold a high school diploma or general equivalency diploma, complete 120 hours of 

formal early childhood education training, have 480 hours of relevant work experience, and 

prepare a portfolio demonstrating mastery of the competency standards. 

• Common course numbering system. These systems ensure that equivalent courses at different 

institutions have the same title, number, and prefix. All such equivalent courses will be accepted 

in transfer as if they had been taken at the receiving campus.

• Course-by-course transfer of credits. This type of transfer is based on course equivalency, which 

is determined by reviewing the course syllabi and, in some cases, the qualifications of the faculty 

teaching the course at the sending institution. Courses that are equivalent are comparable and 

may be transferred from one institution to another. 

• Early childhood educator. For the purposes of this report, this term encompasses child care 

providers who work with young children from birth through the early elementary grades, 

preschool teachers in public and private settings, and teachers working with elementary school 

students in grades K–3.

• Regional articulation agreement. These formal agreements between two or more colleges and 

universities determine how one institution will accept and apply course credit from another. 
Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

A Study of State Policies Covering the Early Care and Education Workforce

12

Articulation agreements are generally for specialized professional programs offered at colleges 

that can be applied to a specific program/major at the receiving university. 

• Reverse transfer. This type of transfer occurs when a student transfers from a four-year IHE to a 

two-year IHE. Credits earned at a four-year college or university are transferred to a community 

college and applied toward an associate’s degree.

• Statewide articulation agreement. These agreements specify how courses taken at two-year 

IHEs must count toward degree requirements at four-year IHEs within that state. Statewide 

articulation agreements are typically focused on transfer from public community colleges to 

public four-year universities within the state.

• T.E.A.C.H. (Teacher Education and Compensation Helps) scholarship program. This national 

scholarship model aims to increase the qualifications of the early childhood workforce. The 

program links continuing higher education with increased compensation and requires that 

recipients and their sponsoring child care programs share in the cost.

• Transfer associate’s degree. This type of block transfer grants full junior-standing to a student 

who has successfully completed an associate’s degree, provided that other terms of the 

articulation agreement are met. It also is referred to as a 2+2 degree. 
Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

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II. Statewide Articulation and Transfer Policies

The six states examined in this study have instituted one or more statewide articulation policies to create 

transparent and seamless transfer pathways so that students may transfer without losing credits. These 

policies include block transfer of transfer associate’s degrees, guaranteed admission after completion of a 

transfer associate’s degree, block transfer of common general education requirements, and common 

course numbering. This chapter discusses these policy approaches, detailing general articulation policies 

that may benefit ECE students and policies that specifically address the ECE discipline. 

Transfer Associate’s Degrees and Guaranteed Admission

Transfer associate’s degrees and guaranteed admission are related policies (see Exhibit 7). Transfer 

associate’s degrees are designed to seamlessly transfer between two-year IHEs and four-year IHEs. 

These degrees transfer as a block, and students enroll in their four-year degree programs with junior 

status. Guaranteed admission policies amplify the value of a transfer associate’s degree by requiring 

four-year degree programs to admit those students who have earned their transfer associate’s degrees. 

All six states established statewide “transfer associate’s degrees” in ECE, which allow 

students to block-transfer credits into four-year IHEs and enter with junior status. 

Transfer associate’s degrees are commonly referred to as 2+2 degrees because they are designed to 

fulfill the first two years of a four-year pathway to the baccalaureate degree. In this manner, 2+2 

degrees address issues of student costs and time to degree because students enter the four-year degree 

program with the opportunity to complete their bachelor’s degree in two years. Because transfer 

associate’s degrees transfer as a block, the need for receiving institutions to conduct course-by-course 

evaluations to determine if and how a student’s coursework will transfer is diminished. 

Exhibit 7. States with transfer associate’s degrees and guaranteed admission 

Number 

of states California Florida Indiana Massachusetts 

New 

Mexico Pennsylvania

Transfer associate’s degree 6 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Guaranteed admission 3 Yes Yes — Yes — — 

Exhibit reads: All six states established statewide transfer associate’s degrees in ECE. 

Note: “—” indicates that the state did not have the policy or practice in place.

Sources: State policy documents and higher education websites; interviews with state-level stakeholders, 2017‒18.

The type of transfer associate’s degree awarded varied by state. In Florida, New Mexico, and 

Pennsylvania, the transfer associate’s degree in ECE was an associate of arts degree. In California, 

Indiana, and Massachusetts, the transfer associate’s degree in ECE was an associate of science degree. 

The type of associate’s degree did not always align with the type of baccalaureate degree program into 

which the associate’s degree would transfer. For instance, Pennsylvania’s statewide program-toprogram agreement for prekindergarten–4 (PK–4) education transferred an associate of arts degree into 

a bachelor of science program. 

In addition to statewide transfer associate’s degrees, two-year IHEs in five of the six states continued to 

offer ECE associate’s degree programs that might include some transferable coursework but were not 
Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

A Study of State Policies Covering the Early Care and Education Workforce

14

designed for transfer into a four-year degree program. Students who enrolled in these terminal degrees 

often sought careers that did not require four-year degrees (e.g., early childhood teachers working 

outside public school systems). These terminal degrees include more professional and technical 

coursework and less general education coursework, whereas the transfer associate’s degrees require 

more transferable general education courses and fewer professional (i.e., ECE-specific) courses. New 

Mexico was the only state where all ECE associate’s degrees were designed to be fully transferable to 

any public IHE in New Mexico. The state’s teacher licensure representative explained, 

Every single institution of higher education has the same program for the associate’s level 

and the same program for the bachelor’s level. . . . Every institution of higher ed[ucation]

has the same process, standards, course curriculum. It’s fully aligned across the state. 

Three states offered a guarantee of admission for students who completed the transfer 

associate’s degree, although application and program terms could limit participation.

California, Florida, and Massachusetts offered guaranteed or priority admission for students who earned 

transfer associate’s degrees (see Exhibit 8), although these three states placed some limitations on

students’ access to guaranteed admission policies. Indiana, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania did not offer 

guaranteed admission to students holding a transfer associate’s degree. In these three states, 

admissions policies were set at the institutional level. 

In California, the associate’s degree for transfer also was known as a “degree with a guarantee.” 

Community college students who earned an associate’s degree for transfer, which consists of up to 

60 transferable units of coursework in general education, major preparation, and electives, were 

guaranteed admission to a California State University campus with junior standing. Once admitted to a 

California State University campus, students needed to complete only 60 additional units to earn a 

bachelor’s degree in the same field. 

Exhibit 8. States with common general education requirements and course numbering systems

Number 

of states California Florida Indiana Massachusetts 

New 

Mexico Pennsylvania

Common general education 

requirements

6 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Common course numbering 

system implemented

3 Yes Yes — — Yes — 

Common course numbering 

system in development

2 — — Yes Yes — — 

Other course equivalency 

system

3 — — Yes Yes — Yes

Exhibit reads: All six states have established common general education requirements.

Note: “—” indicates that the state did not have the policy or practice in place.

Sources: State policy documents and higher education websites; interviews with state-level stakeholders, 2017‒18; Education Commission of 

the States 2016.

One limitation to this “guarantee” in California was that it did not apply to IHEs in the University of 

California system, although in 2018, the University of California system was working with California 

community colleges to begin accepting associate’s degrees for transfer and offering admission 
Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

A Study of State Policies Covering the Early Care and Education Workforce

15

guarantees. The Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities also was working with 

California community colleges to offer associate’s degrees for transfer to students and guaranteed 

admission to 36 private, nonprofit IHEs in California. Another limitation to California’s guaranteed 

admissions policy was that students interested in attending “impacted” IHE campuses or degree 

programs, where too many students applied for admission, either needed to meet additional admissions 

requirements or were accepted into a different campus or degree program.

In Massachusetts, all state university systems offered the guaranteed admission for transfer associate’s 

degree students, but guaranteed admission for ECE students was contingent on earning a minimum 2.75 

grade point average and a passing score on the Communication and Literacy Skills Test of the 

Massachusetts Test for Education Licensure. In Florida, PK–3 teacher preparation programs were 

considered “limited access” degree programs, which meant additional requirements had to be met, such 

as a minimum grade point average, minimum grades required for specified courses, and passing the 

teacher licensure examination before admission. Moreover, Florida students might not necessarily have 

been admitted to their first-choice university, or they might have been admitted to the university but 

not to their degree program of interest. As one senior administrator from the University of Florida 

system explained, “Some of the students are not happy with the fact that they may not be transferring 

into the institution they want or into the major that they want. That can be a bone of contention.” 

Common General Education Requirements

All six states offered block transfer of common general education requirements into bachelor’s 

degree programs, which can benefit ECE students who begin their studies at a two-year IHE 

and later transfer to a four-year IHE. 

If a transfer associate’s degree creates a 2+2 pathway, then common general education requirements 

composed of lower division coursework create a 1+3 block transfer mechanism because they cover the 

amount of coursework that four-year degree students would be expected to complete in their first year. 

All six states established statewide transfer of lower division general education courses (see Exhibit 8). 

These foundational blocks reflected agreement between two-year and four-year IHEs regarding the 

content, competencies, and learning outcomes to be expected of all first-year IHE students. In California, 

Florida, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, the general education block equated to 30 transferable credit hours, 

whereas in Massachusetts and New Mexico, it was slightly more (34 and 35 credit hours, respectively).

As one New Mexico transfer student described, “All my credits [applied] to my bachelor’s degree,” 

which “gave me the option to take those [general education] classes at the community college.” 

Despite these common general education requirements, a significant amount of course transfer still 

happened on a course-by-course basis. Course-by-course transfer occurs because many students 

transfer prior to completing the transfer associate’s degree or prior to — or in conjunction with — 

completing common general education requirements. Some states and their IHEs have worked to make 

course-by-course transfer more seamless, such as by mandating the implementation of common course 

numbering and making course transfer libraries available online to allow stakeholders to see which 

courses are transferable between institutions in their state. 
Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

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Common Course Numbering and Other Equivalency Systems

Three states had implemented common course numbering, three states had established some 

other course equivalency system, and two states were in the process of developing common 

course numbering.

California, Florida, and New Mexico had all implemented common course numbering systems (see 

Exhibit 8). Common course numbering systems assign common course numbers for equivalent courses 

at participating institutions. These systems allow faculty, staff, and in some cases students to track 

which courses will transfer and how they will transfer. In other words, these systems indicate whether

courses will transfer for an equivalent number of credit hours, and whether they will apply toward

general education, major, or elective requirements. Even when states have articulation policies that 

promote transfer through common general education requirements and transfer associate’s degrees, 

common course numbering systems can streamline course-by-course transfer. 

California’s Course Identification Numbering System assigned and cataloged descriptors of frequently 

transferred courses between the state’s three higher education systems (i.e., California Community 

Colleges, California State Universities, and the University of California), as well as many private IHEs in 

the state. Florida’s Statewide Course Numbering System was used at all public institutions and 

participating private IHEs in Florida. 

In response to the concerns expressed by admissions personnel and a concern over 

unnecessary repetition of courses by transfer students, Florida developed a common 

course numbering system to facilitate the transfer of credit for equivalent courses 

among the state’s colleges and universities (Florida Department of Education 2014, 2). 

New Mexico’s statewide common course numbering system considered courses to be equivalent if 

80 percent of the student learning outcomes in the two courses were aligned. Equivalent courses were

then assigned a common course number and listed in the state’s common course catalog. 

Indiana, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania did not have common course numbering systems as of the 

2017‒18 school year, but each of these states had an alternative course equivalency system in place. 

Indiana’s TransferIN, Massachusetts’ MassTransfer, and Pennsylvania’s Transfer and Articulation Center

websites each maintained their state’s transfer course catalogues. Indiana’s TransferIN website, 

maintained by the Indiana Commission of Higher Education, included a Core Transfer Library of courses 

offered by its state IHEs. Most courses in the Core Transfer Library transferred as exact, one-for-one 

equivalents at the receiving institutions, although a small number of courses did not have exact 

equivalents and transferred as departmental or general electives. Massachusetts’ MassTransfer website 

was maintained by the Department of Education and allowed students to find general education courses 

at their two-year IHE that would satisfy the core requirements at the commonwealth’s public four-year 

IHEs. The Pennsylvania Transfer and Articulation Center website was maintained by the Department of 

Education’s Office of Postsecondary and Higher Education. It allowed stakeholders to find course 

equivalencies between all participating Pennsylvania Transfer and Articulation Center institutions, but it 

did not include courses transferable between all state-related IHEs because of varying levels of 

participation. For example, the Pennsylvania State University system participated in the commonwealth’s 

statewide general 30-credit framework block, but its commonly transferable courses were not listed in 

the Pennsylvania Transfer and Articulation Center website. IHEs in the Pennsylvania State University

system had their own course database and, as a receiving institution, they evaluated equivalency and 

determined transferability on a course-by-course basis.
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Although Indiana and Massachusetts had course equivalency systems in place, both states passed 

legislation to also develop common course numbering systems. Indiana’s Common Course Numbering 

Initiative required the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, in collaboration with state higher 

education institutions, to develop, implement, and maintain a common course numbering system for 

general education curriculum courses. Massachusetts was using the Performance Incentive Fund to 

support its state IHEs and University of Massachusetts campuses to identify equivalent courses as a step 

toward implementing a common course numbering system. 

The Role of ECE Industry Standards

In five of the six states, ECE industry standards played a role in statewide ECE articulation efforts by 

informing curricular alignment and facilitating articulation. In particular, the NAEYC developed two sets 

of standards3 to guide ECE professional preparation programs and specify what ECE professionals should 

know and be able to do. In addition, the Council for Professional Recognition developed a CDA

credential that ECE professionals can earn to demonstrate mastery of key competencies that are valued 

in the field.

Exhibit 9. States in which ECE industry standards played a role in statewide ECE articulation efforts

Number 

of states California Florida Indiana Massachusetts 

New 

Mexico Pennsylvania

NAEYC standards and 

competencies informed 

statewide ECE curricular 

alignment

3 — — Yes — Yes Yes

Students who hold a CDA 

credential may receive 

transfer credit toward an 

associate’s degree

1 — Yes — — — — 

Certificate programs fulfill 

requirements of the CDA 

credential and articulate with 

associate’s degree programs

3 Yes — Yes — Yes — 

Exhibit reads: In three of the six states, the NAEYC standards informed statewide curricular alignment. 

Note: “—” indicates that the state did not have the policy or practice in place.

Source: Interviews with state-level stakeholders, 2017‒18.

In three states, the NAEYC standards served as an anchor for curricular alignment. 

State-level stakeholders in Indiana, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania indicated that their state’s efforts to 

promote academic alignment between two-year and four-year preparation programs were grounded in

the NAEYC standards for ECE professional preparation programs and educator competencies (see 

Exhibit 9). For example, when Indiana developed the Transfer Single Articulation Pathway for ECE, 

faculty agreed that students awarded associate’s degrees were to demonstrate mastery of the skills and 

competencies outlined in the NAEYC standards. Furthermore, all ECE degree programs offered by 

Indiana’s single community college system, Ivy Tech, were NAEYC accredited. In New Mexico, the core 

 

3 These standards are the NAEYC Standards for Initial and Advanced Early Childhood Professional Preparation Programs and 

the NAEYC Professional Standards and Competencies for Early Childhood Educators. 
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competencies that make up the state’s universal ECE curriculum also were aligned with the NAEYC 

standards. In Pennsylvania, the program-to-program articulation agreement for degrees leading to PK–4 

teacher certification was aligned to the NAEYC standards, as were the Department of Education’s 

standards for PK–4 Certification. Faculty involved in developing the articulation agreement compared 

their own course and program content to the NAEYC competencies to determine whether students were 

receiving the necessary skills and training, according to a two-year faculty member. The resulting ECE 

transfer associate’s degree was composed of 30 ECE credits that aligned with the NAEYC standards and 

30 credits from the common general education requirements. A former member of Pennsylvania’s 

Transfer and Articulation Oversight Committee said that alignment to the NAEYC standards and outcomes 

provided “a real trust that, at the two-year program, we would be doing the necessary entry-level 

training for those competencies . . . for our students who are moving onto the four-year programs.”

In one state, articulation policies granted credit toward an associate’s degree for the CDA 

credential, and community college systems in three additional states offered stackable 

credentials for related certificate and associate’s degree programs. 

In some states, a CDA credential substitutes for a portion of the educational requirements needed for a 

preschool credential (National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning, 2018). 

To earn a CDA credential, a candidate must hold a high school diploma or general equivalency diploma

and be enrolled in a career technical program; complete 120 hours of formal early childhood education 

training; have 480 hours of relevant work experience; and prepare a portfolio demonstrating mastery of 

key competencies. ECE professionals may obtain the CDA credential to enter the workforce but later 

choose to increase their educational attainment. For example, they may decide to pursue an associate’s 

degree to advance their careers. 

In Florida, students could earn up to nine credits toward their associate’s degree after having earned a 

CDA credential (see Exhibit 9). Florida’s statewide ECE articulation agreement guarantees the transfer of 

nine credit hours toward an ECE associate’s degree for students who held child care certifications 

approved by the state board of education (Florida Department of Education n.d.). Approved 

certifications included the CDA credential plus other certificates and credentials issued by the Florida 

Department of Children and Families and Florida Department of Education. To receive transfer credit, 

students needed to provide proof that their credential was issued within five years prior to enrolling in 

the associate’s degree program. 

Although other states lacked policies mandating transfer credit for the CDA credential, two-year IHE

systems in Indiana, California, and New Mexico had created stackable credentials. In these three states,

credits earned toward a certificate that fulfilled the CDA requirement for 120 hours of formal training 

also could be applied toward an associate’s degree if students chose to continue their education. For 

example, Indiana’s Ivy Tech Community College system offered an 18-credit-hour certificate at its 

campuses, which fulfilled the requirements for the CDA credential. Nine credits (three courses) from the 

certificate program were transferable into the statewide transferable associate of arts degree (the 

Transfer Single Articulation Pathway). California and New Mexico IHEs offered similar stackable 

certificates. For example, in New Mexico, the ECE courses that were required for earning a Child 

Development Certificate were the same courses required for the ECE associate’s degree and were fully 

transferable toward that degree. 

Although Pennsylvania and Massachusetts did not have statewide policies that allowed students to 

obtain transfer credit for the CDA credential, representatives of those states recognized the importance 
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of articulating this credential. For example, a state agency representative in Massachusetts stated, 

“With our current career latticework, we’re embedding more formally the CDA as a part of the pathway, 

so that by doing so it would signal to institutions across the board that this is something that they should 

be providing and articulating to the AA because it’s clearly shown as a step towards an AA.” 

Other Statewide Transfer Policies

Other statewide transfer policies designed to support students pursuing ECE degrees included reverse 

transfer policies, dual enrollment programs, and inclusion of private IHEs in articulation agreements. 

Two states, Florida and Pennsylvania, had statewide reverse transfer policies; however, Pennsylvania’s 

policy did not include state IHEs outside the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. Indiana and 

Massachusetts had statewide initiatives to increase reverse transfer options for students, but no 

legislation had been enacted as of 2017‒18. In New Mexico, ECE courses could be taken at any public 

IHE and count toward an associate’s and/or a bachelor’s degree at any other public IHE. 

All six states provided opportunities for high school students to earn college credit that could be applied 

toward an ECE degree. Indiana’s Course Transfer Library on the TransferIN website included a dual-credit 

cross-walk to assist high school students. In Indiana, students could take dual-credit coursework to earn a 

CDA credential, which could then transfer into an associate’s degree program. They also could earn 

college credit by taking exams for the College-Level Examination Program and Advanced Placement 

programs. In Massachusetts, the Commonwealth Dual Enrollment Partnership offered opportunities for 

high school students to take college-level courses at a discounted price and earn credit toward high 

school completion and their future college degrees. New Mexico’s 2015 legislation allowed any course 

included in the state’s general education core to be offered to high school students for dual credit and 

required IHEs to count such courses toward lower division course requirements. Pennsylvania’s 

secondary schools at career tech centers helped students earn the CDA credential that articulated into 

the associate’s degree on the ECE program-to-program transfer pathway. 

Most of the six states allowed private IHEs to participate in statewide articulation policies. Respondents 

in most states also noted that an increasing number of private and out-of-state IHEs were interested in 

entering into regional and statewide articulation agreements. However, private IHEs were not 

considered key stakeholders or drivers of statewide articulation policy, and some states did not include 

information about participating private IHEs on their articulation websites. Furthermore, although states 

may invite private IHEs to enter into statewide articulation agreements, one respondent noted that they 

often entered into separate, regional articulation agreements.

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III. State-Level Governance and Oversight

All six states in this study had a governing body that oversaw statewide articulation and transfer. 

Generally, governing bodies were composed of state agents or representatives from two-year and fouryear IHEs that helped develop the statewide articulation agreement. This section provides an overview 

of the various types of governing bodies, the roles and responsibilities of the governing bodies in each 

state, and the stakeholders involved in these processes. 

Governance Structure: Articulation Oversight Committees and 

Agencies

Four states established at least one statewide committee to oversee articulation; the remaining 

two states oversaw articulation through a state higher education agency or system office.

To facilitate credit transfer and coordinate articulation across IHEs, all six states had at least an 

administrative office or an oversight committee that oversaw articulation efforts. These governing 

bodies were tasked with overseeing the development of the articulation policy and implementing the 

policy at the IHE level for various degree programs, including ECE. The structure of these committees 

varied by state contexts and needs.

In Florida, Indiana, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania, articulation was governed by a statewide committee

(see Exhibit 10). These committees were convened by state education agencies and often received 

resources from the agency to support articulation policy development and the ongoing monitoring of 

implementation. The purpose of these committees was to allow stakeholders across the state to provide 

input on statewide articulation, based on their experiences and expertise in higher education. California 

and Massachusetts did not have statewide committees overseeing articulation policies in 2017‒18; 

rather, they managed articulation and transfer directly through state higher education agencies and 

system offices. In California, this included the Chancellor’s Offices and Academic Senates of the 

California State University, University of California, and California community colleges systems. In 

Massachusetts, it was the Board of Higher Education. 

Exhibit 10. Primary type of governing body for statewide articulation efforts, by state 

Number 

of states California Florida Indiana Massachusetts 

New 

Mexico Pennsylvania

Statewide articulation 

committee

4 — Yes Yes — Yes Yes

State higher education 

agency or system office

2 Yes — — Yes — — 

Exhibit reads: Four of the six states used a statewide articulation committee to oversee articulation efforts.

Note: “—” indicates that the state did not have that type of governing body.

Sources: State policy documents and higher education websites; interviews with state-level stakeholders, 2017‒18.

In states with oversight committees, a state higher education agency often convened the committee, 

working with and providing support to the committee. This support came in various forms, such as 

funding or staff support. For example, in Florida, faculty and staff who participated in events or meetings 

of the Articulation Coordinating Committee were reimbursed for their attendance. In addition, this 
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committee received support from staff in the Florida Department of Education Office of Articulation. 

Respondents in Massachusetts, Indiana, and New Mexico also highlighted the importance of staff support 

for successful statewide articulation committees. 

The specific roles and responsibilities, as well as the level of involvement and oversight of these 

governing bodies, differed within each state (see Exhibit 11). 

Exhibit 11. Roles and responsibilities of states’ primary articulation governing bodies, by state

State Primary oversight body Roles and responsibilities

California Chancellor’s Offices and Academic 

Senates of the three higher education 

systems

Oversee transfer associate’s degrees, approve general 

education coursework, and establish guidelines for course 

equivalencies.

Florida Articulation Coordinating Committee Approve common prerequisites, approve course 

equivalencies, oversee implementation of statewide 

agreements, and recommend articulation policy changes. 

Indiana State Transfer and Articulation 

Committee

Develop statewide articulation agreements for specific 

undergraduate courses, develop statewide transfer 

associate’s degrees for the associate of arts and associate 

of science degrees, and publicize these policies. 

Massachusetts Board of Higher Education Set the mission for and coordinate the state system of 

public higher education. 

New Mexico Articulation and Transfer Committee Develop and oversee statewide common course numbering 

and the articulation system.

Pennsylvania Transfer and Articulation Oversight 

Committee 

Develop course equivalencies, transfer associate’s degrees, 

and requirements for education degrees; identify needed 

changes to existing degrees to ensure accreditation. 

Governance Process and Roles 

The governing bodies in each state, including articulation oversight committees and state higher 

education agencies, performed several functions, including developing and updating articulation policy, 

facilitating adherence to the policy, and reviewing and evaluating articulation policy. 

Policy Development and Updates

In all six states, legislative mandates drove statewide articulation efforts. Generally, these mandates 

required IHEs to create student transfer pathways from two-year to four-year IHEs with minimal or no 

loss of credit. To do so, these mandates often required IHEs to align curriculum, competencies, and/or 

standards for general education and degree programs. The legislatures, however, left this coordination 

and the development of statewide articulation policies and procedures to the articulation governing 

bodies in each state. 

In Florida, Indiana, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania, oversight committees played a key role in developing

the statewide articulation policy. The representatives on these committees met periodically to review 

and update the agreements as needed, often based on changes in state policy or legislation, teacher 

licensure/certification, and/or the IHE curriculum. If the state used a statewide general education core 
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and/or common course numbering system, then the governing bodies were charged with coordinating 

and maintaining those policies as well.

To facilitate a statewide articulation policy, curriculum must be aligned across two-year and four-year 

IHEs. For ECE, this includes alignment of ECE curricula and associated competencies. Five states 

convened faculty working groups to align curriculum and associated competencies and learning 

standards across public institutions to facilitate the consistency necessary for block transfer of an 

associate’s degree into a bachelor’s degree program. See the “Developing Policies for Academic 

Alignment” section for more information on how IHEs aligned curriculum.

Facilitating Adherence to Articulation Policy 

An important component of statewide articulation is ensuring that all IHEs included in the agreement 

adhere to the statewide policy through a combination of monitoring implementation and enforcement. 

In addition, some states offered performance-based funding to encourage IHEs to follow the state’s 

articulation policy. These strategies could be used singularly or in tandem to promote the articulation 

policy at all public IHEs in the state. 

In three states, a statewide oversight committee had an active role in monitoring and enforcing 

the statewide articulation agreement.

In Florida, Indiana, and New Mexico, the oversight committee had an active, ongoing role in monitoring 

and enforcing the statewide policy after the policy was developed (see Exhibit 12). The Florida 

Articulation Manual explicitly stated that the Articulation Coordinating Committee was responsible for 

“recommending articulation policy changes to the Higher Education Coordinating Council, the State 

Board of Education, and the Board of Governors” (Florida Department of Education 2014, 2). In Indiana, 

the Commission for Higher Education was responsible for overseeing the work of the Statewide Transfer 

and Articulation Committee and submitting an annual progress report to the legislature on the status of 

course and program transfer (Indiana Commission for Higher Education 2004). The Articulation and 

Transfer Committee in New Mexico met several times annually to monitor and guide implementation of the 

state’s articulation policies (New Mexico Higher Education Department n.d.). Although Pennsylvania had

an existing oversight committee chaired by the state secretary of education, the committee has not met 

since 2015 (Pennsylvania Transfer and Articulation Center 2018). In 2017‒18, all inquiries about transfer 

and articulation were directed to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary 

and Higher Education (Pennsylvania Transfer and Articulation Center 2018). 

Exhibit 12. Approaches to facilitating adherence to statewide articulation policies, by state

Number 

of states California Florida Indiana Massachusetts 

New 

Mexico Pennsylvania

Monitoring and enforcement 

through governing body

3 — Yes Yes — Yes — 

Encouragement through 

performance-based funding

4 — Yes Yes Yes Yes — 

Exhibit reads: Three of the six states used a centralized governing body to monitor and enforce statewide 

articulation policies.

Note: “—” indicates that the state did not have the practice in place.

Sources: State policy documents and higher education websites; interviews with state-level stakeholders, 2017‒18.
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Oversight committees often offered an appeals process when articulation from a two-year to a four-year 

IHE did not go smoothly. Students could make their case why credits should have transferred, and the 

oversight body would determine whether the IHE should accept such credits. Although Pennsylvania, 

California, Florida, and Massachusetts offered an appeals process at the state level, many respondents 

noted that the appeal process was used infrequently, if ever. 

In California, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, higher education system offices and individual IHEs had

more latitude to determine how articulation would be implemented. In these states, IHEs were granted 

more flexibility in determining the curriculum, degrees offered, and articulation procedures that best 

met the needs of their communities and students if they followed the overarching statewide policy. 

With this flexibility came fewer and less centralized monitoring and enforcement activities because 

these IHEs were less actively managed at the state level. 

For example, in California, the Chancellor’s Offices of all three higher education systems (the California 

community college, California State University, and University of California systems) had responsibility 

for making and implementing articulation policy, in conjunction with the systems’ Academic Senates. As 

a result, the three systems negotiated with each other to establish the details of transfer policy. Another 

example of less centralized oversight of articulation existed in Massachusetts. In this state, the 

Department of Higher Education, which provides staff support to the Board of Higher Education, played 

a coordinating role in the ongoing management of articulation. The Department of Higher Education 

provided guidance to IHEs, dictated whether programs had degree-granting authority, and controlled 

whether an institution’s information was included on the MassTransfer website. However, the IHEs 

themselves were responsible for reviewing and amending policies, managing student appeals processes, 

and designating the central contact at each IHE for implementing transfer policies.

In four states, performance-based funding encouraged IHEs to use the state’s articulation policies. 

Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, and New Mexico incentivized IHEs to adopt articulation agreements 

through performance-based funding (see Exhibit 12). Each state implemented this model differently. 

Florida, Indiana, and New Mexico’s performance-based funding models for distributing state 

appropriation dollars to IHEs include student completions. Because IHEs get “credit” when students 

complete a degree, it is in the institutions’ interests to help students complete a degree quickly and 

efficiently. These policies encourage IHEs to fully implement articulation policies. An IHE registrar in New 

Mexico explained that performance-based funding seemed to have positively impacted articulation:

The side effect of that process, in addition to putting the motivator there to getting 

students over the finish line, was that we did see a lot more openness and accessibility in

conversations between schools. In terms of, okay, how do we get these credits moving 

back and forth so that we can get these awards happening quicker?

Massachusetts’ legislature in 2012 included funding in the Vision Project Performance Incentive Fund, 

which was dedicated to promoting adoption of common course numbering across all public IHEs. This 

led to an expansion of the common course numbering system, which began in the state’s community 

college system, to include the state universities and the University of Massachusetts. 

Three states shared other strategies to enforce the agreements. For example, Massachusetts would not 

publish an IHE’s information on the MassTransfer website if the IHE did not follow the statewide 

articulation policy. This ensured that the Department of Higher Education was not misleading students 
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about their ability to transfer without credit loss. As such, a consequence of not using the articulation 

policy could be lower enrollment numbers because of fewer transfer students. 

Other strategies shared by respondents to enforce articulation policies included not funding courses 

that did not comply with the common course numbering system and providing negative marks on 

performance metrics for IHEs that did not accept enough transfer students. 

Reviewing and Evaluating Articulation Policy

In addition, governing bodies also were tasked with reviewing and evaluating the state articulation 

policy to ensure that it was working smoothly. Respondents in four states emphasized the need for 

periodic reviews of existing articulation and alignment efforts to ensure they were kept up to date

because the content or structure of ECE courses and programs can shift across time. However, many 

stakeholders noted that although faculty were engaged at the outset in developing the articulation 

agreements, states varied in how they continued to engage faculty in reviewing and monitoring the 

agreements. Respondents in all six states said that data were collected on postsecondary student 

progress, but the state could not disaggregate these data sufficiently to evaluate their ECE articulation 

efforts. Examples of barriers to collecting data included a lack of capacity to analyze IHE- and programspecific trends or state privacy laws against collecting student data. In Pennsylvania, state law prohibits 

the collection of unit- or student-level data unless required by a federal or state mandate, and the end 

of a state mandate to collect semester-by-semester data for a two-year IHE annual report meant that 

the transfer law was the only vehicle for providing a data collection mandate.

Although all six states collected data on variables such as enrollment, degree completions, and graduation 

rates, no state analyzed ECE student progress from two-year to four-year IHEs with enough specificity to 

evaluate the articulation policy. According to respondents in these states, the inability to evaluate 

articulation efforts through data presented a challenge in effectively and efficiently updating the policies.

Stakeholder Involvement

Stakeholders involved in the development or oversight of statewide articulation policies included 

senior academic administrators or faculty from IHEs (six states), other IHE stakeholders such as 

registrars or students (six states), and ECE workforce development representatives (four states). 

Faculty and Senior Academic Administrators

Every state recognized the importance of guidance from faculty and other academic stakeholders in 

creating a statewide articulation policy. In all six states, senior academic administrators, such as 

academic deans or ECE department chairs, served as representatives to the statewide governing body

(see Exhibit 13). The manner in which faculty were also engaged, however, varied across states. For 

example, in Florida, faculty did not sit on the Articulation Coordinating Committee but participated in 

faculty working groups and provided input to the larger committee, which made the final decisions. In 

New Mexico, faculty sat directly on subcommittees of the Statewide Articulation and Transfer 

Committee. Faculty were mainly engaged in aligning academic curriculum and competencies. See the

“Developing Policies for Academic Alignment” section for more information.

States varied with regard to how they continued to engage faculty in reviewing and monitoring 

statewide articulation agreements. In at least two states, faculty were engaged at the outset in the 
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development of the articulation agreements but were not consistently engaged across institutions. In 

one state, for example, respondents indicated that their state lacked an ongoing process to continue to 

engage IHE faculty and staff. 

Exhibit 13. Types of stakeholders engaged in developing or overseeing statewide articulation efforts, 

by state 

Number 

of states California Florida Indiana Massachusetts 

New 

Mexico Pennsylvania

IHE faculty and senior 

academic administrator 

6 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Other IHE-level stakeholders 6 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

ECE workforce development 

representative 

4 — Yes Yes Yes Yes — 

Exhibit reads: All six states engaged IHE faculty members and senior academic administrators in developing or 

overseeing statewide articulation efforts. 

Note: “—” indicates that state respondents did not report that type of stakeholder was engaged in overseeing state articulation efforts.

Source: Interviews and focus groups with state-level stakeholders, IHE faculty, and IHE staff, 2017‒18.

Other IHE Stakeholders

All six states engaged representatives other than faculty, such as students and staff, including advising, 

registrar, and admissions staff, from two-year and four-year IHEs in the governing process (see 

Exhibit 13). Although faculty are content area experts, additional IHE stakeholders have important 

understandings of transfer processes and institutional policies that may be useful in creating and 

maintaining successful statewide articulation agreements. Students were engaged in Florida, Indiana, 

and New Mexico. In Florida and Indiana, one student representative served on the statewide 

articulation committee. In New Mexico, students were not members of the committee, but they could 

provide input to faculty who served on the committee to share their opinions and ideas. However, one 

respondent in New Mexico noted that no systematic process was in place for engaging students. 

In addition, California, Massachusetts, and New Mexico included IHE staff in the process. Massachusetts 

and New Mexico made concerted efforts to consult and include registrars when creating the articulation 

agreements to ensure that credits would transfer seamlessly, whereas California convened articulation 

officers across the state to provide input on the articulation agreements. However, in Pennsylvania, IHE 

staff respondents noted that no formal process was used to solicit their input.

ECE Workforce Development Representatives 

ECE workforce development representatives were involved in the development or ongoing monitoring 

of articulation policies in Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, and New Mexico (see Exhibit 13). For example, 

the Children’s Forum in Florida drafted and administered a survey to Florida state colleges about their 

articulation policies on associate of science degrees, with the cooperation of the Office of Articulation. 

The Children’s Forum is a statewide, not-for-profit membership organization that provides professional

development and support for the ECE workforce, including the T.E.A.C.H. scholarship. The results of the 

survey informed conversations between the Office of Articulation, the Articulation Coordinating 

Committee, the Children’s Forum, and the responding IHEs about IHE transfer and articulation practices 

that caused students who transferred within the state college system to lose credit in the transfer 
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process. This led to discussions about the possibility of using block transfer rather course-by-course 

evaluation of transfer credit for students who transfer within the state college system. 

In Indiana, a workforce development representative (the co-chair of the Early Childhood Higher 

Education Forum) was included on the early working group that discussed the development of the 

Transfer Single Articulation Pathway. This is a board committee of the Indiana Association for the 

Education of Young Children, which administers T.E.A.C.H. scholarships in the state. The forum also 

played an instrumental role in ensuring that courses that count toward a CDA credential would be 

included in the Transfer Single Articulation Pathway. In advocating for the CDA credential to be part of 

the pathway, ECE workforce development representatives could advocate for current students as well 

as current ECE professionals looking to acquire additional credentials to ensure that the articulation 

policy best fit their needs and ensured minimal loss of credit.

In New Mexico, the director of the New Mexico Association for the Education of Young Children, which 

administers New Mexico’s T.E.A.C.H. scholarship program, provided input on articulation decisions 

through participation in the state’s Early Childhood Higher Education Task Force. This task force was 

responsible for developing and implementing the statewide ECE transfer associate’s degree and a 

universal curriculum for ECE coursework throughout the state. 

Developing Policies for Academic Alignment

Faculty and/or IHE stakeholders provided input on the academic alignment of ECE degree 

programs in all six states through appointments to state-created working groups (six states) or 

working groups that came together without a mandate (three states).

To achieve the goals of articulation and transfer, academic alignment is meant to ensure that equivalent 

coursework or degrees at different institutions reflect agreed-on learning standards, content, or core 

competencies. As discussed previously, policies mandating academic alignment involve state oversight and 

formal input from institutional partners. In the six states, the development or implementation of academic 

alignment included specific initiatives and working groups to align ECE programs. Some efforts occurred 

outside, or concurrently with, the implementation of other statewide articulation policy efforts. 

In all six states, faculty were involved in academic alignment efforts through appointments to statecreated working groups (see Exhibit 14). In each state, oversight committees created these faculty 

working groups to advise them on the details and necessary competencies for providing high-quality and 

consistent ECE degree programs at all institutions. 

Exhibit 14. Methods for acquiring faculty stakeholder input, by state

Number 

of states California Florida Indiana Massachusetts New Mexico Pennsylvania

Faculty appointments to statecreating working groups

6 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Faculty working groups that came 

together without a mandate

3 Yes — — — Yes Yes

Exhibit reads: In all six states, faculty appointed to state-created workgroups worked on state academic alignment efforts.

Note: “—” indicates that state respondents did not report that practice. 

Source: Interviews with state-level stakeholders, 2017‒18.
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In California, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania, ECE faculty came together without statewide mandates for 

articulation, forming working groups on their own. These grassroots efforts in statewide articulation 

were motivated by faculty at two-year and four-year IHEs wanting to create seamless pathways for ECE

professionals to receive associate’s and bachelor’s degrees. In these states, grassroots efforts began 

prior to the mandates from the state to align curriculum and standards. 

New Mexico’s Early Childhood Higher Education Task Force emerged from informal meetings of ECE 

faculty during the 1990s when two-year and four-year IHEs across the state were redesigning their ECE 

programs in response to the creation of a new ECE teaching license. The task force became more 

formalized in the early 2000s when it developed a universal ECE curriculum that all IHEs in the state then 

adopted. “We looked at all the coursework leading to the degree at all institutions. We developed one 

set of coursework from freshman level all the way through to senior level that was implemented at all 

two-year and four-year institutions,” a task force participant explained. This universal ECE curriculum, 

which included common course titles, course descriptions, and course competencies, became the basis 

for the statewide articulation agreement that made these courses transferable across all IHEs in the 

state. As of 2017‒18, the task force continued to meet regularly, bringing together ECE faculty from all 

public IHEs and other key ECE stakeholders to refine and monitor implementation of the statewide ECE 

curriculum and transfer associate’s degree. 

In California, the Curriculum Alignment Project was a similar grassroots effort. This project created an aligned 

set of foundational ECE coursesto create more consistency among two-year IHEs. Participation in the 

Curriculum Alignment Project was voluntary, and the transfer of aligned courses began as a “handshake 

agreement” among participating IHEs. Without a mandate behind these grassroots efforts, it was not 

possible to ensure the implementation of aligned curriculum because IHE leaders and departments were fully 

able to discontinue their participation in these agreements at any time, without consequence. 

Although the statewide curriculum and consistent competencies created by these nonmandated faculty 

working groups were not enforceable at the state level, respondents noted that these grassroots efforts 

laid the foundation for statewide articulation efforts. In California, for example, the state selected the 

set of courses created by the Curriculum Alignment Project to serve as the model curriculum for all ECE 

transfer associate’s degrees. In Pennsylvania, ECE faculty from a variety of institutions came together 

through the Western Pennsylvania ECE articulation group to create articulation pathways for their 

students. The work of ECE faculty in the state was noticed by state-level education agents and furthered 

by the Transfer and Articulation Oversight Committee. A state-level respondent described how the 

grassroots efforts among ECE faculty had already accomplished a lot of the work before the state 

became involved, but the state was able to help faculty overcome barriers to completion. A state 

respondent explained,

[ECE faculty] had started to do some of this on their own but kept getting stuck. They 

were doing it regionally, so when the law passed . . . I was able to go to them and say, 

“Let us help take you the rest of the way,” and we helped to unstick them. 
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IV. IHE-Level Implementation of Articulation Policies

State-level articulation policies are intended to provide a framework for facilitating more seamless 

transfers of credit between two-year and four-year IHEs, but their ultimate impact may hinge on 

individual IHEs’ implementation of that framework. For example, IHEs may be responsible for designing 

their degree pathways and coursework in a manner that reflects state academic alignment requirements. 

In addition, IHEs must ensure that their student transfer procedures reflect any mandatory rules or 

guarantees outlined in statewide articulation agreements. Furthermore, IHEs may have some degree of 

discretion in determining how they will accept certain types of transfer credit and/or the authority to 

offer transfer benefits beyond those required by the state.

This chapter examines IHE-level activities to support the transfer and articulation of coursework toward 

a bachelor’s degree in ECE. It begins with a discussion of policies that IHEs have established to 

implement or expand on state-level articulation frameworks. It then discusses key roles that IHE faculty 

and staff play to carry out state- and IHE-level articulation policies. 

IHE-Level Transfer and Articulation Policies

Most IHEs (17 of 20) supplemented state-level articulation policies with intrastate and interstate 

regional articulation agreements formed between IHEs.

Although IHEs in the six states were required to honor the provisions of state-level articulation policies, 

they also had the authority to develop ancillary agreements with individual IHEs or groups of IHEs within 

or outside the state. Interview participants from nine of the 10 two-year IHEs and eight of the 10 fouryear IHEs indicated that their institution used regional agreements to supplement state-level articulation 

policies (see Exhibit 15). These agreements between four-year IHEs and their two-year feeder institutions 

served to clarify how courses from the two-year IHE would transfer, offer students additional transfer 

benefits, or extend transfer benefits to students not covered under state-level policies. In California, for 

example, IHEs have developed articulation agreements that identify whether and how specific courses 

from the two-year IHEs can be used to satisfy major or degree requirements at the four-year IHEs. For 

students pursuing a transfer associate’s degree through the state’s associate’s degree for transfer

program, these regional agreements are meant to offer additional clarity as to how the transfer credits 

students have earned will contribute to their bachelor’s degree. These agreements also provide a means 

for students not participating in the associate’s degree for transfer program to receive transfer credit on a 

course-by-course basis.
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Exhibit 15. Number of two-year and four-year IHEs that reported various articulation policies and 

practices, by institution type

Exhibit reads: Seventeen IHEs, including nine two-year IHEs and eight four-year IHEs, supplemented state-level 

articulation policies with regional agreements.

Source: Interviews and focus groups with state-level stakeholders, IHE faculty, and IHE staff, 2017‒18 (n = 10 two-year IHEs and 10 four-year IHEs).

Other types of regional articulation agreements were created to offer additional benefits for students 

seeking to transfer. For instance, a 2+2 agreement in place between Tallahassee Community College and 

nearby Florida State University established the TCC2FSU program. Students who complete an associate 

of arts program at Tallahassee will be guaranteed that at least 60 of their credits will transfer directly 

into their chosen major at Florida State. The TCC2FSU program also grants students additional benefits, 

such as individualized transfer counseling, support for applying to limited access majors at Florida State

that are oversubscribed and impose additional admissions requirements, access to transfer-specific 

scholarship opportunities, and the ability to purchase reduced-priced passes to campus recreation 

facilities at the university. 

Regional articulation agreements also served as a vehicle for supporting articulation with IHEs that fall 

outside state-level articulation policies, such as private or out-of-state institutions. Faculty and staff 

from a two-year IHE in Pennsylvania described having agreements with several private IHEs that bestow 

benefits similar to those outlined in the state’s transfer policies for public IHEs. Students who complete 

an ECE associate’s degree and meet grade point average requirements are guaranteed acceptance into 

the private institution with junior status. In many cases, students transferring under those agreements 

received transfer scholarship money as well.

A state administrator from Pennsylvania mentioned “innovative partnerships” that have emerged 

among IHEs to address gaps in state-level policy and guidance, noting how these collaborations have 

been responsive to student and workforce needs within their local community. However, stakeholders 

from other states cautioned against relying on a patchwork of individual agreements between IHEs 

because such agreements can be challenging to navigate and maintain. A state administrator from 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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Massachusetts underscored why the state has pushed for system-level approaches to create more 

consistency for students: 

[Individual agreements] can just be very confusing for community college students to try 

to navigate, like, “So, if I go to this four-year institution, I have to take this course, but if I 

go to this one, I have to take the other, and I changed my mind, and now my courses 

don‘t transfer.” 

Furthermore, keeping individual agreements with many different IHEs up-to-date across time can be 

burdensome for faculty and staff. An articulation specialist from a California IHE referred to the process 

of reviewing and revising agreements as the “black hole of articulation.” 

Faculty and staff from three of the 20 IHEs indicated that four-year IHEs often accepted credits 

from ECE transfer associate’s degrees to fulfill general education requirements and electives, 

not to fulfill ECE major requirements.

Although states’ transfer associate’s degree policies require IHEs to accept a certain amount of credits 

for students transferring in with those degrees, policies in five of the six states give four-year IHEs 

discretion in determining how to apply those credits toward their bachelor’s degree requirements. 

Faculty and staff from three IHEs in those states indicated that four-year IHEs generally accepted few if 

any of the ECE courses from students’ associate’s degrees to satisfy requirements for their ECE major. 

Instead, they tended to count ECE credits toward electives or general education requirements, or in 

cases where a student transferred in with an excess of two-year IHE credits, they might opt not to award 

any credit for the student’s ECE courses.

For example, a faculty member from a two-year IHE in California said that their partner four-year IHEs

accepted only nine of the 30 ECE units within their associate’s degree for transfer as credits toward the 

ECE major. A representative from a four-year IHE in Florida noted that ECE courses “only count as 

general education requirements or electives because they are at the 1000-, 2000- level. To get the BA, 

upper division courses have to be in the 3000-, 4000- level.” Because of the emphasis four-year IHEs 

place on upper division ECE coursework, students may be required to take similar but more advanced 

ECE courses once they reach their four-year program. A faculty member from a two-year IHE in California 

noted that students would sometimes become upset at having to take multiple courses on the same topic, 

but she noted that four-year IHEs’ courses had a different emphasis. As an example, she explained:

In our language and literacy [course], we’re going to talk about what do you do in circle 

time [teacher-led group instruction] to teach phonological awareness, where at the fouryear level, they’re doing a lot heavier look at research, and they might be coding 

children’s language and stuff like that. 

Because lower division ECE credits from a two-year IHE were unlikely to count toward an ECE major at a 

four-year IHE in their state, faculty members from two of the 20 IHEs indicated that for students who 

know from the outset that they plan to transfer to a four-year program, their most expedient pathway 

would be to focus on completing general education requirements at the two-year IHE rather than 

pursuing an ECE degree.
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Most two-year IHEs (nine of 10) offered separate ECE degree pathways for students who planned to 

transfer and students who planned to end their education with the associate’s degree.

At these nine IHEs, ECE students could choose from two or more degree options depending on their 

educational or professional goals (see Exhibit 15). Respondents described the associate of applied 

science degree as a terminal degree designed for students who plan to go directly into ECE positionsthat 

do not require a bachelor’s degree or teacher licensure. The associate of applied science degree requires 

more professional and technical coursework specific to the ECE field and fewer general education courses 

than the transfer associate’s degree, given its focus on preparing students for more immediate employment. 

The transfer associate’s degree requires students to take more general education courses and wait to take

more of their ECE major-specific coursework after they have transferred to a four-year IHE. 

Some two-year IHE faculty members stated that the associate of applied science degree has value because 

the pathway to a bachelor’s degree might be out of reach or undesirable for some students caused by

the cost of tuition and fees, students’ own professional goals, or their ability and interest in taking the 

requisite general education coursework for a licensure track degree. However, these faculty members 

also noted that students who earned an associate of applied science and later decided to pursue a four-year 

degree could encounter misalignment and loss of credits after enrolling in a bachelor’s degree program. Not 

all professional and technical courses from the two-year IHE are academically aligned to course offerings or 

part of the ECE major requirements at the four-year IHE. 

In both Florida and Indiana, state and IHE administrators described how ECE students who pursue the 

more employment-oriented associate of science degree — rather than the associate of arts degree that 

is part of the state’s 2+2 agreement — miss out on the transfer benefits afforded by the associate of arts

degree should they later decide to earn a bachelor’s degree. A state administrator indicated that the 

transferable associate of arts degree works well for students who know from the outset that their goal is 

a four-year degree, because it allows them to complete general education requirements for that degree 

at a lower tuition rate at a two-year IHE. However, the administrator stated that ECE students were not 

typically in that situation. He explained, 

Most of them don’t know in high school that that’s the degree they want to pursue, and

. . . they’re like, “Well, I know that I can get a job working with an early childhood center 

nearby, so let me find out what I need to get that job.” And they end up taking classes 

that are very specific to the job. 

Unlike schools in the other five states, two-year IHEs in New Mexico typically offer a single ECE 

associate’s degree program for both transfer and nontransfer students. However, designing a unified 

pathway that meets the needs of both types of students can be challenging. A faculty member from one 

New Mexico IHE explained, “That’s the one push-and-pull that’s a struggle here in New Mexico: meeting 

the workforce needs at the associate degree level but also meeting the upper division requirements at 

the four-year schools.” 
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Implementation Roles and Supports

In nearly all the IHEs (19 of 20), ECE faculty played several key roles in implementing 

articulation policies, such as evaluating course transferability (15 IHEs) and designing courses 

that reflect agreed-on competencies (12 IHEs).

Stakeholders from 15 of the 20 IHEs highlighted how ECE faculty members — with expertise in both the 

content and structure of their school’s ECE coursework — were largely responsible for determining 

whether and how courses from other schools would transfer (see Exhibit 16). These determinations 

were necessary for courses not covered under statewide common course numbering systems. To 

evaluate a course’s transferability, faculty members reviewed syllabi and, in some cases, examples of 

student work from the course in question to assess whether it is sufficiently equivalent to one their own 

course offerings. In some cases, IHE faculty reviewed the qualification of the faculty person who taught 

the class at the sending institution. Faculty conducted these equivalency reviews as part of their process 

for developing articulation agreements with other IHEs as well as in response to requests from transfer 

students with coursework that was not covered under existing agreements.

Exhibit 16. Number of two-year and four-year IHEs that reported various types of faculty and staff 

roles in implementing articulation policies, by institution type

Exhibit reads: Faculty and staff from 15 IHEs, including six two-year IHEs and nine four-year IHEs, reported that 

faculty members were responsible for evaluating course transferability.

Source: Interviews and focus groups with IHE faculty and staff, 2017‒18 (n = 10 two-year IHEs and 10 four-year IHEs).

Faculty and staff mentioned a variety of factors that influenced faculty decisions about course 

transferability, such as a course’s stated objectives, textbooks, and credit units. A staff member from a 

four-year IHE in California indicated that guidelines from their Academic Senate call for faculty to 

consider whether a course is “appropriate for a university degree in terms of its purpose, scope, and 

depth” when deciding whether to accept it. A faculty member from a four-year IHE in Florida recalled a 

situation in which her program refused to accept a course from a local two-year IHE because it 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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combined content that they covered in two courses into a single course. As a result, her program

deemed that the two-year IHE’s combined course did not adequately cover the objectives for either of 

their courses, and students were required to take both courses once they reached the four-year IHE. 

Faculty and staff from 12 of the 20 IHEs highlighted how ECE faculty played a lead role in designing 

courses that reflect the skills and competencies outlined in statewide or locally agreed-on curricular 

frameworks (see Exhibit 16). Faculty members often emphasized how ongoing collaboration between 

two-year and four-year IHEs helped ensure appropriate academic alignment between courses they 

treated as equivalent. “I think if you don’t have those conversations, that’s when this could fall apart,” a 

faculty member from a four-year IHE in Pennsylvania stated. “The face-to-face meetings and the followups through email and phone calls are really important.” 

ECE faculty also highlighted collaborative efforts between institutions to promote vertical alignment 

between lower and upper division coursework. For example, a faculty member from a New Mexico IHE

described regular meetings between two-year and four-year IHE faculty to ensure that upper division 

ECE courses built on and were not duplicative of the material covered in the two-year IHE’s lower 

division courses. Similarly, a faculty member from a two-year IHE in Pennsylvania described designing 

lower division ECE coursework based on the coursework requirements students were likely to face at a 

four-year IHE. For example, knowing that four-year IHEs often required ECE students to take a course on 

families during their senior year “because you need to know about kids and what they’re doing before 

you’re discussing how do you deal with families,” her two-year IHE’s ECE program decided not to require 

a stand-alone course on families but rather to embed that content into other lower division courses. 

Faculty and staff from 14 of the 20 IHEs noted how oversight and approval for ECE program decisions 

that affect articulation ultimately rested with senior leaders, such as deans, provosts, or vice presidents 

(11 IHEs), or with college-level governance bodies, such as an academic senate or curriculum and 

instruction committee (four IHEs; see Exhibit 16). A faculty member from a four-year IHE in Florida 

indicated that gaining input from senior leadership provided faculty a broader perspective on how their 

programmatic decisions could affect transfer and articulation. She related how the ECE department had 

approved an increase to their program’s grade point average entry requirement from 2.75 to 3.0, but an 

associate provost vetoed the decision because it would be overly restrictive for students transferring in 

from two-year IHEs, who had few other options for pursuing a four-year ECE degree.

Thirteen of the 20 IHEs reported having full- or part-time articulation specialists who helped 

manage the implementation of state articulation policies and facilitated the development of 

regional agreements.

To support faculty and staff in implementing articulation policies, more than half of the IHEs (13 of 20) 

employed articulation specialists responsible for coordinating their school’s efforts to institute articulation 

initiatives such as transfer associate’s degree pathways and common course numbering (see Exhibit 16). 

The three California IHE systems, for instance, had an articulation officer whose responsibilities included 

keeping faculty and staff informed about changes in state-level policies as well as shepherding the process 

for setting up associate’s degrees for transfer. A state-level administrator explained, “Typically, it’s the 

articulation officers on those campuses within the student services divisions who are really spearheading 

and working with the faculty and every department that’s working for an ADT.” 

In addition to supporting the implementation of state-level articulation policies, IHEs articulation 

specialists facilitated regional articulation agreements and served as liaisons with partner IHEs on 

articulation issues. On behalf of faculty and students, articulation officers managed course articulation 
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requests to and from other IHEs, negotiated provisions of regional agreements, and offered guidance 

and oversight on the transfer and articulation process. A faculty member from one California IHE lauded 

her school’s articulation officer as a “go-to” person for her questions and concerns related to 

articulation. She explained, 

It’s a voice; it’s an individual to have a conversation with about what’s going on for 

students or for programs from one institution to another. So, there’s one place to go for 

expert knowledge about that process.

Articulation officers also serve as resources for their counterparts in other IHEs. The California 

Intersegmental Articulation Council provides a forum for articulation officers from across the state to 

meet and discuss issues that affect their work. An articulation officer from one of the California two-year 

IHEs explained that the council has various committees and listservs that can answer specific questions 

related to the state’s common course numbering system, transfer associate’s degrees, or transfer in 

general. “Because we are such a tight-knit community, the articulation community across the state, 

every time there are questions or just lack of information, we always depend on each other statewide to 

answer those questions,” the officer commented.

Given the centrality of articulation specialists’ role in facilitating articulation efforts, faculty and staff 

from two IHEs indicated that limitations in their articulation specialist’s capacity to do the work — 

perhaps caused by an unmanageable workload or a lack of buy-in for the state’s approach to articulation

— can hamper a school’s development and implementation of articulation policies. 

In addition to articulation specialists, admissions or registrar’s office staff who review incoming transfer 

students’ transcripts and assign credit contributed to the development of informal course transfer 

agreements. As faculty and staff from 11 of the 20 IHEs highlighted, these individuals were ultimately 

responsible for applying the articulation rules outlined in state and local agreements, often with the aid 

of software applications or databases programmed with predetermined course equivalencies (see 

Exhibit 16). These staff members also might flag courses not covered by existing articulation agreements 

and refer them to appropriate faculty members to decide their transferability. Interview participants 

from four of the 10 four-year IHEs indicated that once a faculty member approved a course for transfer 

through this process, transcript reviewers could update their transfer equivalency software or databases 

to apply that decision for future students transferring in with the same course. A staff member from 

another four-year IHE mentioned using this practice in the past but described moving away from it 

because it led to inconsistencies with formal articulation agreements that had been negotiated directly 

with individual IHEs. 

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V. Transfer Supports for Students

This chapter describes the supports that community colleges and four-year IHEs provide to transfer 

students. These supports include student advising by faculty and staff on a variety of topics, and 

referrals to degree planning tools and online information about transfer. Other services aimed at 

transfer students include outreach programs in which four-year IHEs send representatives to two-year 

campuses to advise and recruit prospective transfer students, transfer centers that cater to the needs of 

transfer students, and orientations designed specifically for transfer students. This chapter also 

highlights some of the challenges students have encountered in their efforts to access transfer supports.

Advising

Faculty and staff advised students on topics including career paths (16 IHEs) and financial aid 

(15 IHEs), referred students to degree planning tools (14 IHEs), and referred students to 

transfer advisors (three IHEs). 

Advising on Career Paths

Respondents from 16 institutions, including nine two-year IHEs and seven four-year IHEs, described 

advising students on the multiple career paths available in the ECE field and the differing associate’s 

degrees associated with these paths (see Exhibit 17). In five of the six states in our study, students at 

two-year IHEs must choose between associate’s degrees that are optimized for transfer or associate’s 

degrees that are designed for direct entry into the workforce. Likewise, at some of the four-year IHEs in 

the study, students must choose between an academic program that leads to licensure to work in the 

public schools with preschool or early elementary grade students, or a separate degree track that 

prepares students to work in early childhood settings. Advisors reported giving students information 

about the process for earning an ECE teacher permit, credential, or license. A faculty member at one 

two-year IHE explained that advisors would ask students what their ultimate degree goal was and then 

share with them the specific pathway created by their degree program, which outlines required classes 

in the order they need to be taken.
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Exhibit 17. Number of two-year and four-year IHEs that reported providing various types of advising 

supports to students, by institution type 

Exhibit reads: Faculty and staff from 16 IHEs, including nine two-year IHEs and seven four-year IHEs, reported 

providing advising on career paths to students. 

Source: Interviews and focus groups with IHE faculty and staff, 2017‒18 (n = 10 two-year IHEs and 10 four-year IHEs).

Other resources include career centers’ job connector and career fairs, and required hours in the field 

(e.g., internships or jobs for course credit). One advisor reported that much of the career path support 

she provides is around “what happens after the associate’s and if they want to move beyond the 

positions they currently have in childcare centers,” because many of the students at her institution are 

pursuing additional education after they are already working in the ECE field. 

Advising on Financial Aid

Respondents from 15 institutions, including six two-year IHEs and nine four-year IHEs, said they engaged 

in discussions regarding ECE degree affordability, transfer scholarships, and general financial supports, 

such as textbook grants and open education resources during general advising sessions (see Exhibit 17). 

Several institutions offered financial supports specifically aimed at transfer students. For example, 

faculty and staff from a two-year IHE in Pennsylvania mentioned agreements and partnerships with 

several four-year IHEs that provided merit scholarships and funding for transfer students. A two-year IHE

in California provided scholarship funds for recipients’ last semester that also could be used at a fouryear IHE when the recipient transfers. 

Referrals to Degree Planning Tools

Advisors at 14 institutions, including seven two-year IHEs and seven four-year IHEs, introduced students 

to transfer planning tools and resources so students can better navigate the transfer process (see 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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Exhibit 17). These resources were designed to help entering transfer students understand the next steps 

to make efficient degree progress. Examples of these resources included a Pathways to Transfer tool at 

one two-year IHE in California, which provided a list of general and specific degree program

requirements at certain four-year IHEs and mapped out students’ academic and transfer plans. Other 

IHEs used Degree Maps, which acts as a transfer guide, providing students with admissions 

requirements, websites with credit transfer service, and major and degree plan information. A faculty 

member at a four-year IHE in California described having an online degree audit system for recently

admitted transfer students that illustrates how all the credits that transferred in from their two-year IHE 

were counted toward their bachelor’s degree requirements.

Transfer-Specific Advisors

In addition to general advising sessions, which include transfer information as necessary, three of the 

two-year IHEs provided transfer-specific advisors to support students planning to transfer (see 

Exhibit 17). These advisors specialized in the transfer process, kept up to date with transfer policy, and 

held relationships with advisors at four-year IHEs. A faculty member from a two-year IHE in Pennsylvania

described how transfer advisors specialized in course articulation across institutions: 

The Advising and Transfer Center knows, for example, if you transfer to [X Institution], 

these classes will transfer, these ones will not. If you go to [Y Institution], these ones will 

transfer, these ones will not. That level of detail, some of our [general] advisors know 

that, but our Advising and Transfer Center definitely knows that. 

General advisors will sometimes refer students to transfer advisors to ensure accuracy of transfer 

information. As noted by an advisor from a two-year IHE, “They get the best of both worlds. They get 

me, and they get the transfer counselor just to double check ourselves.” 

Efforts to Increase Access to and Use of Advising

Faculty and staff at all IHEs took steps to enhance students’ access to advising supports, such 

as offering numerous and flexible advising options (10 IHEs) and requiring mandatory advising 

sessions (three IHEs). 

Faculty and staff from 10 institutions, five two-year IHEs and five four-year IHEs, mentioned efforts to 

ensure students’ access to advising resources by offering a variety of flexible advising options to 

accommodate and support students’ fluctuating schedules (see Exhibit 18). Advising options included 

appointment-based or walk-in advising, online advising, evening and weekend advising hours, and 

advising at satellite locations off campus. 
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Exhibit 18. Number of two-year and four-year IHEs that reported strategies to increase students’ 

access to advising supports, by institution type 

Exhibit reads: Faculty and staff from 10 IHEs, including five two-year IHEs and five four-year IHEs, reported 

providing numerous and flexible advising options to increase students’ access to advising supports.

Source: Interviews and focus groups with IHE faculty and staff, 2017‒18 (n = 10 two-year IHEs and 10 four-year IHEs). 

Three institutions, including one two-year IHE and two four-year IHEs, made participation in general 

advising sessions mandatory to help ensure that transfer students understood how the articulation 

process applied to them, which of their courses would transfer, and how they could plan their 

coursework around bachelor’s degree requirements (see Exhibit 18). For example, an administrator 

from one of the four-year IHEs stated that mandatory advising was designed to ensure that “students 

get the most out of their transfer credits, and that students are taking the right courses and following 

the right sequences.” To enforce their advising mandate, the two four-year IHEs placed a hold on 

students’ registration until they met with an advisor. A faculty member from one of the IHEs explained 

that to remove this hold, students had to either schedule an individual advising appointment, which 

they were “strongly encouraged” to do, or call the registration office to actively opt out of advising.

Challenges Related to Student Advising 

Staff from four IHEs reported having inadequate staff resources for advising, while students 

reported advising challenges such as receiving inaccurate or insufficient guidance from 

advisors about the transfer process (five states) and financial aid (four states).

Although IHEs provided multiple advising supports, faculty, staff, and students described several 

challenges in meeting students’ advising needs. For example, while advisors from two-year and fouryear IHEs referred students to degree planning tools or online transfer resources, not all resources were 

described as “user friendly” nor did they always hold the most up-to-date information about articulation 

policy and agreements. Furthermore, if students are not required or encouraged to meet with an 

advisor, they may not be aware that these systems and supports exist. As a result, students may fail to 

take crucial coursework, waste time and money on courses that are nontransferable or do not meet 

degree requirements, and/or miss important deadlines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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Faculty and staff from four IHEs mentioned staffing constraints that limited the guidance that students 

received as they moved through the different stages of the transfer process. An ECE program 

administrator from a two-year IHE stated that students needed to have more advisors in their specific 

subject areas, and they needed to have longer sessions with an advisor to build rapport, share their 

goals, and fully discuss the implications of those goals and plans related to transfer. She mentioned that 

advising appointments were typically 15 minutes long and suggested that advisors should have at least 

an hour to meet with each student. 

A faculty member from a four-year IHE noted that, depending on the department, some faculty advisors 

were able to advise two-year IHE students who were planning to transfer in, but others were spread too 

thin advising students who were already enrolled. “Sometimes, they’re the only advisor for 900 students 

who are already at [our IHE], and so their focus is the students who are recently admitted,” she commented. 

Several faculty and staff members also noted challenges in supporting nontraditional students, such as 

re-entry, English learners, low-income students, and first-generation students. 

Reflecting faculty and staff perspectives on the difficulty of providing adequate advising resources, 

students from five of the six states reported difficulty obtaining information on coursework articulation, 

general education classes, degree requirements, and financial aid (see Exhibit 19). One student from 

Florida described scheduling multiple advising sessions with different advisors at a two-year IHE, in 

which he or she received conflicting information: 

I went through one counselor, and then the same week, I scheduled one on Monday, I 

scheduled another one on Wednesday, and another on Friday. I saw that there was a 

discrepancy between one counselor, another counselor, and another counselor.

Another student from New Mexico described being told by a two-year IHE advisor to reach out to her 

prospective four-year IHE herself to obtain information: 

[An advisor] told me that my best bet would be to reach out to the schools myself 

because they would better know what I need to do. . . . You would just think, as a

community college wanting you to transfer to a four year, there would just be a little bit 

more help with that. 
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Exhibit 19. Number of states in which students reported challenges related to advising supports

Exhibit reads: Students from five case study states reported receiving inaccurate or insufficient guidance on the 

transfer process.

Source: Student focus groups for each case study state, 2017‒18 (n = 6).

Students from four of the six states also mentioned challenges with advising related to financial aid (see 

Exhibit 19). For example, many students reported reaching federal financial aid limits without any 

warning. Students who have changed majors and/or transferred more than once may reach their 

lifetime eligibility maximums for Pell grants and/or federal financial aid prior to completing their 

degrees. Students across focus groups described no longer qualifying for Pell grants and other federal 

financial aid because they had reached these limits. These students explicitly mentioned that they were 

not made aware, they did not have warning, or advisors neglected to tell them about financial aid limits. 

Other Supports

IHEs supported transfer students by providing online information about transfer (12 IHEs), outreach 

programs (seven IHEs), transfer centers (six IHEs), and transfer student orientations (five IHEs).

Online Information About Transfer

Advisors from 12 institutions, seven two-year IHEs and five four-year IHEs, described providing transfer 

information on their institutions’ websites or through referral to statewide transfer websites (see 

Exhibit 20). Students could use these websites as an additional support to supplement or replace 

transfer information from advisors or outreach and recruitment programs. Although the information 

provided through these online resources was not always accurate or up-to-date, students could use 

them to evaluate their coursework independently and plan their course of study. 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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Exhibit 20. Number of two-year and four-year IHEs that reported providing other transfer-related 

supports to students, by institution type 

Exhibit reads: Faculty and staff from 12 IHEs, including seven two-year IHEs and five four-year IHEs, reported 

providing online information about transfer to support students in the transfer process. 

Source: Interviews and focus groups with IHE faculty and staff, 2017‒18 (n = 10 two-year IHEs and 10 four-year IHEs).

Transfer information on two-year IHE websites included links to institution-specific transfer policies, 

transfer events, college and university partnerships, and information about transferring to specific 

institutions. Two IHEs reported that they provide links to databases for course equivalencies and 

students can independently plan coursework for transfer using the course listed on the website. For 

example, one IHE’s website had links to a public Transfer Equivalency System database where students 

could look up coursework equivalencies at participating four-year IHEs. Similarly, the other IHE’s website 

allowed students to look up their transfer institution’s degree “check sheet” and use it to self-advise. 

Other IHEs referred students to statewide websites such as California’s assist.org, Indiana’s 

TransferIN.net, Massachusetts’s MassTransfer page, and Pennsylvania’s Transfer and Articulation 

Center. These websites are open to the public so that students, faculty, and other advisors can view 

transfer-related resources and information, such as the specific provisions of statewide policy, common 

general education and specific degree program requirements, and the transferability of course credit. 

These statewide websites have course equivalency database systems, similar to the IHEs’ equivalency 

databases described above, but these websites are managed at the state level. 

Outreach Programs

Faculty and staff from seven of the 20 IHEs described outreach and recruitment programs, in which 

representatives from four-year IHEs traveled to two-year IHEs to meet with faculty and advisors, host 

informational meetings, and/or have advising appointments with prospective transfer students (see 

Exhibit 20). For example, a two-year IHE in Florida established a permanent advising office that 

regularly hosted advisors from local four-year IHEs as part of the Direct Connect program. The four

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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44

year advisors held regular office hours on campus several days a week and were open to meet with 

prospective transfer students and advise them on the transfer process specific to their institution. 

ECE faculty members from a four-year IHE in another state conducted outreach efforts at local two-year 

IHEs to ensure that students who were interested in transferring could be advised on the process. To

facilitate outreach efforts, the ECE program established a tracking database of 1,400 potential transfer

students with whom faculty had held outreach and recruitment conversations. A faculty member from a

two-year IHE in the state described working in partnership with four-year IHEs to support such outreach 

activities so that students understand the transfer process, including “what paperwork is necessary, 

whom to talk to, what they need to transfer, [and] who to ask for a letter of references.” 

Transfer Center or Office

Four two-year IHEs and two four-year IHEs highlighted their school’s transfer center or relevant transfer 

office as a resource for students (see Exhibit 20). At the two-year IHEs, the transfer center or offices 

provided transfer advisement to prospective transfer students regarding coursework, degree 

requirements, scholarship information, and transfer timelines. They also connected students to advisors 

and resources from different four-year IHEs. Two-year IHEs’ transfer centers and offices also hosted 

transfer-related events such as transfer field trips, which allowed their students to learn about a fouryear IHE by visiting its campus, and celebrations for transferring students. A faculty member from a twoyear IHE described their transfer center’s workshops on the application process and costs of attending a 

four-year IHE. At the four-year IHEs, the transfer center or office was an open resource for newly 

admitted and prospective transfer students, providing transfer guides, information on course 

equivalency, transfer advising, and peer mentoring. 

Transfer Student Orientations 

Faculty and staff from five of the 10 four-year IHEs described offering transfer student orientations for

newly accepted students at the beginning of their first semester (see Exhibit 20). As opposed to 

traditional student orientations, transfer student orientations were tailored to support the needs of 

transfer students in an unfamiliar four-year IHE environment. They were often a student’s entry point to 

contacts and supports that a junior-level transfer may need in adjusting to the upper division 

coursework, academic rigor, and financial costs of a four-year IHE. Four-year IHEs offered a mix of 

online, in-person, mandatory, and optional transfer student orientations, and they also varied in focus: 

Some IHEs emphasized acclimating students to the IHE, while others emphasized degree planning and 

program navigation. For example, one IHE held a day-long, on-campus transfer student orientation in 

which students attended presentations about general education and major requirements and could 

meet with IHE or program representatives to ask questions.
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45

Conclusion

Higher education articulation is a concern for students across many academic disciplines. Articulation 

between ECE degree programs may serve as a model for other disciplines given that ECE degrees are offered 

at both two-year and four-year IHEs, and research and dialogue about the ideal competencies for early 

childhood educators are ongoing. The six states in this study are using higher education articulation policies 

to provide smoother degree pathways and transitions for current and future ECE professionals.

Several general articulation policy approaches were common across all six states, including transfer 

associate’s degrees, common general education requirements, and a statewide course equivalency 

system. Transfer associate’s degrees and common general education requirements were designed to 

increase the number of transfer credits that receiving institutions accept by instituting block transfer of 

applicable credits. All states had put into place formal course numbering systems or other course 

equivalency systems to help faculty, advisors, and students determine which courses would readily 

transfer between institutions. 

In addition, three of the six states offered some guarantee of admission for students who earned the 

transfer associate’s degree, although in some cases, ECE students benefitted from this policy only if they 

met additional admissions requirements, such as a minimum grade point average, prerequisite 

coursework for the major program, or successful testing on the state’s teacher licensing exam. Three of 

the six states provided performance-based funding tied to IHE graduation rates and/or the adoption of 

common course numbering conventions to encourage effective implementation of the state articulation 

policies. After initial policy development, three states continued to actively update policy and monitor 

implementation through appointed articulation committees.

Most IHEsreported supplementing state-level articulation policies with regional articulation agreements 

between sending and receiving institutions. Articulation specialists at more than half of the IHEs assisted with 

the development of regional articulation agreements and the implementation of statewide articulation 

policy. All but one of the 10 two-year IHEs offered separate associate’s degree programs for students who 

plan to transfer versus those who plan to pursue employment in the ECE field immediately after graduation.

IHE faculty were key stakeholders in both the development and the implementation of articulation 

policies. Faculty were engaged in policy development in all states through participation in (1) statewide 

articulation oversight committees, (2) discipline-specific subcommittees charged with establishing 

academic alignment across institutions and degree programs, and/or (3) grassroots faculty working 

groups that met to develop consensus regarding lower division ECE curricula and coursework. Within 

IHEs, faculty designed coursework aligned to statewide curricular frameworks and evaluated course 

equivalencies to make transfer decisions on a course-by-course basis. In conjunction with advising staff, 

faculty also provided guidance to students regarding degree options and career paths, financial aid, and 

transfer planning, drawing on a variety of articulation and transfer tools and resources.

Challenges in the implementation of articulation policies reported by faculty and staff included difficulty 

meeting the advising needs of their large caseloads of students. Students from five of the six states

reported insufficient guidance about the transfer process, including whether specific courses would 

transfer as well as financial aid limits encountered en route to the bachelor’s degree. 

Although this study focused specifically on articulation policies for early childhood educators, the 

examples and experiences of these states and IHEs also may be helpful to those seeking to develop 

more comprehensive career pathways for a wider range of fields. Findings may inform efforts to

facilitate the transfer of credits and coursework for students moving between institutions and support 

higher degree completion rates for both entry-level and mid-career professionals.

Higher Education Articulation Agreements: 

A Study of State Policies Covering the Early Care and Education Workforce

47

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www.ed.gov