Transfer Credit Policy

Credit for work previously completed at another college will be granted to transfer students under certain conditions. Coursework transferred or accepted for credit toward a program must represent collegiate coursework relevant to the program, with course content and level of instruction resulting in student competencies at least equivalent to those of students enrolled in FDTC's own degree, diploma, or certificate programs. In assessing and documenting equivalent learning and qualified faculty, FDTC will use recognized guides, which aid in the evaluation for credit. Such guides include but are not limited to the following:

The American Council on Education the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, and the National Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, and the National Association of Foreign Student Affairs. Students must have a "C" or better at the previous institution, the course must be required in the student's specified curriculum and must be within the time limits established for certain courses. A list of time limits on courses is available from the Registrar.

Only students who have been accepted by the College and have submitted official transcripts from each school previously attended will be awarded transfer credit. The Registrar will evaluate transfer credit, confer with faculty and departments when necessary, and award credit. The Registrar will award transfer credit after acceptance and prior to the end of the first semester of enrollment. Transfer credit appears in the "Earned Hours" portion of the transcript and grade points are not transferable from previous institutions.

Transfer: State Policies and Procedures

Regulations and Procedures for Transfer in Public Two-Year and Public Four-Year Institutions in South Carolina as Mandated by Act 137 of 1995

Background

Section 10-C of the South Carolina School-to-Work Transition Act (1994) stipulates that the Council of College and University Presidents and the State Board for Technical and Comprehensive Education, operating through the Commission on Higher Education, shall develop better articulation of associate and baccalaureate degree programs. To comply with this requirement, the Commission upon the advice of the Council of Presidents established a Transfer Articulation Policy Committee composed of four-year institutions' vice presidents for academic affairs and the Associate Director for Instruction of the State Board for Technical and Comprehensive Education. The principle outcomes derived from the work of that committee and accepted by the Commission on Higher Education on July 6, 1995, were:

An expanded list of 86 courses which will transfer to four-year public institutions of South Carolina from the two-year public institutions;
A statewide policy document on good practices in transfer to be followed by all public institutions of higher education in the State of South Carolina, which was accepted in principle by the Advisory Committee on Academic Programs and the Commission;
Six task forces on statewide transfer agreements, each based in a discipline or broad area of the baccalaureate curriculum.

In 1995 the General Assembly passed Act 137 which stipulated further that the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education "notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, shall have the following additional duties and functions with regard to the various public institutions of higher education." These duties and responsibilities include the Commission's responsibility "to establish procedures for the transferability of courses at the undergraduate level between two-year and four-year institutions or schools." This same provision is repeated in the legislation developed from the Report of the Joint Legislative Study Committee, which was formed by the General Assembly and signed by the Governor as Act 359 of 1996.

Act 137 directs the Commission to adopt procedures for the transfer of courses from all two-year public to all four-year public institutions of higher education in South Carolina. Proposed procedures are listed below. Unless otherwise stated, these procedures became effective immediately upon approval by the Commission and were to be fully implemented, unless otherwise stated, by September 1, 1997.

South Carolina Transfer and Articulation Center (SCTRAC)

All two- and four-year public institutions will publish information related to course articulation and transfer on the South Carolina Transfer and Articulation Center website (www.sctrac.org). Course equivalency information listing all courses accepted from each institution in the state (including the 86 courses in the Statewide Articulation Agreement) and their respective course equivalencies (including courses in the “free elective” category) will be made available on www.sctrac.org. This course equivalency information will be updated as equivalencies are added or changed and will be reviewed annually for accuracy. Additionally, articulation agreements between public South Carolina institutions of higher education will be made available on www.sctrac.org, will be updated as articulation agreements are added or changed, and will be reviewed annually for accuracy. All other transfer information published on www.sctrac.org will be reviewed at least annually and updated as needed.

Admissions Criteria, Course Grades, GPAs, Validations

All four-year public institutions will issue annually in August a transfer guide covering at least the following items:

The definition of a transfer student and requirements for admission both to the institution and, if more selective, requirements for admission to particular programs.
Limitations placed by the institution or its program for acceptance of standardized examinations (e.g., SAT, ACT) taken more than a given time ago, for academic coursework taken elsewhere, for coursework repeated due to failure, for coursework taken at another institution while the student is academically suspended at his/her home institution, and so forth.
Institutional and, if more selective, programmatic maximums of course credits allowable in transfer.
Institutional procedures used to calculate student applicants' GPAs for transfer admission. Such procedures will describe how nonstandard grades (withdrawal, withdrawal failing, repeated course, etc.) are evaluated; and they shall also describe whether all coursework taken prior to transfer or just coursework deemed appropriate to the student's intended four-year program of study is calculated for purposes of admission to the institution and/or programmatic major.
Lists of all courses accepted from each technical college (including the 86 courses in the Statewide Articulation Agreement) and the course equivalencies (including "free elective" category) found at the home institution for the courses accepted.
Lists of all articulation agreements with any public South Carolina two-year or other institution of higher education, together with information about how interested parties can access these agreements.
Lists of the institution's Transfer Officer(s) personnel together with telephone and FAX numbers, office address, and e-mail address.
Institutional policies related to "academic bankruptcy" (i.e., removing an entire transcript or parts thereof from a failed or underachieving record after a period of years has passed) so that re-entry into the four-year institution with course credit earned in the interim elsewhere is done without regard to the student's earlier record.
"Residency requirements" for the minimum number of hours required to be earned at the institution for the degree.

Coursework (individual courses, transfer blocks, statewide agreements) covered within these procedures shall be transferable if the student has completed the coursework with a "C" grade (2.0 on a 4. 0 scale) or above, but transfer of grades does not relieve the student of the obligation to meet any G.P.A. requirements or other admissions requirements of the institution or program to which application has been made.

Any four-year institution which has institutional or programmatic admissions requirements for transfer students with cumulative grade point averages (GPAs) higher than 2.0 on a 4.0. scale will apply such entrance requirements equally to transfer students from regionally accredited South Carolina public institutions regardless of whether students are transferring from a four-year or two-year institution.
Any multi-campus institution or system will certify by letter to the Commission that all coursework at all of its campuses applicable to a particular degree program of study is fully acceptable in transfer to meet degree requirements in the same degree program at any other of its campuses.

Any coursework (individual courses, transfer blocks, statewide agreements) covered within these procedures shall be transferable to any public institution without any additional fee and without any further encumbrance such as a validation examination, placement examination/ instrument, verification instrument, or any other structure, notwithstanding any institutional or system policy, procedure, or regulation to the contrary.

Transfer Blocks, Statewide Agreements, Completion of the AA/AS Degree

The following Transfer Blocks/Statewide Agreements taken at any two-year public institution in South Carolina shall be accepted in their totality toward meeting baccalaureate degree requirements at all four-year public institutions in relevant four-year degree programs, as follows:

Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences: Established curriculum block of 46-48 semester hours
Business Administration : Established curriculum block of 46-51 semester hours
Engineering: Established curriculum block of 33 semester hours
Science and Mathematics: Established curriculum block of 51-53 semester hours
Teacher Education: Established curriculum block of 38-39 semester hours for Early Childhood, Elementary, and Special Education students only. Secondary education majors and students seeking certification who are not majoring in teacher education should consult the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences or the Math and Science transfer blocks, as relevant, to assure transferability of coursework.
Nursing: By statewide agreement, at least 60 semester hours shall be accepted by any public four -year institution toward the baccalaureate completion program (BSN) from graduates of any South Carolina public associate degree program in nursing (ADN) , provided that the program is accredited by the National League of Nursing and that the graduate has successfully passed the National Licensure Examination (NCLEX) and is a currently licensed Registered Nurse.

Any "unique" academic program not specifically or by extension covered by one of the statewide transfer blocks/agreements listed in #4 above shall either create its own transfer block of 35 or more credit hours with the approval of CHE staff or will adopt either the Arts/Social Science /Humanities or the Science/Mathematics block. The institution at which such program is located will inform the staff of the CHE and every institutional president and vice president for academic affairs about this decision.

Any student who has completed either an Associate of Arts or Associate of Science degree program at any public two-year South Carolina institution which contains within it the total coursework found in either the Arts/Social Sciences/Humanities Transfer Block or the Math/Science Transfer Block will automatically be entitled to junior-level status or its equivalent at whatever public senior institution to which the student might have been admitted. (Note: As agreed by the Committee on Academic Affairs, junior status applies only to campus activities such as priority order for registration for courses, residence hall assignments, parking, athletic event tickets, etc. - and not in calculating academic degree credits.)

Assurance of Quality

All claims from any public two or four-year institution challenging the effective preparation of any other public institution's coursework for transfer purposes will be evaluated and appropriate measures will be taken to reassure that the quality of the coursework has been reviewed and approved on a timely basis by sending and receiving institutions alike. This process of formal review will occur every four years through the staff of the Commission on Higher Education, beginning with the approval of these procedures.

Statewide Publication and Distribution of Information on Transfer

The staff of the Commission on Higher Education shall print and distribute copies of these procedures upon their acceptance by the Commission. The staff will also place this document and the Appendices on the Commission's homepage on the Internet under the title "Transfer Policies."

By September 1 of each year, all public four-year institutions will place the following materials on the Internet websites:

A copy of this entire document
A copy of the institution's transfer guide.

By September 1 of each year, the State Board for Technical and Comprehensive Education will place the following materials on its Internet website:

A copy of this entire document
Provide to the Commission staff in format suitable for placing on the Commission's website a list of all articulation agreements that each of the sixteen technical colleges has with public and other four-year institutions of higher education, together with information about how interested parties can access those agreements.

Each two-year and four-year public institutional catalog shall contain a section entitled "TRANSFER: STATE POLICIES AND PROCEDURES." Such section at a minimum shall:

Publish these procedures in their entirety (except Appendices)
Designate a chief Transfer Officer at the institution who will:
- provide information and other appropriate support for students considering transfer and recent transfers
- serve as a clearinghouse for information on issues of transfer in the State of South Carolina
- provide definitive institutional rulings on transfer questions for the institution's students under these procedures
- work closely with feeder institutions to assure ease in transfer for their students
Designate other programmatic Transfer Officer(s) as the size of the institution and the variety of its programs might warrant
Refer interested parties to the institutional Transfer Guide<
Refer interested parties to the institutional and the Commission on Higher Education's websites for further information regarding transfer.

In recognition of its widespread acceptance and use throughout the United States, SPEEDE/EXPRESS should be adopted by all public institutions and systems as the standard for electronic transmission of all student transfer data.

In conjunction with the colleges and universities, develop and implement a statewide Transfer Equivalency Database at the earliest opportunity. (As an electronic counseling guide, this computerized, online instrument will allow students and advisors to access all degree requirements for every major at every public four-year institution in South Carolina. Also, the Database will allow students to obtain a better understanding of institutional programs and program requirements and select their transfer courses accordingly, especially when the student knows the institution and the major to which he/she is transferring.)

Development of Common Course System

Adopt a common statewide course numbering system for common freshman and sophomore courses of the technical colleges, two-year regional campuses of the University of South Carolina, and the senior institutions.

Adopt common course titles and descriptions for common freshman and sophomore courses of the technical colleges, two-year regional campuses of the University of South Carolina, and the senior institutions. The Commission will convene statewide disciplinary groups to engage in formal dialogue for these purposes. (A common course numbering system and common course titles and descriptions for lower-division coursework at all public institutions in the state can help reduce confusion among students about the equivalency of their two-year coursework with lower-division coursework at the four-year level. To this end, a common system leaves no doubt about the comparability of content, credit, and purpose among the lower-division courses at all public colleges and universities in South Carolina. It would also help eliminate institutional disagreement over the transferability of much lower-division coursework, thus clearing a path for easier movement between the technical colleges and senior institutions.)