DiplomaVerify: Saving Schools Time & Money – Part Two
Transfer enrollment is making a comeback, surpassing 2020 figures. The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s fall 2024 Transfer Enrollment and Pathways report reveals that transfer enrollment, which comprises 13% of non-freshmen undergraduates, grew for the third straight year.
The ability to transfer between institutions provides students with greater flexibility in their postsecondary educational pathways. The Transfer Enrollment and Pathways report, which replaces the previous Transfer and Progress report series, finds that college transfer enrollment is now 7.9% greater than in the fall of 2020.
"The growth in transfers this fall is a further indication that students are adjusting postsecondary goals in response to changing education and labor market conditions," said Doug Shapiro, Executive Director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. “That’s good news, especially for those who are able to return from stopouts by finding colleges that better meet their needs.”
Nearly 500,000 students transferred from a two-year to a four-year institution this past fall, a number that is now comparable to fall 2020 (-2,300, -0.5%). Although this remains the most common pathway for transfer students, the share of all transfer students that move from a two-year to a four-year institution declined 3.5 percentage points from fall 2020 to fall 2024.
Additional report highlights include:
Community College Transfer Enrollment: This past fall, 390,000 students transferred into a community college, an increase of 13.5% from the fall of 2020. However, total community college enrollment still has not recovered from pandemic declines (-52,300, -1.5% from fall 2020).
Continuing Transfer Students: The fall of 2024 saw the second straight year of enrollment growth for continuing transfer students — those who were enrolled at a different institution in the spring or summer term immediately prior.
View the complete Transfer Enrollment and Pathways report.
"The growth in transfers this fall is a further indication that students are adjusting postsecondary goals in response to changing education and labor market conditions. That’s good news, especially for those who are able to return from stopouts by finding colleges that better meet their needs."
Doug Shapiro
Executive Director, National Student Clearinghouse Research Center
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DiplomaVerify: Saving Schools Time & Money – Part Two
DiplomaVerify Instantly Processes Degree Verifications at No Cost to the School or Student
Education verification is an important and often time-consuming process for employers, prospective employees, and school administrators.
One of the many services the National Student Clearinghouse provides educators is DiplomaVerify, a free high school diploma verification service available to all StudentTracker® for High Schools customers. DiplomaVerify uses data that your school, district, or consortium already submits to the Clearinghouse to give employers 24/7 access to diploma verifications — even when your office is closed.
Phil Smith, a senior manager with the Clearinghouse’s Business Development team, and Kathryn Pearlman, the DiplomaVerify product manager, discuss how DiplomaVerify helps employers, graduates, and administrators in the second part of a two-part interview.
Who’s eligible for DiplomaVerify, and who uses it?
Kathryn Pearlman: Approximately 2,500 high schools across 47 states use DiplomaVerify. Any school user currently signed up or who wants to sign up for our StudentTracker for High Schools service is eligible for DiplomaVerify!
What types of administrative hurdles does DiplomaVerify help to address?
Phil Smith: It can be a lengthy process for an employer looking to verify a potential employee’s high school education credentials. To verify someone’s high school diploma, they typically have to call the school directly or fill out a form. That’s just to take the order. From there, the high school must research the diploma request before verifying it with the background screener, the employer, or the student.
You also have to hope the school is open. If a graduate gets a job offer during the holidays or over the summer, the diploma verification request can sit in an inbox for days or weeks before anyone looks at it. That means former students could be waiting days or weeks to obtain the verification they need before they can start working and earning.
Through our DiplomaVerify service, the Clearinghouse takes data that high schools and school districts already provide for StudentTracker and automates it for verification. No additional information is required. Once the background screener or employer has received the student’s consent, they can receive a verification response in under a second versus days or weeks. That automation frees up a lot of administrative time and helps ensure that graduates don’t lose out on jobs and other opportunities requiring diploma verification.
How prevalent are verifications at the high school level?
Kathryn Pearlman: There is no precise number. However, according to the background screeners with whom we work, they do just as many high school verifications as postsecondary verifications.
What feedback have you received from DiplomaVerify users?
Phil Smith: The schools and districts that use DiplomaVerify say it helps reduce phone calls from background screeners. And they know that it’s helping their students get jobs faster. So, we’ve had nothing but positive feedback from them. For example, Rhode Island covers all state high schools under one account. Now, every high school graduate in the state can quickly have their diploma verified regardless of which school they attended. This helps make them more competitive in the workforce when pursuing new job opportunities.
“Through our DiplomaVerify service, the Clearinghouse takes data that high schools and school districts already provide for StudentTracker and automates it for verification. No additional information is required. Once the background screener or employer has received the student’s consent, they can receive a verification response in under a second versus days or weeks.”
Phil Smith
Senior Manager, Business Development, National Student Clearinghouse
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