American Horror Story: Transfer Credits

Like any university, Dominican has offers students the opportunity to transfer to our campus. You can take credits at a community college, or another university, for a lesser price and be able to continue your education with us. But what if you were told it was a harder process than that? Transfer students at Dominican’s campus have been struggling with the program and its cost and exceptions.

Students in the past have run into road blocks when applying as a transfer student to Dominican. In some cases, their credits weren’t covered, and they were forced to pay for extra credits for classes they had already taken elsewhere. In other cases, the process was simply too grueling with a constant back and forth of transcripts and paperwork. According to Mason Baker, a Dominican transfer student who dealt with the process himself says, “[T]he school doesn’t transfer in enough credits to allow students to graduate within the 4 year time frame, and when you ask them why or try and appeal your classes from your other college, it seems like they don’t care about you.”

When you look at Dominican’s retention rate reports, our retention rate for transfer students is falling. In 2016, only 89 percent of transfer students that were enrolled in the fall semester returned for the Spring 2017 semester. In addition, only 78 percent of students that enrolled that fall returned for the following year’s Fall 2017 semester.

These averages prove to be concerning, with the retention rate not being as high as it could be and slowly depleting as the years go on.

The percent of transfer students at Dominican who will graduate in 5 years or less is currently at a 72 percent average, according to Dominican’s graduation reports. This number may deter future transfers from applying to a university that doesn’t seem to want to help them. Instead of saving money and time, Dominican is pushing these students into a corner and forcing them pay for an education they may have already earned.