Hours Earned at Graduation - First-time versus Transfer Students

As part of the time-to-degree reports we produce, http://www.uwyo.edu/oia/degrees/, another metric that is measured is the number of credits it took to receive a degree. In this graph, comparisons for three-year average earned credit hours, are grouped by the students’ college for the two student entry-type classifications, new or transfer.  (Colleges having less than 10 awarded degrees are excluded.) Earned hours are the total of UW earned credit hours and transfer earned credit hours (for articulated transfer hours).  These metrics are calculated between the dates of initial enrollment at UW and the time the student’s first, primary degree was awarded.  Students who stop-out for five or more consecutive years, or students receiving a second bachelor’s degree are excluded from the calculations.   Lowering the credits to degree is an initiative at UW, as well as nationally. In this graph, the earned hours for transfer and first-time students show that transfer students complete an average of 11 more hours than students that started at UW as first-time students. However, when comparing colleges, the average difference was as much as 21 hours more for students that started at UW as transfer students. Honing in on what causes these differences is part of the transfer articulation initiatives.