Credit Evaluation in Admissions Supports Affordability

A few days after dropping off her son, Alex, for his first year of college, my friend shared move-in photos with the bittersweet pride of a parent watching a child begin a new chapter. However, since that drop-off, however, more bitter than sweet has overtaken the family. Alex had met with his academic adviser and learned that his AP and dual-enrollment credits would not count toward his program.

Only after arriving at college did he discover that, rather than graduating a semester early, he would instead require a full extra semester of school. Alex still had time to withdraw from his classes and receive a full refund, but after moving to campus and beginning college life, that option had become far more difficult, both practically and emotionally.

Alex isn’t alone. Hundreds of other students discover only after arriving at college that effort they expended in high school to reduce the cost of higher education will not play out as they expected.

This is why credit evaluation belongs in the admissions cycle, not the enrollment cycle. If learners are to make informed decisions about affordability, they must know how their prior learning will apply to a degree and how those decisions will affect their entire bottom line—including time and expense.

Affordability is a headline for a reason. Higher education sticker prices can be difficult for families to comprehend, even when they do not reflect what students will actually pay. According to preliminary estimates from the National Association of College and University Business Officers, private nonprofit colleges’ average tuition discount rate for first-time, full-time undergraduates reached 57.1 percent in 2025–26—the highest in the study’s history. That doesn’t mean $25,800 is affordable, but it is certainly less than $60,000.

To address concerns about affordability, higher education has shifted toward mapping clearer paths from education to employment. The logic is understandable: Better information about in-demand careers, required credentials and expected salaries can help learners assess whether an educational investment is worthwhile.

Yet careers rarely unfold as neatly as pathway maps suggest. Economic cycles, technological change, geography, personality, relationships and luck all shape individual outcomes. Just two years ago, computer science was widely promoted as one of the safest routes to stable, well-paying work; artificial intelligence has downgraded that outlook. Learners should understand the employment prospects they may face after graduation, but career pathways cannot predict how an individual career or an entire field will change, and presenting career pathways as predictable risks disappointing learners and inviting criticism of institutions.

We cannot guarantee the future, but we can do a much better job of telling learners what it will cost them to get a degree at a specific institution. Changing the way we talk about college affordability requires that we look beyond providing a generalized estimate. Millions have been invested in helping learners understand and reduce the cost of higher education, but seeking a degree is not like buying a car and reading the price on the window sticker. A prospective student is purchasing the opportunity to learn over a set period of time, but they aren’t told what that time might be for them. Institutions own the decision that makes that number much clearer.

The net price calculator was supposed to be an important part of that clarifying process, helping learners to look beyond the tuition and estimate what college would really cost. But it fails, because the number it produces is incomplete. The calculator may show learners what a year of college will cost, but it can’t tell them how many years or semesters they will need to buy. It does not show how the overall cost is impacted when AP credits are rejected, or dual-enrollment coursework does not apply, or if transfer, military or prior learning credits disappear during an institution’s evaluation process.

Colleges and learners both tend to concentrate on the financial side of the affordability equation: tuition, scholarships, grants, loans and room and board. We have, however, neglected to invest that attention in the variable that can dramatically affect the total price: time.

Time highlights more than the tuition a learner pays; it homes in on how many rounds of fees, housing, food and other costs a learner accrues. It determines how long students wait before entering the full-time workforce. For learners already working, it can determine how long they must balance employment, family responsibilities and their schooling.

Prior learning has the potential to reduce that time and therefore the actual cost of completing a degree. Yet most institutions wait until orientation or add/drop to provide students clear credit evaluations. A website may display an equivalency chart or direct learners to “see your department for information.” Like Alex, a learner may not receive a definite answer until after they start classes.

Well before that, however, learners receive detailed financial aid offers, showing tuition, scholarships, grants, loans, expected family contributions, room and board estimates, and lists of fees. Missing is the number that could materially change their decision: How much of the learning that you have already completed will count toward this degree?

Imagine if an admission offer did not simply say, “We are awarding you a $12,000 scholarship.” Imagine that it also said, “We have evaluated the [AP, IB, dual-enrollment and other eligible learning] you submitted. In total, [#] credits will apply to your degree. Based on your program and course sequence, that will reduce your anticipated completion time by [#] semester, reducing your degree’s cost by $XX.”

That second offer provides the learner something much closer to a complete picture of the price of their education.

It’s a classic sales strategy, to provide clarifying information after the buyer has emotionally committed. Alex’s AP credits did not suddenly become less valuable when he met with his adviser. His school just waited until that point to tell him what they were worth there.

Let me be clear: I am not saying that all credits must be accepted. There are legitimate reasons some credits should not apply. The learning may not be equivalent, it may not meet the requirements of a specific program or it may not represent a college-level learning experience.

Institutions should absolutely protect academic standards, and faculty should determine whether learning meets the expectations of a course or credential in their department. When colleges believe certain dual-enrollment courses do not constitute college-level learning, they should clearly explain that, and any major-specific limitations, to the schools and learners who are told those courses will earn college credit.

Earlier evaluation may require additional faculty and staff time or more thorough, efficient processes. Even so, helping learners understand the actual time and cost required to earn a degree is integral to the admissions process, rather than a minor detail that can be handled later if affordability is mission-critical.

Institutions may worry that awarding credit for prior learning means losing tuition revenue. Yet, over more than a decade, research from the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning has shown that adult learners awarded credit for prior learning are more likely to complete a credential—two and a half times as likely in a 2010 study and 17 percent more likely in a 2020 study with WICHE that controlled for other factors. CAEL survey data also suggest that the availability of such credit shapes where and whether adults choose to enroll.

Colleges spend enormous sums discounting tuition and offering scholarships to attract learners, while overlooking the time asset they could be including in admissions offers. Awarding a learner 15 credits for prior learning may appear to mean forfeiting 15 credits of tuition revenue. However, the question may become whether the college would prefer to have that learner enroll for seven semesters or lose them entirely because another institution offered a clearer, more affordable or shorter route to completion.

We don’t need career predictions to give learners information we already know: What will the institution accept of the learning they’ve already completed? What will apply to their degree? How much time in school will that save them and how will that saved time affect their actual cost? To demonstrate we are truly committed to affordability, we must reveal the cost of time.

If colleges really believe that higher education should be more affordable, affordability cannot be defined by career projections or tuition discounts. It must also include how many credits, and therefore time, institutions are awarding. For learners (and families) who are making one of the largest financial decisions of their lives, time has a price.