The set of programs, policies, and pathways by which learners move between colleges and universities is complex and often incoherent. Many students enter the transfer maze and never get through it, costing them both time and money. 

This episode of The Key highlights recent work from national experts of the Tackling Transfer Policy Advisory Board and their efforts to challenge old assumptions, dismantle inequitable transfer policies, and build a new approach to transfer.

Freeman Hrabowski III is a college president who has long fought for civil rights and racial justice. When he was 12 years old, he marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in Birmingham, Alabama—and got arrested. Such protests in the 1960s were crucial, he says, but largely symbolic.

These days, Hrabowski is trying to "move the needle” in more concrete ways: by helping more minority students major in STEM fields, finish college, and become leaders in science and tech once they graduate.