Teach Out & How it Works

As more and more colleges across the country are facing closure, these decisions are displacing students, faculty and staff, and deeply impacting their larger communities. When closure is announced, the greatest at-risk population, of course, is the students, who without much time are left scrambling to locate new college homes to complete their degrees. Recognizing the importance of protecting students, regional accreditors require closing institutions to identify and enter into agreements with Teach Out partners to seamlessly transition these students. The purpose of this article is to explain the difference between Teach Out and Transfer institutions, the provisions Teach Out guarantees, and how institutions can prepare themselves in advance to be ready to offer Teach Out partnerships to seamlessly receive students displaced by college closure.

Teach Out v Transfer

Colleges, students, and parents have long been familiar with the Transfer process. Transfer takes place when students elect to move from one college to another for a variety of personal reasons. Any student seeking transfer must apply, individually, for admission to the Transfer institution, which is then free to decide, on a case-by-case basis, whether to accept the student as well as how many and which academic credits to accept from the student’s work at prior institutions. Credits from prior coursework are often not all accepted—or are accepted only as electives, narrowing their applicability toward graduation requirements. This means that even when a great number (or even, all) credits are accepted in Transfer, those credit may not count toward graduation, requiring students to take anywhere from an extra semester to a year or more to complete their degrees than they would have at their initial institution of enrollment. In short, students may find themselves paying more and/or needing to spend longer to complete their degrees when they transfer. ?

With Transfer, the student must also individually apply for financial aid (if desired) at the Transfer institution and choose whether or not to accept the financial package offered (if any) by the Transfer institution. In short, the student does all of the legwork individually and must accept the terms offered by the Transfer institution if he/she wants to attend. Oftentimes, a student may apply for Transfer to multiple institutions, in search of the best transfer offer. Because students make Transfer choices voluntarily, these obstacles are theirs to choose to navigate or avoid, if they choose to stay at their initial college of enrollment.

Teach-Out, in contrast, is a negotiated agreement between a closing institution and possible receiving institutions for the students displaced by the closure. These agreements are regulated by the regional accreditors to provide a number of guarantees for students, the most critical, perhaps, including the following:

·????? Guaranteed admission: Students in good academic standing at the closing institution who are transitioning to a Teach Out institution are automatically accepted for admission. Applications fees are waived. No testing is required. They are guaranteed acceptance for enrollment.

·????? Guaranteed Credit Acceptance: All earned academic credits are accepted by the receiving institution. The Teach Out institution cannot pick and choose which credits to accept, as they can with Transfer.?

·????? Guaranteed Same Time to Degree Completion: As mentioned above in a Transfer scenario, sometimes Transfer institutions accept credits but only as electives, which narrows their applicability toward graduation requirements. This often leads to students needing to complete more semesters to earn their degrees. Not so with Teach Out. Teach Out partners must guarantee that the student will have the same number of semesters to degree completion as they would have had at the closing institution. This protects students from needing to spend more time and/or more money to finish their degrees.

·????? Guaranteed No Additional Net Out-of-Pocket Tuition: This provision ensures that students aren’t required to pay more out of pocket for tuition than they would have had to pay at their initial institution, had it not closed. Say, for example, that the sticker price of tuition at their initial (closing) institution was $20,000, but the student received $10,000 in financial aid, leaving $10,000 for the student to pay out of pocket. Then, say, the student transitioned to a Teach Out institution with a $25,000 tuition sticker price. The receiving Teach Out partner would need to offer a financial aid package for that student totaling $15,000 so that the net out-of-pocket tuition was the same ($10,000). This applies only to tuition, not room and board, which, if desired, the student would pay at the same rate as other students at the Teach Out institution.

What does this mean for students?

Teach Out provisions protect students, and thus, it is in the best interest of students to explore Teach-Out options provided by their closing institution. The students, of course, are under no obligation to transition to a Teach-Out partner, and are free to Transfer elsewhere, if desired, but it makes sense to explore Teach Out options first. Students who receive federal financial aid should especially be mindful that there is a limit to the number of semesters that they are eligible for aid. If, by choosing transfer over teach out, a student ends up taking longer to complete their degree, they may run out of eligibility for financial aid, impacting their financial ability to complete their degree at all. So please, consider Teach Out very carefully.

If the institution where a student wishes to complete their education is not among the Teach Out partners with whom their closing institution has developed an agreement, the student should reach out to the administrations at both institutions to encourage such an agreement. When I assisted Presentation College with closure, I encouraged students to let me know where they wanted to complete their degrees, and I reached out to every institution they requested. While regional accreditors can require as few as two Teach Out partners, many closing institutions offer five or six. At Presentation College, we developed 36 Teach Out agreements to ensure we were providing as many options as possible to protect students. That process led to our having perhaps the highest student persistence rate, post closure, with 88% of students enrolled in another higher education institution the next semester, post closure. This compares to a national average under 50%. Teach Out is important to persistence and, ultimately, student success.

What does this mean for potential Teach Out partners?

Prospective Teach Out partners should consider the Teach Out provisions and prepare in advance to be ready to assist closing institutions with placing students. Here’s how:

1.??????? First and foremost, consider your institution’s likely long-range viability. Please do NOT offer to serve as a Teach-Out if your institution’s own future is uncertain. The only thing worse for a student being displaced by an institutional closure is to have to go through the process more than once.

2.??????? Recognize that the Teach Out process is not a means for bolstering an institution’s enrollment or financial status. It is a rescue operation for students being displaced. Offering Teach Outs will not aid faltering institutions. Your institution won’t make money on it. Your institution also won’t lose money. Oftentimes, any individual Teach Out partner will garner only a handful of students from a given agreement. So, don’t view this opportunity as anything other than exercising human decency and compassion for these students.

3.??????? Next, download a copy of the Teach Out provisions and process governed by your regional accreditor. While most Teach Out agreements take place among institutions governed by the same regional accreditor, they can also take place among institutions with different accreditors. Accreditors generally prefer, as first choices, that Teach Out institutions are physically in close proximity to the closing institution. But the availability of the same academic majors and comparable delivery modalities can take precedence over physical proximity. Familiarize yourself with the requirements of your accreditors and state agencies (if applicable).

4.??????? Often the biggest obstacle for administrators at the receiving institution is credit acceptance, since that process is often governed by faculty through shared governance processes. Therefore, it is recommended that Deans and Provosts talk to their faculty governance bodies in advance of being approached by a closing institution to discuss waiving that credit review process for students displaced by closing institutions. This is often granted, because faculty understand that Teach Out is so very different from Transfer and that a policy regarding Teach Out would not in any way impact approved Transfer protocols. Get these conversations started early, as often Teach Out agreements must be drafted within days to weeks, without the luxury of time to convene faculty senates and other governance bodies.

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Teach out is vital, now more than ever, to protect students displaced by closing institutions. If you work for an institution facing closure, start the process early. You can receive assistance by contacting [email protected]

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