Students who transferred from a Tennessee community college to pursue a bachelor’s degree may be eligible to retroactively receive the associate degree they started through the state’s new reverse transfer program.
More than 7,500 students currently enrolled at participating public and private four-year schools across the state were notified in August of their potential eligibility and invited to sign up by September 12 for a free degree audit. About 23 percent or 1,755 opted in this semester and will be told in December if the courses they’ve completed meet graduation requirements for a two-year degree.
“If there’s a degree I’ve earned at some point in this journey, I want it on my resume,” said Laurie Wyatt, a UT Knoxville student and 38-year-old mother of three.
Wyatt said she didn’t understand the value of an education at age 18 and squandered the opportunity. She enrolled at Walters State Community College in summer 2012 to complete some basic courses before transferring to UT Knoxville to study anthropology.