Beginning with the 2015-2016 academic year, nurses and nursing students seeking to advance their educations at Massachusetts public colleges and universities will benefit from a more streamlined and less expensive process for transferring credits.

The recently finalized Nursing Education Transfer Policy (NETP) creates a seamless, cost-effective, timely, and transparent pathway for students to progress from community college Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) programs to the Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree at a state university or UMass.  Key benefits of the policy are that it:

• Simplifies and clarifies the process of transferring credits from the associate degree to Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) programs;

• Mitigates the need for individual agreements between public two- and four-year nursing programs;

• Reduces the overall time for transfer students to earn a BSN;

• Reduces costs for students by eliminating unnecessary duplication of coursework and, for students who meet minimum GPA requirements, eliminates the application fee.

Endorsed by the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education in 2014, the transfer policy is part of a statewide initiative to increase the percentage of nurses with bachelor degrees from just over 55% today to 66% by 2020 and 80% by 2025, the recommendation set by the Institute of Medicine in its 2010 report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health.

The Executive Summary of the Nursing Education Transfer Policy is attached. The policy was developed by a project team comprised of nursing deans and faculty, who worked with Department of Higher Education staff and the Massachusetts Action Coalition (MAAC), a statewide coalition of nurse leaders representing practitioners, educators, and health care delivery organizations.

Attachments:
News Release:  Easier Transfers Will Help MA Nurses  Education
Executive Summary of the Nursing Education Transfer Policy
Nursing Education Transfer Compact