Community College of Beaver County (CCBC) recently signed two agreements with Point Park University (PPU) simplifying transferring credits between the two schools.

The Articulation and Reverse Transfer Associate’s Degree Initiative agreements were made possible by PPU President Paul Hennigan, Provost Karen McIntyre, and CCBC President Chris Reber and Provost Melissa Denardo, according to a press release from CCBC.

“The articulation agreement makes for seamless transfer of credits from CCBC to Point Park,” Deb Bateman, Point Park’s director of transfer articulation and veteran services, said in a phone interview.

“The Reverse Transfer Agreement was mostly worked out by CCBC,” said Bateman, and allows  students who do not have their associate’s degrees to put Point Park credits towards their CCBC graduation requirements.

The signed agreement was made to simply clarify and update the rules of credit transfer between the two schools. A transfer of credits between the schools was possible for students long before the agreement was signed.

The press release by CCBC contains the programs available for transfer between the two schools, according to Lou Corsaro, Point Park’s Managing Director of Marketing and Public Relations.

Graduation rates at community colleges are sometimes under scrutiny because many students transfer before graduating, according to Bateman. The reverse-transfer agreement helps the community college keep track of their student’s progress at Point Park so they can confirm graduation when a student earns his or her degree.

“We have very close ties with transfer advisers at community colleges, and we’ll be keeping them and the website updated to get the word out to students,” Bateman said about the Reverse Transfer Agreement. “We also have similar agreements with other area community colleges like CCAC, which has been in place about two months longer than the one with CCBC,” said Bateman.

Likewise with CCBC, Point Park’s recently signed an agreement with CCAC is only an updated version of what was already in place

Bateman said the next step is to update their policies with Westmoreland County Community College and Butler County Community College to be in line with the recently updated agreements. She said they should be ready for review by the end of fall.