We often talk about the "traditional" student journey as a straight line from freshman orientation to the graduation stage, all within the walls of a single institution. But the data from the 2025 Instructure Challenges to Course Availability Report tells a much more dynamic story. Today’s college students are navigating multiple higher education institutions to build a path that works for their lives.
This change in student behavior also marks a shift in the stakes for every educator and administrator. When a student hits a scheduling wall, they often aren’t waiting to see when a class might be available again; they’re innovating to keep momentum. The evolving role of a student’s education team is to ensure their resourcefulness leads to a degree, not a dead end.
The rise of the academic architect
For a long time, when students couldn’t find a class on their home campus, they might just wait until next semester. Today’s learners are becoming the architects of their own schedules out of necessity. They are proactive problem solvers, tech-savvy, and deeply committed to maintaining progress to finish what they started.
- A commitment to momentum: Rather than pausing their education when a required course is full or unavailable, students are seeking out high-quality online options from other institutions.
- The multi-institutional strategy: Over half of surveyed students (53%) reported taking courses at another institution to try to stay on track for graduation when they couldn’t access needed courses at their home institution.
- System-wide success: In large networks like the California Community Colleges System, students are leveraging over 100,000 online course sections to find the courses that will transfer and count toward their degree.
What this means for higher education student retention strategy: Students are already looking outside of their home institutions to stay on schedule. By embracing course sharing, you aren't "losing" a student to another campus, but providing the flexibility they need to remain enrolled in your degree program.
How navigating the traditional system can stall student success
While students have the drive to seek out external courses, they often lack the guidance to do so confidently. This is where the friction lives, and where the opportunity for greater transparency begins.
- The complexity hurdle: Roughly 90% of students who cross-enrolled found the process confusing or difficult.
- The transfer guessing game: Nearly one-third of students (29%) reported having limited access to clear information about how credits would count before they spent their time and tuition.
- The credit risk: One of the most valuable things institutions can offer a student is the certainty that their hard work will count. Forty-two percent of students surveyed reported receiving only partial or no credit for courses they took at another institution. By providing them with transparent information about how a course will transfer before they enroll, they have confidence to move forward without fear of wasted time or money.
What this means for higher ed advising teams: The stakes here are measured in student time and money. Providing real-time, transparent data on course equivalencies is a massive lever for equity and affordability.
The power of system-wide access
The most compelling part of this story is how quickly these hurdles disappear when school systems prioritize academic mobility. When institutions stop acting as islands and start acting as networks, the results are transformative.
- Streamlining the enrollment experience: Solutions like Parchment Course Sharing have shown that cross-enrollment can be easier. What used to take months of manual provisioning can now be completed in under two minutes.
- Empowering small campuses: This model allows smaller institutions to offer a larger portfolio of classes without the overhead of hiring new faculty for every niche requirement.
- Accelerating degree completion and securing performance-based funding: By eliminating the wait for oversubscribed or infrequently offered courses, students maintain academic momentum and graduate faster — a critical outcome as states like Texas shift toward funding models (such as HB 8) that financially reward institutions for "credentials of value" and successful transfers.
"[Parchment is] making it possible for small institutions... to expand options and provide those opportunities for their students."
Joe Thiel, Deputy Commissioner, Academic, Research & Student Affairs, Montana University System
Empowering mobility with course sharing
Students are already thinking globally; it’s time for educational infrastructure to do the same. By investing in academic mobility and shared course access, state systems and institutions are building a more inclusive, flexible, and successful future for higher education.
Course sharing is a way to "do more with less" while removing barriers to progress. Parchment helps increase student access by enabling state systems, consortia, and institutions to collaboratively offer courses to each other’s learners. By leveraging a unified, systemwide course exchange systems can:
- Expand access: Give students searchable access to courses across institutions complete with section information and real-time seat availability.
- Ensure credits transfer and count: Show students exactly how a course will count toward their degree before they enroll, using embedded equivalencies.
- Reduce friction: Automate the cross-enrollment and transcript delivery process, turning a "months-long" wait into a two-minute task.
"We are leveraging the power of our system to grow the opportunities for learners to complete their degrees.”
Dr. Marina Aminy, Executive Director of the California Virtual Campus
The "Four-Year Myth" is being rewritten by students who are willing to do whatever it takes to graduate. The challenge is to build the infrastructure that matches their ambition. Investing in seamless course discovery and cross-enrollment can remove barriers to progress and completion for learners.
Get more insight into what’s driving the growing need for course sharing to support modern learners by reading the full Challenges to Course Availability for Higher Education Learners Report.