If a college student has not paid in full for his or her education, the institution usually declines to release the student’s transcript. That leads to the alleged problem of “stranded credits,” meaning that the student can’t produce the evidence of educational attainment without paying up.

In today’s Martin Center article, Michael Bruce discusses this matter.

He writes, “As reported by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) and Lumina Foundation in 2021, the practice of withholding transcripts is widespread, with 95 percent of institutions — both public and private — indicating that they withhold transcripts as a debt-collection tactic. This creates obstacles for students who need their transcripts to continue their educations or obtain jobs that will help them pay off their educational debts.”

Is this a real problem? Evidently some people worry that students who can’t get their transcripts won’t be able to get the jobs that would allow them to earn the money to pay off their college balances. On the other hand, if students can get their transcripts without paying all they owe, what is to keep more of them from sticking the school with the tab for the last semester?

Read the entire article to follow Bruce’s discussion of this topic.