Interstate Passport

The Interstate Passport program was conceived by Chief Academic Officers in the Western region and is managed by WICHE – the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education – a nonprofit organization focused on improving access to higher education and ensuring student success. It was created to streamline the credit transfer process and improve graduation rates, shorten time to degree, and save students money. The program focuses on lower-division general education, the common denominator among most institutions — concentrating on it as a whole, not on individual courses — and allows for a cross-border “match” of outcomes-integrated general education for block transfer. For more information on the Interstate Passport program, visit https://interstatepassport.wiche.edu.

Watch an overview of the Interstate Passport Program, including program background, how the program works, how to get started with Interstate Passport, file submission and validations, and how to check file submission status.

Passport Services Provided by the National Student Clearinghouse

Through its partnership with WICHE, the Clearinghouse provides two services to Interstate Passport Network member institutions:

PassportVerify: Similar to the DegreeVerify service currently offered to all National Student Clearinghouse participating institutions, PassportVerify will allow Passport institutions to query the Clearinghouse to find out if an incoming transfer student has earned the Passport and, if so, where and when. Institutions submit data on students to whom they have awarded a Passport so that this information is added to the Clearinghouse database.
Academic Progress Tracking: Institutions submit de-identified data on Passport students – and non-Passport students for comparison. Using this data, The Clearinghouse produces annual reports for participating schools and also the Passport Review Board. The reports are intended to assess Passport quality and overall effectiveness of the Interstate Passport program. Institutions provide a minimum of two terms of academic progress (course, grade, and credit) on transfer students who received Passports, non-Passport transfer students, and also native students with Passports. The APT data generates rich aggregate and de-identified detail reports to show how Passport vs. non-passport students are progressing

Interstate Passport Data

Interstate Passport Network members submit three types of files to the Clearinghouse:

Passport Completion
PassportVerify Request
Passport Academic Progress Tracking

Implementation Guides

If you have questions or need assistance, please contact PassportSupport@demo.studentclearinghouse.org.