Minnesota Opts for E-Transcripts
Minnesota has aligned itself with the Midwestern Higher Education Compact's (Minneapolis, MN) electronic transcript initiative, which seeks to facilitate the electronic transfer of high school transcripts to colleges.
Electronic transcripts will let Minnesota high school and college students use secure transcript services from Docufide (Los Angeles), a firm that has been electronically processing transcripts for high schools in 18 states for the last four years. Student transcripts will be transmitted to any participating school or college, and paper transcripts can be sent to non-participating institutions.
"This initiative gives Minnesota the opportunity to join other states in cost effectively implementing a change that educators have long thought important," said Susan Heegaard, director of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, in a prepared statement.
Currently, high schools are estimated to spend nearly $7 per transcript to process a student's transcript requests. Minnesota's e-transcript service's discounted transcript fee costs $2.55 per electronic transcript sent to participating MHEC schools and $4.55 per transcript sent by Docufide on security paper to any institution that isn't registered to receive e-transcripts.
The Minnesota Office of Higher Education, along with the Minnesota Department of Education, the Minnesota Private College Council, the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, the University of Minnesota, and representatives of public and private high schools, will convene an advisory committee to guide the project and collaborate with MHEC and Docufide.
Minnesota will launch the e-transcript initiative via an invitation to all public and private high school districts and colleges in the state to join. Docufide will work with Minnesota high schools, college admissions directors and registrars to help them evaluate and implement the service.
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David Kopf is a freelance technology writer and marketing consultant, and can be reached at [email protected].