Students planning to transfer credits from an associate's degree program to a bachelor's degree completion program in nursing (sometimes also called a bridge program) must be aware that most accredited nursing schools are regionally accredited and will expect your associate's degree to come from a regionally accredited institution as well. Regional accreditation is the process by which colleges and universities willingly submit their degree programs to scrutiny by a third party known as an accreditation agency.
Regionally accredited schools are accredited by one of seven regional accrediting bodies recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and the U.S. Department of Education. If you attempt to transfer credits from a non-regionally accredited school, the school you are attending or applying to may not accept them.
Schools that allow you to transfer credits into their bachelor's degree program in nursing usually establish a limit as to how many credits you can transfer. These numbers tend to vary by program and can apply to both nursing courses and general education courses as well. For instance, Mansfield University offers an online RN to BSN program that will allow students to transfer up to 38 credit hours from courses in the field of nursing, while the University of Iowa will allow for up to a total of 64 credit hours.
Iowa makes no distinction, however, as to whether these are nursing credits or general education credits. Students must submit transcripts from the colleges they have attended so that the school they are now attending can decide which credits are transferable and which are not. Most nursing schools will also require that you complete a minimum number of nursing credits from their school as well.
Another type of bridge program available to registered nurses is the RN to MSN (master's of science in nursing) program. These programs are designed for nurses who hold an associate's degree in nursing from a regionally accredit institution, a bachelor's degree in a different field and are currently licensed as nurses in their state of residence. As with the RN-BSN programs, the RN-MSN programs usually vary as to which credits are transferable.
In some cases, students may have completed undergraduate courses that will suffice for the graduate program. For instance, many master's degree programs in the nursing field require courses in statistics. Someone with a bachelor's degree in business or math may be able to opt out of a course in statistics because they can transfer their previous course into the nursing program. Requirements will vary by school and what curriculum standards they have established.