ATLANTA – Thousands of Georgians have unclaimed college degrees waiting for them, and education leaders want to find them.

The state University System is fine-tuning its “Credit When It’s Due” program, which seeks out students who transferred from small colleges to larger ones, where they’ve since earned enough credit for an associate degree from their original school.

As many as 8,000 students may qualify for the program each year.

These Georgians have likely earned associate degrees but don’t have them, said Barbara Brown, the system’s assistant vice chancellor for transitional and general education.

Those students may still be working toward bachelor’s degrees, or maybe they’ve left college. It’s certain that reporting “some college” with no degree doesn’t help their job prospects, Brown said.

“They may have even debt for getting as far as they did in college, with no credential to show for it,” she said. “So we’re really intent on trying to put credentials into the hands of students who have earned it so they can move forward with their lives.”

The program is a part of the state’s effort to grow the number of Georgians with college credentials by 250,000 over the next few years. By 2020, at least 60 percent of jobs are expected to require some type of degree. Other states have adopted similar programs.

Georgia’s project is still in its infancy. So far, 31 students at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro may qualify for an associate degree. All transferred from nearby East Georgia State College.

Only those two schools – along with Augusta University, formerly Georgia Regents University – are currently part of the program. It will expand to reach the rest of the system’s schools by the spring.

The public colleges that primarily offer associate degrees – Georgia has 13 of them – will be the primary targets, Brown said. This includes schools such as Dalton State College in north Georgia, which currently has a little more than 5,000 students.

Pam Partain, director of marketing and communications at Dalton State, said in a statement that hundreds of former students may qualify, but she added that it’s “impossible” to know how many for sure.

Of the state program, Partain said the school is “philosophically supportive of any sound measure that will award educational credentials to those who have earned them.”

The program is funded by a nearly $400,000 grant from the Lumina Foundation. That pays a third-party, Parchment, to help manage the credentialing process. It also covers small fees typically related to graduation, such as a degree audit, which can run about $25. There’s no cost to the student.

Not everyone who is eligible will likely want to participate. Some students may be close to finishing a bachelor’s degree. Others may not be as far along but are confident they’ll get there.

But for those who are working while taking classes, an associate degree could come with immediate benefit.

Job-seekers are increasingly unable to advance beyond submitting an application without some college credentials, Brown said.

“Being able to check a box that says, ‘I have an associate degree’ can be a very big deal,” she said.

At Atlanta-based Gas South, for example, a high school diploma was once enough for a job in customer care. Now, candidates are expected to have “a little something extra,” President and CEO Kevin Greiner said at a recent forum sponsored by the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education.

The company wants workers who can handle complicated information systems, offer a higher level of critical thinking and have interpersonal skills, he said.

“All of these things mean what was OK and sufficient maybe 10 years ago really isn’t today,” said Greiner, who is chairman of the partnership’s board.

Once eligible students are identified, the University System will contact their current school, which will email the student and provide a link to Parchment’s website.

Their original school would award the associate degree.

Former students who think they may have completed enough credits to qualify are urged to contact their school’s registrar. 

Jill Nolin covers the Georgia Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach her at jnolin@cnhi.com.