In an era of growing accountability and limited resources in education, it can be argued that many aspects of the present programs in higher education need to be reassessed in light of current student needs. One area of the higher education structure, college transfer programs, has not kept pace with the changes in higher education and has maintained its antiquated status despite the influx of innovations. Without the transfer function as a significant component of the community college mission, access to higher education may be limited for many students. The transferability of college course credit is a significant issue in higher education and especially to community colleges. There are no clear guidelines or standards for either the community colleges or four-year colleges to use in determining the transferability of particular courses. Community colleges need to ensure that every course designated as a transfer course will be transferable to receiving institutions. Four-year colleges should expect that the course they accept in transfer meets the same standards required within their curricula. Transfer credit should be based on equivalent competencies for similar courses. The purpose of this study was to explore those characteristics that distinguish college-level course work. Data were gathered to answer the research questions by conducting in-depth interviews with twenty-three faculty from the disciplines of biology and history at three community colleges and three four-year colleges. The researcher presented a broad, open-ended question that asked the faculty to describe in detail what they perceived to be the distinguishing characteristics of college-level course work. The analysis of the interviews included organizing the data into domains; generating categories; and comparing and contrasting the faculty comments from each discipline and college. The analysis revealed the identification of nine categories of characteristics distinguishing college-level course work. The results showed more similarities than differences in the comments between the groups. The dimensions of similarity across interviews (i.e. common characteristics) provided information for answering the research questions. / Ph. D.