In 2016, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) released an analysis of school policies regarding Advanced Placement (AP) credit. Despite being one of the few ways students could seek to graduate in fewer than four years, PPI discovered that the vast majority of the nation's top schools restricted students from applying AP coursework toward degree credits. Unfortunately, despite strong evidence that successfully completed AP courses meet the standards of achievement expected by colleges and universities, the situation has deteriorated significantly as more schools seek to protect their revenue streams. Furthermore, schools have significantly diminished the value of other college-level coursework completed before matriculation. For example, U.S. universities and colleges limit the amount of course credit awarded to students who have completed coursework through the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum, which is increasingly offered throughout the country. PPI's study shows that IB credit was typically denied at the same rate as credit as AP. Today, more students than ever enroll in AP courses and exams, and although still small by comparison to the reach of AP (almost 23,000 high schools offer AP courses), 900 high schools in America now offer the IB diploma. The granting of credit for AP and IB is one of the few ways students can reduce the cost of attending college. America's institutions of higher education remain the best in the world. But the combination of higher student debt levels and declining enrollments underscores a major problem that must be addressed by colleges and universities -- the cost of a degree. One way to address this problem is to help students graduate sooner by increasing opportunities to earn credit for college work completed in high school. Unfortunately, as this study confirms, tens of thousands of Americans are attending schools that don't give them full credit for their AP work. Changing that would be a huge win for America's students, as well as the nation's colleges and universities.