This paper considers how to implement the policy of the Australian Commonwealth and State ministers for education and training to improve transfer from vocational education and training to higher education. It argues that transfer of students is more important than transfer of credit and considers what may be learned from the US where student transfer has been a core issue for higher education since the establishment of the first 2-year college in 1901. The paper concludes by drawing some analytic points from the emergence of vocational schools in Europe in the late Middle Ages.