At Empire State College, “classes”
aren’t even a major part of the curriculum. Students meet with their
faculty adviser and undergo a kind of guided independent study. They
may participate in residencies or group studies and each individual
pretty much makes up their own degree. That way he or she knows why
they’re studying that course and not just doing it because they’ve been
told they have to as part of a standardized curriculum. It also helps
for a student to pursue a very specialized degree or one to fit their
own ideas for the future.
“There’s no one perfect degree,” says Amy Tweedy, director of academic review at ESC.
Evaluating the experience and applying a
certain number of credits to it is an involved process, but it almost
always turns out in favor of the student. It’s up to the student to
prove they know the material they’re claiming to have learned and that
it’s equivalent to the learning in a college-level course. The process
starts with a meeting between faculty adviser and student, who goes
over exactly what he knows, how he learned that knowledge, and how it
can be translated into college material. Although he may not know every
aspect of a course, his learning can be used to fulfill it if he knows
the basics.
“What we’re looking for is their ability
to understand the major threads and how to apply that,” Tweedy notes.
Learning new techniques or concepts in everyday tasks and applying them
to future situations are examples of college-level skills. After
figuring out what she knows, the student then writes an in-depth essay
about it.
It isn’t just the essay that gets you
the credit, however. An entire portfolio is put together, complete with
how many credits the student wants, what degree they’re going after,
how that credit will add to the degree, the essay on why they deserve
the credit, and finally, physical proof of the knowledge. Documentation
includes speeches you may have written, a letter from a boss you had,
or a videotape of you using something you’ve learned on the job.
The college finds an expert evaluator,
who might be part of the faculty at a nearby institution or a master’s
level worker in the student’s field of interest. It’s the evaluator who
suggests how much credit to give to the student, but the faculty at ESC
ultimately awards it. They put a lot of effort into getting the student
as much credit as they can.
“I’m always amazed at the amount of
thoughtful time the faculty put into reviewing portfolios,” Tweedy
says. “They really want the student to have a good degree program.”
Besides the $300 price tag (which can
actually be a good deal, considering students get an average of 12 to
24 credits, and SUNY tuition for New York undergraduates is $181 per
credit hour), one reason students might opt out of the credit for prior
learning is that they’re looking for a career change and their previous
experience doesn’t apply to their future plans. But Tweedy says that’s
the case for a lot of students and it can actually be used to cover
their bases in the general studies part of their degree. “If we can
find a way to make it fit for them, we’ll use it,” she says.
It all sounds like an intensive process,
and it is. But for many students, gaining credit for things they’ve
already accomplished saves money and time they could waste in classes
they don’t need to relearn.
Martha Resig, an adult graduate of ESC,
was a teacher for many years before she made the decision to go back to
school. “My position was diminishing every year and I decided I needed
some credentials,” she explains. “I felt I had learned so much, I
should be able to get some credit for it.”
Not only did Resig’s unrelated credit
from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry transfer
and apply to her general learning requirements, she also got credit for
two Advanced Placement exams and experience she had from teaching
technology in an elementary classroom. She calls the credit for prior
learning process a “rigorous” one, but a total gain of 36 credits from
experience alone was more than worth it. Plus, she notes, the
evaluators were extremely helpful and the process was made very clear
to her from the start. Now Resig holds a bachelor’s degree in
Educational Studies with a concentration in School Media and Technology
Studies.
“Having the degree has made a difference in the way I present myself,” she says.
The process at Columbia College is
pretty similar and both colleges will award credit for College Level
Examination Program, or CLEP, tests in subjects like business,
literature and foreign languages. They also give credit for Defense
Activity for Non-Traditional Educational Support (DANTES) tests and
other exams based on recommendations by the American Council on
Education (ACE), which has assigned credit amounts to non-collegiate
courses offered by the military and other governmental agencies.
The colleges refer to handbooks created
by ACE or the National Program on Noncollegiate Sponsored Instruction
that list hundreds of these courses and training programs earned from
working at corporations like Chrysler and Verizon.
Columbia College is different from ESC
in that it offers many on-site classes and focuses on helping military
students pursue higher education. (Over half of their 34 nationwide
locations are on military bases.) It costs $75 per credit hour for each
“course” submitted for review to apply for prior learning credits at
Columbia College; the learning needs to be more closely matched with a
college class there than at ESC.
Although their students don’t take
advantage of the school’s credit for prior learning program as much as
they do at ESC, Columbia College associate director Renee Grosso can
think of one student who was thankful they offered it. She had a
financial planner license and received 12 credits for it. “She really
wasn’t expecting anything,” Grosso said. “She was able to graduate with
it.”
Typical classes at Columbia are only
eight weeks long, but with a weekly commitment of five hours a night.
That said, students try to get as much transfer credit from their
military training as they can. Grosso says a lot of students go back to
school so they can get promoted in the military so they typically
pursue a bachelor’s in General Studies, which is 78 hours of general
electives. Their military training can cover a lot of those credits and
all they need to get the credit is a branch transcript. To get an idea
of how much they bring in, basic training alone is worth 12 credit
hours.
Whether you’re looking for a career
change, a promotion or just a new outlook on your old job, getting
credit for the years you spent learning outside of school can be a
helpful way to get started. Area colleges are recognizing that students
don’t have to sit in a classroom to learn valuable life and educational
skills. Students can save money and time by using their past
experience, knowledge and training to pursue a higher education degree
and improve their outlook.
