As long as there are older students, community colleges serve as the front door ready for them to return to their post-secondary education. Whether these adults are leaving school to raise a family, serve in the military or start a career, they can rely on community colleges as a cheap and cost-effective way to return to the learning environment.
Many of these seniors returning to school bring with them the knowledge of years, skills and abilities acquired through their careers and lives: A veteran who handled the equipment of a combat unit. A health worker who has been working for 15 years. An entrepreneur who built and ran a small business. A self-taught programmer who has written code for years with no data to show for it.
Institutions that want to support these students can offer credit for prior learning, which is a term for a variety of assessment methods where students can earn college credit for what they already know. Portfolio tests, standardized tests such as CLEP, military literature reviews and industry certification reviews can all open the door to a CPL, and this can save students time and money on their path to a degree.
CPL and Community Colleges: The Perfect Combination, Except for That Sticky Transfer Challenge
The problem, until recently, was that community colleges faced a real problem when it came to offering CPL: They always had to think about what happens to their students who end up moving on to four-year institutions to earn a bachelor’s degree. And many of these four-year options may not accept a CPL in transfer, even if that institution offers a CPL in-house. In other words, when a community college awards a CPL and the student later transfers, there is no guarantee that those credits will be accepted by the receiving institution.
This puts community college counselors in a difficult position. Encouraging a student to pursue CPL opportunities should be in the student’s best interest—unless it isn’t. Advising someone to invest time in checking a portfolio for credits that may evaporate upon transfer is not good guidance.
So community colleges, out of necessity and responsibility to their students, often had to put the brakes on CPL opportunities. Buffy Tanner, director of innovation and strategic projects at Shasta College in California, notes that CPL at community colleges in her state is currently “22,” since CPL credits can be counted for coursework, but Shasta College’s CPL website, procedures, policy and counseling all contain disclaimers about transfers.
Bachelor of Applied Science Offers a new CPL department
However, Tanner notes that “a major advantage of California community college baccalaureate degrees is the broad recognition and acceptance of the CPL. Because many of our system’s baccalaureate degrees are in applied fields, there is a high expectation that students pursuing these degrees are working in their fields. The CPL—in all its standardized tests of divisional studies.”—
The growth of community college baccalaureate programs is changing CPL opportunities at these institutions. When a community college offers its undergraduate degree, the transfer problem is no longer relevant. Students starting in associate degree programs can see that certification as a stepping stone to a four-year higher education within that same institution, and there are no external transfer policies involved. They are building an advanced degree within the same institution that would grant their CPL credit, subject to the same educational standards and qualification requirements. No manual withdrawals, no receiving agency with different rules, no risk of mid-trip credits being issued.
These trends provide a way for community colleges to fully embrace the CPL as a strategic tool for older students pursuing degrees without the asterisk that used to accompany that conversation. A returning adult with extensive work experience can have an honest, uncomplicated counseling conversation about how their background can translate to college credit, and that student can pursue those opportunities with confidence that the credits will count toward graduation.
Tina Root, director of alternative credit programs at Dallas College, comments, “When students begin and complete their four-year degrees at Dallas College, we remove significant barriers to completion. Our students can be placed in consistent and transparent expectations at a single institution that values their prior learning.
The Community College Baccalaureate Association recently released its Quality Framework organized around 10 key elements. One of these factors is affordability; the framework rightly recognizes prior learning credit as one of the “objective strategies” community colleges can take to ensure that their undergraduate degrees are offered at a lower cost to students.
Debra Bragg of Bragg & Associates, a research partner at CCBA, also notes that regardless of cost, CPL recognizes that working adults have accumulated a wealth of knowledge and skills essential to earning their bachelor’s degree: “They’re not marathon runners—they’re seasoned participants in academic success that deserve recognition.”
The Respect Adults Bring to the Classroom
There is something profound here that deserves to be named. CPL is not just financial or material comfort. It is an act of respect for the institution. Say, what you have learned outside these walls is useful, and we see it.
Community colleges are built in that spirit. Their history is one of meeting students where they are, taking seriously the lives of real people and creating ways that work for real people with real responsibilities. Extending strong CPL opportunities to students pursuing community college degrees is a natural extension of that goal.
Community college bachelor’s degrees are still unknown in nearly half of the country, with only 24 states currently authorizing them. However, their potential to serve older students is much greater. And the freedom they create around CPL may be one of their most underappreciated contributions yet.
