Experience For College Credit

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As higher education continues to attract an increasing number of adult students, many colleges and universities are developing programs to meet their distinctive needs. These students, age twenty-five and over, comprise 38 percent of the undergraduate population, according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census in 1999, and bring with them rich clusters of college-level knowledge gleaned from a variety of sources. They provide challenges to higher education not seen with traditional-age college students, including financial concerns, time constraints, and a distinct desire not to repeat learning what they have already gained from their professional or life experience. As a result, the practice of awarding college credit for learning from life experience has become a popular effort to attract and retain adult students.

Although the awarding of such credit is a legitimate academic process to some, it is not without controversy. The idea of granting college credit for learning that takes place outside the classroom challenges the very foundation of higher education. Some look upon the practice as a radical doctrine of giving away credit or of granting credit just for living, and it may seem inappropriate for the carefully regulated university setting. If the assumption is made that learning takes place everywhere, and that higher education is a part of a larger system of human learning that includes family, church, school, media, social institutions, and the work place, the rationale behind the practice may become more apparent.

Advocates of the practice find support in the teachings of John Dewey, who asserted that "all genuine education comes about through experience." Such experience is not limited to the classroom; in fact, the academy has no monopoly on learning. If learning takes place, it should not matter how it is accomplished, as long as the outcome is realized. If the outcome is college-level learning, then the awarding of college credit for the experience can be justified.

The granting of college credit for learning outside the classroom is not a new practice. As early as 1942 the American Council on Education (ACE) worked with branches of the military to evaluate service members' learning through military education and training. The resulting Guide to the Evaluation of Educational Experiences in the Armed Services documents secondary and postsecondary credit equivalencies, and has grown from one volume in its first printing in 1946 to three volumes covering all branches of the military and the U.S. Department of Defense in 2000.

Formalized testing programs as a means of assessing prior learning first made their appearance in the mid-1960s. Standardized examinations, designed by various national organizations, are intended to be applicable to large populations and to measure levels of accomplishment in many subjects.
A program to evaluate the in-house training that was sponsored by business and industry was begun in 1974. The Program on Noncollegiate Sponsored Instruction (PONSI) began by evaluating training courses offered by eight major corporations and recommending college credit when the learning experiences were found to be at the college level. In the process, a model-reviewing system was designed, which resulted in the publication of A Guide to Educational Programs in Noncollegiate Organizations. Replaced in 1985 by College Credit Recommendations, the 2000 edition serves nearly 300 organizations across the nation and evaluates more than 5,000 training courses and programs.

At about the same time, the Educational Testing Service (ETS) began a research and development project designed to establish procedures for academic recognition of noncollege learning. Known in 1974 as the Cooperative Assessment of Experiential Learning (CAEL), the project focused on gathering data about prior learning assessment practices throughout the country. As a result, faculty and student handbooks were published for the first time that documented the practice of portfolio assessment. By 1979 ACE, the Council on Postsecondary Accreditation (COPA), and the American Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) endorsed the assessment of noncollege learning with the understanding that it would be conducted according to CAEL standards. Now known as the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning, CAEL is an independent organization recognized as a premier authority in the field. CAEL has established and disseminated standards for the awarding of credit for noncollege learning, training faculty evaluators, and implementing research on the outcomes of these efforts. The organization maintains a quality assurance program to monitor and evaluate current assessment programs throughout the nation.

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