NASHVILLE – Getting into school with prior studying credit is usually a large boon to college students, chopping down on the money and time required to finish their levels. However the pathways to incomes these credit might favor conventional school college students from well-resourced excessive faculties.
Since 2020, leaders from Salt Lake Group Faculty have labored to enhance prior studying credit score choices for potential and present college students, they instructed attendees Monday on the American Affiliation of Group Faculties‘ annual convention in Nashville. The faculty put a particular emphasis on pathways for grownup learners — these aged 25 and older — as the common pupil on its eight campuses is 25 years previous.
Over the previous 5 years, the ensuing cross-campus collaboration has yielded Salt Lake Group Faculty some promising outcomes, together with extra college students receiving credit score for his or her work expertise and lowered monetary boundaries for prior studying evaluation exams.
Then
In 2019, the Utah Legislature handed a regulation requiring the state’s larger ed board to create a plan geared toward boosting public schools’ issuance of credit score for prior studying, work-based abilities and competency-based assessments.
Salt Lake Group Faculty — which enrolls just below 37,000 credit-bearing college students throughout eight campuses — started an analysis of its course of for awarding prior studying credit the next yr.
Rachel Lewis, Salt Lake Group Faculty’s affiliate provost of educational programs, mentioned the prevailing course of turned out to be hardly a course of in any respect.
“It was, for those who knew the one advisor who knew the method and will speak to this particular person within the registrar’s workplace, we might get your prior studying,” she mentioned. “Good for the scholars who discovered it — not good for all of the others.”
The faculty’s leaders additionally uncovered a spot in what sort of credit have been awarded.
In 2019-20, about 80% of the prior studying credit that Salt Lake Group Faculty awarded have been via pathways usually utilized by highschool college students, mentioned Andrea Tipton, the establishment’s director of credit score for prior studying.
For example, 807 of the 1,291 college students who obtained prior studying credit earned them via Superior Placement assessments provided by the Faculty Board.
As compared, solely 13 college students that yr obtained credit score for his or her skilled certifications or licenses, and only one pupil earned credit score for his or her earlier work expertise and portfolio.
Now
To deal with this disconnect, Salt Lake Group Faculty standardized its prior studying credit score course of. That included a brand new rent.
“We made an important determination to create a place on the school devoted to prior studying — one particular person on the school who might be the purpose of contact to serve in that position,” Lewis mentioned, nodding to Tipton, who was employed for the brand new position.
Salt Lake Group Faculty now emphasizes credit for prior studying as an possibility via improved communications to college students. The establishment additionally works to tell college students that it’s free to have their credit evaluated and added to their transcripts.
As soon as a previous studying credit score is added to a pupil’s transcript, it’s transferable as in the event that they earned it at Salt Lake Group Faculty, in line with school coverage.
“When that pupil goes to the College of Utah, it is now thought of switch credit score,” Lewis mentioned. “They do not reevaluate it. They do not take a look at it.”
Roughly three-fourths of Salt Lake Group Faculty graduates, 72%, go on to switch to a four-year establishment.
The faculty can be highlighting CLEP assessments, an examination possibility provided by the Faculty Board open to learners ages 13 and older.
The assessments can present a viable different to AP assessments. However the registration payment — upwards of $95 in 2025 — proved to be a barrier for a lot of college students, Tipton mentioned.
This yr, Salt Lake Group Faculty started directing college students to the Trendy States Training Alliance, a nonprofit that can cowl check prices for college students who full its free prep programs.
First-year outcomes are nonetheless pending, Tipton mentioned. However the school is processing extra CLEP exams than earlier than, suggesting extra college students are taking benefit now that the monetary barrier to testing has been addressed, she mentioned.
In 2023-24, the faculty awarded 248 credit to 33 college students for his or her skilled licenses and certifications. This represented practically triple the prior studying credit college students earned this manner just a few years earlier than.
It granted one other 100 credit to 18 college students for his or her work portfolios and expertise. The quantity remains to be low, however the bounce from only one or two college students a yr is statistically vital, Tipton mentioned. And it is a inhabitants the faculty needs to develop.
One prior studying pathway extra generally utilized by nontraditional college students has seen a extra sophisticated transformation — navy credit.
Again in 2019-20, Salt Lake Group Faculty appeared to do fairly nicely on this regard, with 137 college students receiving a whopping 2,184 prior studying credit for navy expertise that yr.
“But it surely was lots of electives,” Tipton mentioned. “It wasn’t simply relevant to their diploma or transferable in a significant manner.”
Since then, navy prior studying credit have declined considerably, right down to 34 college students receiving 46 credit in 2023-24.
That drop resulted from the faculty shifting from “awarding simply regardless of the credit score you may get” to prioritizing navy credit that go towards a pupil’s desired diploma, Tipton mentioned. She is now working with tutorial departments to proceed establishing higher course equivalencies for navy expertise.
