Yes!  You can earn college credit for past life experiences in work and play. Each year,  you accumulate valuable life experience. The experience alone is not what earns credit. It is the way you demonstrate how your experiences  produce knowledge that is relevant to a particular college subject.

You may, for example, know how to prepare a document using a word processing program.   That knowledge may allow you 2 to 3 hours credit at certain colleges. You may know how to build a web page,  speak a foreign language, or play an instrument. This knowledge can easily be turned into college credit.   Many other ordinary every day experiences you may have also are worthy of college credit.

Life experience credit can save you a large amount of time and money. The following schools specialize in offering credit for life experience:

1.   Amber University
2.   Bellevue University
3.   *Charter Oak State College
4.   College of West Virginia
5.   Endicott College
6.   Indiana Institute of Technology
7.   Jones International University
8.   Judson College
9.   New York Institute of Technology
10. Oklahoma City University
11. Oral Roberts University
12. Prescott College
13. *Excelsior College
14. Regis University
15. *Thomas Edison State College
16. Upper Iowa University

* Have offered these programs the longest and the best known in the U.S.

For further information on each of these, see their descriptions in chapter 14.

PRIMARY SOURCES OF CREDIT FROM LIFE EXPERIENCE

The following nine areas of life experience are typically cited by experts in the field like Dr. John Bear and Marcie Thorson:

1. Work: Probably the most likely to produce credit. Typing, computer work, accounting, management, advertising, equipment skills, sales, inventory control, etc.

2. Homemaking: Home maintenance, meal planning, child rearing, interpersonal relationships, marriage and family, cooking, nutrition etc.

3. Volunteer Work: Community service, church work, political actives, hospital work, etc.

4. Noncredit Courses: Company workshops, corporate seminars, teacher training, conferences, conventions, workshops, etc.

5. Travel: Significant travel abroad whether for business or pleasure, business trips, studying other cultures, etc.

6. Recreational Hobbies: Sports, gardening, public speaking, attending plays, visiting art museums, playing musical instruments, acting in a play, etc.

7. Independent Study: reading, interviews, watching PBS television programs, any field of personal interest where extensive research has been undertaken, etc.

8. Exposure to Experts: Through personal interviews, discussions, training under someone as an apprentice, personal tutelage or mentoring, etc.

9. Military Experience: Specialized training is offered in numerous technical fields from aviation, to radar, to accounting, to equipment maintenance. Travel abroad and significant exposure to other cultures would not be uncommon.

The following example activities, and skills have received college credit:

C.C.R.S.
Formerly known as PONSI, C.C.R.S. is an acronym for the "College Credit Recommendation Service." Over 200 major companies have had their training courses evaluated for college credit. Certain schools, including Regents College and Thomas Edison State College (many others nationwide as well) will award credit based on these courses. College credit recommendations for these courses are published along with course descriptions in the National Guide to Educational Credit For Training Programs. Check with the schools you’re interested in to see how they deal with C.C.R.S. credits. cf: http://www.acenet.edu/Programs/CALEC/PONSI/home.html

PORTFOLIOS

To earn credit for the knowledge you’ve gained from various life experiences, you must prepare a narrative presentation called a portfolio. The faculty members assigned evaluate your portfolio and assign credit. Thomas Edison State College is unique in that it is possible at this accredited school to earn your Bachelors degree entirely based on credit from life experience.

Be sure to purchase the Portfolio Course Description Book below with over 3,000 course descriptions that can be used at Thomas Edison, Charter Oak or Regents College.

If you have been a homemaker you can document how the varied tasks involved taught you planning and budgeting, the psychology of interpersonal relationships, childhood education, nutrition (meal planning and execution), home economics, and interior design. The activities you’ve documented have to be translated into academic terms. Unfortunately there are no universal standards agreed upon. Many schools do issue guidelines, however, and offer courses to assist you in the preparation of your portfolios.

It is important to understand that life learning experiences are not an option for credit from most schools when there are standardized tests available in those subject areas. Equivalency exams (cf. chapter 8) are used to earn credits in these areas, e.g. the GRE, CLEP and ACT/PEP tests.

RESOURCES

Thomas Edison State College publishes a FREE guide entitled, Portfolio Assessment Handbook. It is excellent! Call (609)984-1150 to request a copy.

Thomas Edison State College publishes a book entitled, Portfolio Course Description Book ($10). It includes approximately 300 pages of course descriptions arranged under hundreds of discipline titles. The advantage of using this book is that the student has over 3,000 course descriptions to choose from without having to go down to the local library and wade through college catalogs to find the course descriptions you want. Charter Oak will allow portfolios based on any of these course descriptions as well.

Earn College Credit For What You Know, 3^rd edition, $24.95 (ISBN 0-7872-3573-3) by Lois Lamdin 1-800-228-0810 www.cael.org
The National Guide to Education and Credit for Training Programs, (a reference published by The American Council of Education) (800) 279-6799, $85.00

Guide to the Evaluation of Educational Experiences in the Armed Forces (Oryx Press)

"Prior Learning Assessment: A Guidebook to American Institutional Practices", by Zucker, Johnson, & Flint (1999). It retails for $24.95. (ISBN 0-7872-5589-0) 1-800-228-0810

Self-Assessment and Planning Manual, by Linda Headley-Walker. Available from the University of the State of New York

Using Licenses and Certificates as Evidence of College-Level Learning, by Harriet Cabell. Approx. $3

Transfering credit from a foreign school, college or university may present trouble for you.   Most U.S. institutions will grant credit for foreign work completed but they often have no way of knowing how to evaluate it properly. For this, you will need a  credit evaluation services.