Credit for Prior Learning – Definition & Benefits

Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) – Definition

Credit for prior learning is credit that recognizes the college-level learning you have gained from experience.

Your experiences to consider for credit through prior learning evaluation might be diverse – they may or may not be in traditional academic areas related to the focus of your degree.  Prior learning to consider for credit may result from many different types of personal, work, or training experiences.

For example:

• A professional dancer and choreographer might consider pursuing credit for prior learning in Choreographing for Children, which is not a usual course in a dance curriculum.
• A volunteer in a community non-profit organization may consider pursuing credit for prior learning in volunteer coordination, which is not a usual course in a college curriculum.
• A supervisor in a corporation may consider pursuing credit for prior learning in supervision, which often is a standard course in a college curriculum.

To gain credit for prior learning you go through a process in which your learning, acquired outside of a traditional learning environment, is assessed for college-level knowledge and verified for college credit. Many colleges offer CPL as a means of getting credit for college-level knowledge you’ve gained through your own experience, work, or self-study.

Benefits of Credit for Prior Learning

CAEL, the national, non-profit Council for Adult and Experiential Learning, notes these benefits of pursuing credit for prior learning.

“More adults graduate & key groups benefit

Overall, adults who earn credit for prior learning are 17% more likely to graduate than adults who do not. The CPL completion benefit is 25% for adults at community colleges, 24% for Hispanic adults, 13% for Black adults, and 19% for Pell Grant recipients.

Saves students time and money

On average, adult degree earners with 12 or more CPL credits saved 9 to 14 months. Adult students who earned CPL saved $1,500 to $10,200 in tuition dollars.

Empowers adult students by validating them as learners

The CPL process of reflecting on past learning is often a positive experience that improves adult students’ confidence in themselves as learners, research shows.” ^[1]

This video from CAEL recaps the benefits of pursuing credit for prior learning.

Examples Explaining CPL

The following video on individualized prior learning assessments offers examples specific to Empire.  In the first 7:37 minutes, up to the section on “The Big Picture,” faculty and student talk about the benefits of credit for prior learning.  (Please note that the term “prior learning assessment” or “PLA” is synonymous with “credit for prior learning” or “CPL.”)

If you’re interested and have chosen to pursue an individualized degree program as your route toward an Empire degree, you may want to watch the rest of the video.

 

Key Takaway:  What Credit for Prior Learning Is

Credit for Prior Learning is credit you can use in a degree, based on the college-level learning that you have gained from your experiences.

Key Takeaway – CPL Overview

Empire’s catalog pages on Credit for Prior Learning provide a good overview of the possibilities and processes for gaining credit for prior learning.

From your student home page, click on the Office of Prior Learning tile.