Building New Pathways to Degrees SHEEO Higher Education Policy Conference

August 11, 2010

Judy WertheimV.P., Higher Education Services

The Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL)

Adult Learning: A National Priority▷ Great and growing need for the

nation’s workforce to acquire more postsecondary credentials to compete

▷ Many emphasizing the importance of greater success and persistence among college enrollees:

• President Obama

• Lumina Foundation for Education

• Individual States2

The U.S. Skills Gap▷ Report Released June, 2010 by the

Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce:• U.S. “ on a collision course with

the future”• By 2018, our economy will have

jobs for 22 million with college degrees, but a shortage of nearly 8 million

• By 2018, 63 % of jobs will require postsecondary training

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Even Best Performance with Traditional College-Aged Students at Each Stage of the Educational Pipeline Will Leave Gaps in More than 30 States

0 300,000 600,000 900,000 1,200,000 1,500,000

MissouriConnecticut

MarylandWyomingGeorgia

Montana

WisconsinNew Mexico

Michigan

Oklahoma

West VirginiaAlabama

South Carolina

Mississippi

North CarolinaKentuckyArkansasLouisiana

NevadaTennessee

New JerseyCalifornia

2,7888,89810,87523,54224,74125,32628,65934,54737,70639,43644,75747,42053,57453,99562,33265,85374,752

110,495112,681114,375115,120122,061132,748

159,765186,640

204,814287,565

307,956320,720

560,688893,504

1,333,645

Indiana

Hawaii

IdahoMaine

Oregon

Alaska

Ohio

Arizona

FloridaTexas

In order to reach international competitiveness by 2025, the U.S. and 32 states can’t close the gap

with even best performance with traditional college students. They must rely on the re-entry pipeline – getting older adults back into the education system

and on track to attaining college degrees.

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Adult Learning in Focus

Main sources will have to be tapped to rectify this shortfall:

• Adults (25-64) who never completed high school – 21 million

• Adults with high school diplomas but no college—46 million

• Adults with some college but no degree—32 million

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Factors Affecting Adult Participation

Affordability

Accessibility

Aspiration

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PLA Can Help

What Is Prior Learning Assessment

(PLA)?

The evaluation for college credit of the knowledge and skills one gains from life

experiences (or from non-college instructional programs) including:

employmenttravel

hobbiescivic activities

volunteer servicemilitary service

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More about PLA

PLA Methods• Standardized exams

• Advanced Placement (AP)• College Level Examination Program (CLEP)• Excelsior College Exams• DANTES Subject Standardized Tests (DSST)

• Challenge exams• Evaluation of non-college

training (e.g. corporate or military)

• Individual student portfolios

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PLA Addresses:

Affordability

Accessibility

Aspiration

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How Can PLA Help?

CAEL Study of PLA and Student Outcomes

• 48-institution study of PLA and academic outcomes (funded by Lumina Foundation), released in March, 2010

• 62,475 total adult students in our sample (adult = age 25 or older)

• Increased Graduation Rates, Greater Persistence, and Shorter Time to Degree

www.cael.org

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PLA and Community Colleges

▷ Spring, 2010 – a CAEL exploratory study of PLA in community colleges

▷ 91% of the respondents believe that their student populations have technical skills and knowledge learned on the job that could be assessed for college-level credit.

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Need for More PLA

▷Other CAEL research, completed in 2006, indicated that only 66% of higher education institutions offered the portfolio method of assessing experiential learning.

▷Many institutions that do have a policy for assessing portfolios serve very few students annually.

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Scaling Up the Use of PLA

CAEL Virtual PLA Center

• Designed with a planning grant from Lumina Foundation for Education

• Implementation began July 1, 2010

• ACE and College Board partnering on project

• CAEL will draw upon faculty experts nationwide for teaching portfolio development course and reviewing adult students’ portfolios

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CAEL Virtual PLA Center

▷ VPLA Center will use on-line platform

▷ The Center will help students earn all forms of PLA credit

▷ Credit recommendations from CAEL VPLA Center faculty experts will be sent on ACE transcript to colleges, as ACE already does today with military and corporate training

Scaling Up the Use of PLA

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Whom Will It Serve?▷ Individuals already enrolled in

community colleges or four-year institutions

• Provide support for postsecondary institutions that have no existing PLA programs

• Augment existing PLA programs at some postsecondary institutions

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Whom Will It Serve?

▷Unaffiliated individuals not yet in college or having started but never finished college• Active duty military and

veterans • Document and certify skills

from their military careers

• Workers in transition or lower-income workers • Workforce Investment Boards

might send workers to document skills from previous jobs and have that learning evaluated by faculty

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Whom Will It Serve?

▷Employers and industry groups• To pursue the further credentialing

of their employees

• To document learning that has already been completed and identify skills gaps

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Why Colleges Are Interested

▷ Consistent application of PLA standards

▷ Lack of a PLA program at their institution

▷ Existing program cannot keep up with high volume of portfolio submissions

▷ Lack of personnel to adequately staff their PLA program

▷ Lack of credentialed faculty to review submitted portfolios in certain fields

▷ Interest in streamlining their process through increased capacity and speed

▷ Reliance on VPLA Center as an interim resource while the institution prepares to launch or expand its own PLA program on campus 18

Pilot Institutions

▷CAEL has requested commitment from institutions, systems, and organizations to participate in the pilot launch of VPLA Center

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Criteria for Participation in the Pilot

Institutions are adult-serving and adult learner-friendly and agree to:

• treat PLA credit recommendations as they do other transfer credit

• identify group of adults to participate in the VPLA Center process

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Questions?

Judy Wertheim

V.P., Higher Education Services Council for Adult and

Experiential Learning (CAEL)

312.499.2659jwertheim@cael.org

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