Wisconsin Career Pathways Technical Assistance Policy Brief

To accelerate student completion postsecondary institutions and states have been adopting credit for prior learning (CPL) providing options for students to earn academic credit for learning outside traditional coursework and classroom seat time. CPL is also referred to as Prior Learning Assessment (PLA). This brief summarizes some recent statewide policy initiatives, postsecondary institution advances in CPL, including research/reports. Policy and implementation issues vary from state to state and from institution to institution. Some common themes include:  Availability of faculty time required to complete student assessments and how faculty are paid to complete assessments;  Assessment rigor and CPL evaluation standards to ensure credit awarded reflects competencies of given coursework;  Transcription of CPL credits and how credits are interpreted cross-institution including transcription process;  Testing out of courses variation by degree program and from year to year depending on industry needs. The Wisconsin Technical College System is currently focused on policy and implementation of CPL statewide including military transcripting. This technical assistance brief supports the progress underway with these efforts. The brief is ordered with national resources first, followed by regional consortiums and states. An addendum is included in this brief of resources of potential sources of open source online intake and assessment tools for students to compare their knowledge with the competencies of various courses.