Earn College Credit for What You Know Now

Use Your Life Experience to Earn College Credit Toward Your Degree Quickly & Easily!

Dear College Student, Career Changer, or Career Advancer,

How would you like to expedite the process of obtaining a college degree?

Let me rephrase that...

How would you like to take advantage of the hard work that you have completed over the years and apply it to your college degree plan?

Not only can you complete a four year degree in less time but for less cost. With all the competition today, you need to use all your assets.

There are currently over 7 million college students in the United States and over 3 million students enrolled in online college courses alone. The vast majority of students are trying to advance or change their career with the help of a college degree.

Because college degrees are time-consuming and expensive, today’s college student will take every advantage offered to them to reduce costs and shorten the time to achieve their degree.

Almost every college in the United States offers several methods of obtaining course credit and encourages students to excel through pass-or-fail testing and through experiential learning portfolios; written narratives explaining the student’s knowledge derived from actual work and life experience.

Through experiences learned from work, civic activities, volunteering, travel, even reading, many students returning to college have an advantage that the less experienced student does not have.

But the student must prove his or her knowledge! The knowledge must be expressed at a college level in order to receive credit for college coursework.

The key: present the student’s knowledge in the way that the college expects to receive it.

How? Read on.

The portfolio of one's life and experiences can present the student’s grasp and understanding of required coursework reflecting the level of experience attained outside of a college classroom. Hundreds of thousands of students are using this method now. Why not you?

Colleges embrace these portfolios and want to help the student reach their educational goals.

Some colleges even have required coursework for preparing a portfolio in an effort to ensure students receive all the credit they can.

Every Year Colleges Approve Thousands of Experiential Learning Portfolios for College Credit

How a landscaper, a weekend musician, and a stay-at-home mom were able to use their life experience to earn college credit.

    Carlos was just 14 when he began cutting his neighbors’ lawns for a few dollars a week. Carlos discovered that he really enjoyed the work, and by his sixteenth birthday he had a used truck and trailer to haul his lawn equipment around and was busy all summer every summer until he graduated high school.

    He decided to earn a degree in Landscaping at his local community college but was concerned about the expense and the amount of time he would have to commit to the courses until he received his degree. After reviewing the curriculum, Carlos noticed that he already knew much of what some of the courses would be teaching, and did not want to spend thousands of dollars and spend months in a classroom preparing for that which he already knew.

    But Carlos did want the degree that he believed would help earn him more money or a better position in the business. He decided to document his life experiences in his landscaping services business and organize them into a portfolio that earned him credit for college courses, saving months of time and thousands of dollars to complete.

    Jenny was married right after she graduated high school and started a family. When her children were old enough to attend school full time, she was then able to get a part-time job at a dry cleaner. Jenny never took school all that seriously but when she discovered that the better paying careers required advanced education, she began to research ways to finance her college education and secure funding for when she did decide to return to school and earn her degree.

    Jenny found the university’s courses were expensive and would require a four-year commitment to complete, if not longer. Jenny discovered that a community college offered courses at a lower cost than the big university she hoped to graduate from, and that these courses would transfer to the larger university for full credit, saving her several thousand dollars.

    During her research she noticed that both colleges she was planning to take courses at accepted experiential learning portfolios, whereby a student’s life experiences could earn college credit for up to 50% of the curriculum. That would save her thousands of dollars and cut months off the time expected to complete her degree.

    Jenny thought about her excellent organizational skills with managing her household and scheduling her family’s meals, doctor and dentist visits, and many other tasks and recreational functions. She also saw ways of using what she knew in her job that could be used for highlighting her skills at sales, and business management. 

    After reviewing the course descriptions and expected outcomes of the college courses, Jenny prepared a portfolio directed at several courses and received college credit for her effort, never having attended a single class in each of the courses.

    Michael played guitar all though high school and in later years in various bands with limited success. He had worked very hard learning and performing his music, and also kept the bands employed by making the contacts and securing the performance dates.

Michael also wanted more than to just get by and decided to explore options for other, more secure, higher-paying jobs. He discovered that almost every one of the jobs he felt he could do required experience and a college degree.

    Michael believed that his salesmanship and his ability to speak comfortably with unfamiliar people would be an asset to a sales position and he accepted a job at a car dealership where he sold cars. Though he knew that this position was a stepping stone to a more profitable sales career elsewhere, he was able to earn enough to live on while he pursued his college degree.

    Michael reasoned that he could save several thousand dollars almost immediately and receive college credit for some of the courses required by the college he planned to attend by providing a portfolio written to satisfy the course directives. He would need to demonstrate his college-level abilities to communicate the course outcomes he had learned through his years of life experience.

    Michael began writing his narrative expressing his goals and his experiences in the way that his college directed, having had an example of a portfolio for a different curriculum that the college was willing to let him review. When he was finished, Michael asked a professional at the college’s writing center to review and make suggestions for improving his portfolio, which he did.

    Michael then repeated the process for several other courses toward his Business Management degree, saving several thousand dollars and several months of class time.

    Jenny, Michael, and Carlos all had something in common—life experience that was worth at least as much as many college courses could ever teach them. Each had a desire to succeed and each wanted to complete college degree programs as efficiently and inexpensively as possible. These same reasons are exactly why the College Credit for Life Experience guide is so important to so many individuals that want to achieve more in their lives.

You are just moments away from having the answers to earning college credit through your life experience revealed in a short, easy to use e-book to get you well underway to achieving the degree that will help you advance your career goals.