Given both the cost and the time commitment necessary to earn a college degree, a college that accepts relevant work experience can greatly reduce both the expense and the length of a degree program. Even an associate’s degree consists of 60 hours of study and as many as 20 academic courses.
Today there are many colleges and universities that will accept work experience, provided the relevant work pertains to at least one or more courses in the degree sequence. Obtaining credit for just one course reduces both the time and the cost of the college program by five percent, two courses, ten percent, etc.
DeVry University offers a number of law degree options in the criminal justice field. Their program features a liberal arts approach and offers students a solid foundation in four distinct areas: law enforcement, courts, corrections and security. Students seeking an associate’s level law degree from this university may transfer their work experience in criminal justice for academic credit. For example, if a student has worked for a security firm and has been through specific training, the student may gain credit for courses relevant to that area when pursuing a law degree.
At Fordham College in Tarrytown, NY students may submit a portfolio of their life and work experience for the faculty to evaluate. At Fordham, each submission is limited to four credits, but more than one portfolio may be submitted. The college does expect that to be awarded college credit, the student must be able to demonstrate that their work experience represents university level learning that is both theoretical and practical as well as related to a specific course of study
To be eligible to receive credit students generally must be matriculated into specific programs. Matriculation is the phrase used by colleges and universities to describe the process of application, acceptance and subsequent enrollment. Most colleges and universities will not do a formal evaluation of work experience prior to that matriculation process being completed. In some cases, colleges and universities will demand the completion of a minimum number of courses before they will consider such work experience for credit. Yet another option is a mixture of the two concepts, partial credit (one or two credits out of a possible three) for a specific aspect of relevant work experience with the student awarded full credit upon completion of an academic unit to fulfill the remainder of the course responsibilities.
Though you may shorten a program using relevant work experience, be aware of the college or university that is willing to hand over a college degree based solely on work experience. Such an institution is likely to be a degree mill, one that merely provides a worthless piece of paper that attempts to mimic a real college degree. You are essentially paying a fee for a phony university to certify your work experience. Businesses will not be fooled by such a document.
But if you are considering college study and have work experience, you owe it to yourself to examine a school’s willingness to award credit. The decision as to which accredited school to attend is often made in part by a school’s policy towards accepting work experience.