The majority of students enrolled in college today work at least part-time. Although the benefits of working have been noted for years, institutions of higher education tend to operate under the assumption that students should prioritize their academic careers over their employment. First we review literature examining why students work, the…

Since 2001, hundreds of colleges and universities in the United States and around the world have been utilizing and creating open educational resources (OER). Some institutions with support from consortia or foundations create their own resources applying them where appropriate; others simply adapt existing resources. OER exists and is distributed…

Many students return to graduate programs as experts in their prior fields. "Returners," as they are commonly termed, have undergraduate degrees and have worked five or more years before returning for a graduate degree. While there is a significant body of literature on graduate students in general, there is less research on students…

Some institutions' prior learning assessment (PLA) programs are far more successful than others. As with any strategic initiative, the best-intentioned policy is only as good as the implementation, operations, and people behind it. Beyond progressing through the change management process, ensuring sustainability is critical to long-term PLA…

Universities across the United States are grappling with both funding and enrollment pressures and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Decreasing state funding coupled with lower birth rates of the recent past (Grawe, 2018) are forcing colleges and universities to rethink enrollment and retention strategies. Amid the push to…

In this article, the authors report that, as the importance of competency-based learning (CBL) in higher education discourse surges, it not only further validates prior learning assessment (PLA), but it demonstrates PLA's essential nature as an important framework for assessing learning that has been acquired outside of traditional academia.…

As the economy in the United States continues to emerge from a recession and as jobs become more technologically advanced rendering other jobs obsolete, more and more Americans over the age of 50 are now attending college for a variety of reasons. Around 77% of the so-called Plus 50 students were enrolled in two-year public institutions. Other…

Prior learning assessment (PLA) students enter academia with different types of concepts--some of them have been formally accepted and labeled by academia and others are informally formulated by students via independent and/or experiential learning. The critical goal of PLA practices is to assess an intricate combination of prior learning…

The previous article, "Prior Learning Assessment: What is next after 40 years? Part 1: Prior Learning Assessment: 1970-2011" focused on the history of prior learning assessment (PLA) in the United States over the past 40 years. After exploring more recent recognition and development of PLA across institutions of higher education, the…

Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) brings students into active and reflective engagement with significant life experiences at the nexus of academic and nonacademic cultures. When done successfully, PLA orients students to academic ways of thinking and writing while encouraging self-exploration. Often students feel a sense of empowerment and…

Education practices focused on adult learners, such as prior learning assessment (PLA), are becoming more established in the United States. Initially, PLA was developed to provide greater access to higher education for World War II veterans and later for adult learners more generally as a way to balance the concentrated efforts most colleges and…

The authors believe that there is no inherent academic validity or lack of thereof in the notion of prior learning assessment (PLA)-based curriculum. If mishandled, it can become the tool for carrying out diploma mill practices. Conversely, if implemented and facilitated appropriately, PLA-based curricula can offer humanistic educational values…

Adult learners bring a wealth of experience and prior learning to college. Much of this prior learning may, in fact, qualify for college credits, so many adults assemble portfolios and write learning narratives to demonstrate their learning and apply for credits. Despite their many skills and rich knowledge, however, adults are often unsure about…

In this article, the author presents an assortment of approaches--building blocks--commonly used in Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) practices (this list is certainly not comprehensive): (1) course matching (comparing course requirements to a student's prior learning experiences); (2) student's ability to articulate learning gained from…

Margaret J. Wheatley, the organizational consultant who wrote the 1999 classic, "Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World," laments about the rigid structures and processes that often strangle organizations rendering them incapable of change. Wheatley asserts that organizations lack faith that their purpose…