AACRAO's "Start From Yes" campaign includes nineteen organizations and several regional accreditors that are committing to the recommendations of the LEARN Commission. The simple but compelling outcome is to orient higher education away from presuming a learner's prior credit can never count toward a credential. AACRAO has found that 66% of learners who try to transfer prior learning credit end up repeating coursework anyway, and that 16% of those learners walk away from higher education entirely because the process is too cumbersome and exhausting. The "Start From Yes" campaign asks colleges and universities to flip the default and presume that prior learning is equivalent to a significant amount of credit.
No population has been harmed more by the institutional default than active duty service members and veterans trying to convert military technical training and professional military education (PME) into academic credit. A service member who completed advanced electronics training at a fleet school, or a senior enlisted leader who sat through the Sergeants Major Academy, enters a university admissions office with a JST or a CCAF transcript that routinely gets treated as a curiosity. The default is to have the military-connected learner prove to a faculty member or untrained academic advisor that their prior military training and education holds value beyond the transcript and applies directly to course objectives and outcomes within the curriculum.
The stakes here are exceedingly high for private universities trying desperately to generate alternative revenues from part-time and online learners (the markets in which active duty military and veterans reside). Regional publics already have the name recognition, legislative backing, and price points that box out most privates in the adult and military-connected learner market. So a progressive, fast, and transparent credit-for-military-training policy is one of the few genuine differentiators a private university can still offer this population.
Private universities serious about serving those who serve(d) have to enact policies that default to awarding credit for ACE-evaluated military training unless a specific academic reason says otherwise. They have to aggressively retain and hire evaluators and advisors who actually know how to read a JST and a CCAF transcript. They have to design flexible degree maps to remove time-bound requirements a “retake” rules that override ACE recommendations. They MUST give their PCE units ownership of these evaluations, because that's where the expertise already resides. And they have to actively track and publish their own credit-award rates for military learners. "Start From Yes" gives private universities an easily implemented plan. Whether they take up the plan and run with it depends on how truly committed a university is to being the better place for all military-connected learners, not just those arriving with GI Bill benefits.
No comments:
Post a Comment