19NtQdt

Game Changers: Education and IT
telecom industry. The curriculum includes an associate’s degree program in
applied information technology, a bachelor of science in telecommunications
degree program, and an advanced certificate in emerging telecommunications
technologies.
Today, NACTEL is the premier source for industry-based telecommunications
education. The Pace University programs are now beginning their thirteenth year,
with more than 550 students taking an average of 2,500 courses each year.
Online Portals That Recognize and Document Previous
Learning
As noted earlier, many nontraditional learners are students who are coming
to postsecondary education several years after graduating from high
school. During this time, they may have taken courses from one or more postsecondary
institutions in previous attempts at a degree. In addition, they may
have gained college-level skills and knowledge from their life experiences. Such
skills and knowledge can often be acquired from experiences such as serving
in the military, working, volunteering in the community, self-study, or a combination
of these activities.
Nontraditional learners therefore may have college credits from various
sources in addition to possessing knowledge and skills gained outside of the
classroom that may be at the college level. The challenge for the learners is
that often this prior learning is not recognized for their degrees. Colleges and
universities have widely varying policies concerning how many credits and
what kind of credits can be accepted in transfer, as well as the evaluation of
prior learning for credit.
Advances in information technology are helping to address some of these
challenges. Today, there are online services that help students find ways to
maximize their prior learning. These services include online credit-transfer support
services and online prior-learning assessment services.
Online credit-transfer support services: Today there are more than 43
million Americans age 25 and older who have some college credit but no degree.
7 When these individuals make the decision to return to school to complete
a degree, they do not always return to the same institution they attended
before. Often they are surprised to learn that some or all of the credits they
earned previously will not be accepted in transfer or will not count toward
their degree at the new institution.
Some students faced with this challenge search out an institution that will
accept their previous credit. Unfortunately, this is akin to taking a shot in the
74