Calif. Community Colleges Scale Credit for Prior Learning

California governor Gavin Newsom has proposed a $15 billion investment in community colleges—nearly three times more than what he appropriated for the California State and University of California systems. With part of the investment, the community college system, the largest in the country with 2.2 million students, plans to use artificial intelligence tools to expand its credit for prior learning framework.

“Higher ed shouldn’t be an ivory tower concept. We should recognize learning where it happens,” Sonya Christian, chancellor of California Community Colleges, said on the latest episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed’s news and analysis podcast. Credit for prior learning “is not a new concept,” she said. “What is different is California community colleges are trying to do it at scale.”

The Mapping Articulated Pathways framework will allow all 116 colleges to connect articulation, common skills and abilities with shared learning outcomes, Christian said. With AI, “we can now get past a lot of the manual, grueling work which would’ve taken years,” she said. The state funding will help build the infrastructure for the system and allow faculty—the humans in the loop—time to be “fully engaged in the process.”

While skills recognition at scale is the objective of the initiative, Christian stressed that the credit must lead to an associate or a baccalaureate degree. “I firmly believe that in all the skills conversation that we can’t lose the value of that degree for the worker, because in terms of long-term career, economic and social mobility, that’s valuable.”

Listen to the full episode here.