Sunday, March 24, 2013

What To Know About Life Experience Degrees

By Jill Faulkner


The Internet is full of advertisements about people being able to quickly and easily earn both undergraduate and graduate life experience degrees. Yes, earning a degree based on things experienced. The opportunities often sound way too good to be true and in fact, they usually are.

A lot of individuals are confronted with these scams through websites and emails. Often these institutes will request the test scores, credit card information, phone number, transcripts, and job reports from people with the guarantee to take care of everything else. Usually it is easy for a person to spot this kind of scam, but the reality is that there are people who fall for these.

If you are offered any type of degree based on your personal experiences, it should be a red flag. Although our experiences are known to make us wiser, it does not make us eligible for a degree. While most of these offers are not legitimate, there are some instances in which they may be, sort of.

Generally speaking: no, a person cannot earn a degree that is credible based solely on life experiences. No American colleges or universities accept this. Accreditation refers to a sort of peer review where people from accredited schools assess other such institutes to make sure they have quality learning programs.

In undergraduate programs, an individual may earn associates or bachelors degrees by demonstration previous learning. This is usually done by transfer of credits, credit earned through examination or portfolios. This method is more formal and considered the way to go about getting credits, rather than being awarded them just for experience. If an individual can prove that he or she has learned the equivalent of what is taught in a college course, he or she may earn credits that are applicable toward an undergraduate degree.

With all this said, prior learning assessment is not a means to earning a full degree and does not work when it comes to applying to graduate programs. All accredited doctoral and masters degrees are centered on new knowledge. While a person may be capable of earning a few extra credits based on previous education, there is a limit.

If you did more research on the schools that offer these graduate degrees in experience, you may see a trend: these agencies have not be accredited. It is suggested that students do their best to avoid these scams. While students may be eligible to earn college credit and degree through prior learning, be a skeptic of programs that are offered through institutes that do not have accreditation.

Although life experience degrees sound cool, they are not realistic. A lot of non-accredited institutes tout these quick and easy-to-get degrees. However, these are often just scams and people should be cautious when dealing with institutes who make such claims. With that said, there are institutes that permit prior learning assessment. That is, an individual who can verify that he or she has been taught something equivalent to what is learned in college may be get college credit or an undergraduate degree.




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