Office for Prior Learning Assessment

PLA is not only offered on an individual employee basis. PLA also includes methods for evaluating military or corporate training programs for college credit. For example, if an employer develops an internal training course that includes content that is at the college level or comparable to college-level courses, the American Council on Education (ACE), as well as some postsecondary institutions, can evaluate the curriculum and make credit recommendations for any worker who successfully completes that course.(The fees charged for this evaluation service vary, and some postsecondary institutions provide it for free.) Not every interviewed employer offered training that would meet the criterion of having college-level content. However, the employers in IT, healthcare, and manufacturing said that some of their in-house training did have content that was comparable to what is found in college courses. For example, one manufacturer considered his company’s in-house blueprint training to be on the same level as what would be found in college courses. A healthcare employer was intrigued by the possibilities: “If we could take current training and offer it for college credit, attendance would be huge. It’s mind boggling to think that might be possible. It could be a whole change of culture.”