Through the years, many colleges have realized that sometimes living life can teach more than reading a textbook or listening to a lecture ever could.

That’s why many distance learning programs are awarding students with credit for a previous job, past community service project, or even serving in the military, among other achievements outside of the classroom.

Receiving credit for life experience is simple. If you have acquired any knowledge or skills from a prior life experience, you could receive college credit. Not only does this save you from sleeping through a subject you already know everything about, but it also can bring you closer to a degree and save you money.

In fact, a recent study showed that students who sought and were awarded prior learning credit were even more likely to graduate, according to an Inside Higher Ed article on prior learning. Nearly 60 percent of the students who had life experience credit earned an associate’s or bachelor’s degree within a seven-year time frame, while only 21 percent of students who did not have prior life experience graduated within the same time period.

Some online education programs offer up to 30 credit hours of life experience college credit. Most of the time, life experience, or prior learning experience, is only allowed as a substitute for minimal amount of credit hours, not for an entire degree. If an online degree program claims it offers a life experience degree, thoroughly research the institution and makes sure the distance learning program is not a diploma mill.

But even receiving some credit for life experience can go a long way. And though it may seem easy, most colleges take the process of awarding prior learning experience credits very seriously. They don’t want it to be a "quick and dirty way to credit," said Ann Folwell Stanford, professor and former associate dean of curriculum at the School for New Learning, the continuing education arm at DePaul University in Chicago. “The process is fairly rigorous,” she said in an interview with The New York Times in 2008. "They can’t just experience something, they need to illustrate in writing how they find meaning in it."

If you are pursuing an online degree and have years of prior experience and learning, make the most of it. Get college credit for life experience and get a head start on completing your college education.

For more information:
How to Get College Credit for Life Experience
Life Experience and Prior Learning Credit information from Adelphi University