CPL Crosswalks: Bridges to Connect Past Learning With Future Success

Hope Lineman has a double-edged perspective about what credit for prior learning means for adult learners. Today, she is the strategic adviser to the chancellor on workforce innovation for the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE). In addition to this statewide service for PASSHE, she is the executive director of workforce development for the Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania (CU), one of PASSHE's ten universities. But before these roles, she was an adult learner balancing multiple family obligations, a full-time job, and the pursuit of multiple degrees -- an odyssey unaided by the wealth of real-world experience she had accrued. 

"It took me four years to finish my associate degree (my most proud moment - a major milestone), another three to earn my bachelor's degree, and another six to finish my master's," said Lineman. "I did not have any of my prior learning, certifications, etc. count to reduce my time to completion, which, looking back now, would likely have equated to about 45 credits ...  I also was frustrated in that a lot of what I was learning in class I was responsible for in my employment. In essence, I was already doing the job, had the skills and knowledge, and yet had to do the due diligence to get the credit and degree."

Today, Lineman is at the forefront of an effort to make sure that due diligence is a more flexible and inclusive process, one that offers students more access points within academic programs while validating the valuable experiences they have gained outside of them. CU is representing PASSHE in a partnership with CAEL to build CPL crosswalks that will produce a playbook the system can scale across all its universities. As the lead for that pilot work, Lineman is working with CU faculty, regional employers, CAEL, and other partners to implement CPL crosswalks in seven industries.

CPL crosswalks establish credit equivalencies that connect learning outcomes from non-collegiate sources (such as industry certifications and on-the-job training) to learning outcomes in postsecondary institutional curricula. Created and vetted by academic experts, the crosswalks make CPL more proactive, presenting college credit for pre-assessed sources of prior learning. They also make CPL more accessible and discernible, integrating CPL opportunities so that adult learners can easily see their alignment with an institution's existing curricula. Their transparency makes them effective at inspiring broader conversations about CPL and learning assessment as well.

To construct the crosswalks, CAEL identified CU courses and programs with learning outcomes that overlapped with targeted industry certification, training, and testing. This required collaboration with other institutions, workforce developers, and employers. The crosswalking process also revealed opportunities to modify CU curricula to better meet urgent education and training needs.

Pennsylvania faces a critical talent gap that requires innovative solutions from the commonwealth's postsecondary institutions, said Lineman. "Presently, 60% of jobs in Pennsylvania require some education beyond high school, which only 53% of Pennsylvanians have. As Pennsylvania's only state-owned university system, it is incumbent upon PASSHE to develop workforce aligned programs and pathways to upskill and reskill Pennsylvanians for these positions, which advances their own economic mobility and the Commonwealth's vitality."

National trends show that students expect tangible employment advantages to emerge from the investments of time and money they make in postsecondary credentials. A Strada Center for Consumer Insights Public Viewpoint survey showed that 62% of prospective students identified skills training or workforce credentials as their top preferred education and training options. This compares to the 12% and 16% who indicated associate degrees or bachelor’s degrees, respectively. Meanwhile, another gap – this one between student expectations and satisfaction – reveals that career-furthering education may be out of reach even for current college students. A survey from Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse found that for 80% of students, a job or career they love was the top outcome they wanted to achieve from their studies. But only 46% felt their institution would leave them well prepared to achieve such goals.

CPL crosswalks improve access to postsecondary education in several ways. Mapping college to non-college learning outcomes invites a more granular -- or "unbundled" -- progression of educational attainment. "Intentionally marking career pathways with short-term credentials, skills, and competencies through to credit bearing programs results in more robust, and stickier, postsecondary engagement with learners, particularly adult learners who may need to come in and out of postsecondary education to meet other work and family responsibilities," said Lineman. 

"These pathway markers increase learners' motivation to continue through from noncredit and into credit-bearing programs, as they see new opportunities within reach as they gain credentials along their postsecondary journey," she added. "Directly linking the career pathway with industry-recognized credentials provides learners with the opportunity to move into higher-paying positions as they move through their program if they are currently employed or need to step out of education temporarily."

Short-term credential lattices benefit novice and experienced workers alike. Instead of facing the "all or nothing" choice of a traditional degree paradigm, workers entering a new industry can advance their careers by completing credentials that deliver near-term workforce impact while supporting longer-term goals. For example, a student on an R.N. trajectory could seamlessly obtain a C.N.A. On the other hand, workers who have amassed valuable workplace experience but need credentials for career progression can use the same crosswalks to accelerate their academic advancement rather than starting from scratch in the classroom. 

Building CPL crosswalks requires industry input, so it naturally supports employer partnerships and curricular alignment with the latest workforce needs. These are not only must-haves for PASSHE's mission but are also critical to the state's prosperity and ability to compete in a global economy, said Lineman. "Efforts to address shortages and enhance workforce development remain crucial for sustained economic growth. PASSHE is focused on addressing these workforce shortages in innovative and creative ways from collaborative efforts between the universities and regional employers to utilizing data on workforce demand to ensure academic programs are preparing students with the latest skills for emerging job trends."

In 2020, PASSHE fostered such collaboration through its #Prepared4PA initiative. #Prepared4PA is made possible by financial support from Lumina Foundation, Strada Education Network, and the PASSHE Foundation. The initiative identified six industries where competency maps could make the greatest impact. Competency maps delineate knowledge, skills, and abilities required for success in an occupation. The maps support current and incumbent workers by enhancing functions including recruiting, retention, and employee development.

CAEL was a #Prepared4PA partner, hosting regional convenings and helping to articulate competencies and credentials needed for in-demand occupations within the six industries. They included finance, insurance, health care, agribusiness, advanced manufacturing, information technology, and energy. The competency maps would form the foundation for the CPL crosswalks. 

CU has since added a seventh industry, education, facing critical workforce shortages, to the CPL crosswalks collaboration with CAEL. "We are focusing on paraprofessionals and emergency hires, and the CPL crosswalk work will be crucial in meeting these learners where they are and getting them to teaching credentials," said Lineman. 

To date, CAEL and CU have crosswalked more than 30 industry credentials. By the conclusion of the three-year project, which ends next year, CAEL plans to complete 85 crosswalks, each encompassing 5-7 courses at a PASSHE university. The process is intricate. Detailed labor market analysis and continual dialog with faculty, staff, and employers are required to ensure accurate and relevant crosswalks.

For Lineman, the effort is well worth it. She believes CPL crosswalks don't just connect prior and future learning. They are also bridges to future institutional success. "In order to address the adult learner, I do not think that it is an option not to do this," she said. "Adults are working, have family obligations, and cannot relocate to attend a traditional four-year model degree. They will step in and out of education over a much longer period of time.

"If they can master skills and earn industry credentials along the way, they can work, move up in rank and responsibilities, and receive resultant pay increases along the way. In addition, this work helps to create a funnel of high school career and technology students who have completed training and certifications at the high school level, to bring in university recognized credit. The CPL process is focused on the student or learner, placing the student at the center of all that we do."

While labor markets, key sectors, and growth occupations vary at each institution, Lineman is confident in the foundation she is building with CAEL, whose expertise in adult learning was the main draw to the partnership. "Nationally, the population of 18-year-olds is declining, and Pennsylvania is seeing this decline, especially in the rural areas that we serve. PASSHE needed to engage with an agency that is ingrained in understanding lifelong learning, employer engagement, a clear understanding of workforce skills and competencies, and how education, training, employers, and economic development all intersect."

Once the CPL crosswalk work is completed at CU, PASSHE plans to make it the basis of a framework any university can use to ramp up its own program. "We are redesigning PASSHE and one of the key strategic priorities is workforce development of which the credit for prior learning is a central piece," said Lineman.