CPL Initiative technology, training, and support services are provided at no cost to all California Community Colleges and are made possible by the California Community College Chancellor’s Office • Support from the Riverside Community College District • Collaboration of the Academic Senate of the California Community Colleges
CPL Initiative technology, training, and support services are provided at no cost to colleges and are made possible by the California Community College Chancellor’s Office and funding sponsored by Senator Sabrina Cervantes, District 31, and The California Latino Legislative Caucus (Prop 98 Appropriations) • U.S. Representative Ken Calvert, 41st District (2023 FIPSE grant) • Support from the Riverside Community College District • Collaboration of the Academic Senate of the California Community Colleges
2025 MAP College of the Year
San Diego Community College District earned MAP College of the Year 2025 by transcribing almost 25k units between their 3 colleges while achieving over $19M in financial savings and preservation of funds with their contribution to the Veteran Sprint, loading over 2500 veterans into MAP!
Sara Decelle – Cabrillo College
2025 MAP Champion of the Year
2024 MAP College of the Year
San Bernardino Valley College earned MAP College of the Year 2024 by awarding 1,034 units to 153 students while achieving $684,610 in financial savings, with their strong healthcare programs contributing to a remarkable $4.9M total community impact and an average of 6.8 units per student.
Arlene Serrato – MVC
2024 MAP Champion of the Year
2023 MAP College of the Year
West Los Angeles College earned MAP College of the Year 2023 by awarding 3,059 units to 271 students across diverse professional certifications, with particularly strong dental hygiene and real estate training programs contributing to an impressive average of 11.3 units per student.
The CPL Initiative – Expanding College Access
Scaling Credit for Prior Learning Through the CPL Initiative
The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office has launched an ambitious initiative to expand Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) opportunities across our system by 2030. This effort, led by the Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) Initiative, aims to recognize and validate the diverse learning experiences of our students, particularly working adults, apprentices, and veterans.
Our 2030 vision is to develop college capacity and procedures to ensure that at least 250,000 Californians, including 220,000 working adults and apprentices, and 30,000 veterans, receive offers and awards of CPL leading to increased equitable college access, completion, and career attainment. The stretch goal doubles the impact to 500,000. If our colleges had optimal CPL capacity today, the impact could be far greater, with an estimated 6.5 million Californians benefitting by 2030.
Economic Benefits of CPL
Achieving this goal has a substantial economic impact. Projections suggest a $32.4 billion combined benefit, including $3.7 billion in immediate savings and preservation of funds, and $28.8 billion in long-term economic benefits over 20 years.
Impact: 15 CPL Units & Completion
|
Value of 15 Units CPL leading to College Credential & Career Attainment |
Working Adults & Apprentices | Veterans | Total | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Population | 6,800,000 | 436,000 | Enrollment Goal | ||
| Enrolled with CPL | 1 | 220,000 | 1 | 30,000 | 250,000 |
| PF & Savings | $14.65K | $3.2B | $26.12K | $439.6M | $3.7B |
| 20-Year Impact | $115.0K | $25.3B | $135K | $3.5B | $28.8B |
| Combined | $129.7K | $28.5B | $161.1K | $3.9B | $32.4B |
CPL Expansion
Expanding CPL is crucial for creating seamless pathways from college to careers. By equating skills to college credit, we can accelerate progress toward degrees and certificates that align with industry needs. This effort will require unprecedented cooperation between our colleges, intersegmental partners, workforce agencies, labor unions, industry, and community partners.
CPL Support
To support such collaboration, the California Community College Chancellor’s Office (CO) now provides CPL support, technology, and resources through the CPL Initiative (CO personnel, specifically the MAP team) to all 116 colleges. A basic three-step college implementation process is recommended:
- Organize: Add CPL Update to agendas; establish a CPL team; Review training materials
- Collect: Gather sample CPL docs for working adults, apprentices, and military
- Practice: Meet with the MAP team to begin processing CPL
Ongoing collaboration with the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) and local faculty is essential to ensure academic integrity. By developing rigorous, faculty-driven processes for evaluating, approving, and sharing CPL opportunities, we are building a sustainable systematic approach that supports equitable access to CPL throughout the state and beyond.
This effort, which began at our colleges, will continue to be driven from the middle out and supported at all levels involving diverse constituents—all focused on bringing our colleges to our communities and workplace partners to build a more open and responsive education system that honors lifelong learning and supports economic mobility.
CPL Initiative Strategy
The CPL Initiative provides culture, technology, and policy to help colleges build capacity and procedures to maximize credit for prior learning opportunities for their working adults, apprentices, and veterans—all to flip the petition process into an outreach process and significantly increase equitable access, completion, and career attainment.
Culture:
The MAP team meets with colleges to develop a simple implementation strategy, provide training resources, and recommend the business processes and administrative procedures needed to manage CPL for current and prospective students. The MAP team functions like an extension of your local college CPL team, and offer support via Zoom, chat, or in-person upon request.
Technology:
The MAP platform facilitates CPL creation, faculty approval, adoption (from other colleges); CPL document uploading, parsing, and verification; student CPL planning (in conjunction with education planning) that allows colleges and students to monitor each step of the way leading up to transcribing credit; college-branded website that dynamically displays all implemented CPL opportunities and provides a means for prospective students to contact the college for CPL assistance. MAP is offered at no cost to CCCs and requires no IT set up. All course and program data are integrated from the Chancellor’s Office Curriculum Inventory COCI.
Policy:
The MAP and CO team convene the statewide CPL workgroup and collaborate with practitioners at the colleges to recommend best practices, administrative procedures, funding resources, and collect feedback from the field on barriers and opportunities needing requiring advocacy and action. The team also meets with policy makers to recommend reforms, intersegmental partners (CSU, UC, and private institutions) to align practices and ensure seamless CPL transfer, and interagency partners to share data and tools designed to make CPL accessible outside the college setting.
Scaling Credit for Prior Learning Through the CPL Initiative
The California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office has launched an ambitious initiative to expand Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) opportunities across our system by 2030. Led by the Mapping Articulated Pathways (MAP) team, the CPL Initiative aims to recognize and validate the diverse learning experiences of our students, particularly working adults, apprentices, and veterans.
Our 2030 vision is to develop college capacity and procedures to ensure that at least 250,000 Californians, including 220,000 working adults and apprentices, and 30,000 veterans, receive offers and awards of CPL leading to increased equitable college access, completion, and career attainment. The stretch goal doubles the impact to 500,000. If our colleges had optimal CPL capacity today, the impact could be far greater, with an estimated 6.5 million Californians benefitting by 2030.
Economic Benefits of CPL
Achieving this goal has a substantial economic impact. Projections suggest a $32.4 billion combined benefit, including $3.7 billion in immediate savings and preservation of funds, and $28.8 billion in long-term economic benefits over 20 years.
CPL Expansion
Expanding CPL is crucial for creating seamless pathways from college to careers. By equating skills to college credit, we can accelerate progress toward degrees and certificates that align with industry needs. This effort will require unprecedented cooperation between our colleges, intersegmental partners, workforce agencies, labor unions, industry, and community partners.
CPL Support
To support such collaboration, the California Community College Chancellor’s Office (CO) now provides CPL support, technology, and resources through the MAP team and CO personnel to all 116 colleges. A basic three-step college implementation process is recommended:
- Organize: Add CPL Update to agendas; establish a CPL team; Review training materials
- Collect: Gather sample CPL docs for working adults, apprentices, and military
- Practice: Meet with the MAP team to begin processing CPL
Ongoing collaboration with the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) and local faculty is essential to ensure academic integrity. By developing rigorous, faculty-driven processes for evaluating, approving, and sharing CPL opportunities, we are building a sustainable systematic approach that supports equitable access to CPL throughout the state and beyond.
This effort, which began at our colleges, will continue to be driven from the middle out and supported at all levels involving diverse constituents—all focused on bringing our colleges to our communities and workplace partners to build a more open and responsive education system that honors lifelong learning and supports economic mobility.
The CPL Initiative
The CPL Initiative provides culture, technology, and policy to help colleges build capacity and procedures to maximize credit for prior learning opportunities for their working adults, apprentices, and veterans—all to flip the petition process into an outreach process and significantly increase equitable access, completion, and career attainment.
Culture:
The MAP team meets with colleges to develop a simple implementation strategy, provide training resources, and recommend the business processes and administrative procedures needed to manage CPL for current and prospective students. The MAP team functions like an extension of your local college CPL team, and offer support via Zoom, chat, or in-person upon request.
Technology:
The MAP platform facilitates CPL creation, faculty approval, adoption (from other colleges); CPL document uploading, parsing, and verification; student CPL planning (in conjunction with education planning) that allows colleges and students to monitor each step of the way leading up to transcribing credit; college-branded website that dynamically displays all implemented CPL opportunities and provides a means for prospective students to contact the college for CPL assistance. MAP is offered at no cost to CCCs and requires no IT set up. All course and program data are integrated from the Chancellor’s Office Curriculum Inventory COCI.
Policy:
The MAP and CO team convene the statewide CPL workgroup and collaborate with practitioners at the colleges to recommend best practices, administrative procedures, funding resources, and collect feedback from the field on barriers and opportunities needing requiring advocacy and action. The team also meets with policy makers to recommend reforms, intersegmental partners (CSU, UC, and private institutions) to align practices and ensure seamless CPL transfer, and interagency partners to share data and tools designed to make CPL accessible outside the college setting.
The CPL Initiative Strategy
The CPL Initiative provides culture, technology, and policy to help colleges build capacity and procedures to maximize credit for prior learning opportunities for their working adults, apprentices, and veterans—all to flip the petition process into an outreach process and significantly increase equitable access, completion, and career attainment.
Culture:
The MAP team meets with colleges to develop a simple implementation strategy, provide training resources, and recommend the business processes and administrative procedures needed to manage CPL for current and prospective students. The MAP team functions like an extension of your local college CPL team, and offer support via Zoom, chat, or in-person upon request.
Technology:
The MAP platform facilitates CPL creation, faculty approval, adoption (from other colleges); CPL document uploading, parsing, and verification; student CPL planning (in conjunction with education planning) that allows colleges and students to monitor each step of the way leading up to transcribing credit; college-branded website that dynamically displays all implemented CPL opportunities and provides a means for prospective students to contact the college for CPL assistance. MAP is offered at no cost to CCCs and requires no IT set up. All course and program data are integrated from the Chancellor’s Office Curriculum Inventory COCI.
Policy:
The MAP and CO team convene the statewide CPL workgroup and collaborate with practitioners at the colleges to recommend best practices, administrative procedures, funding resources, and collect feedback from the field on barriers and opportunities needing requiring advocacy and action. The team also meets with policy makers to recommend reforms, intersegmental partners (CSU, UC, and private institutions) to align practices and ensure seamless CPL transfer, and interagency partners to share data and tools designed to make CPL accessible outside the college setting.
Vision and Goals
Vision
In 2030, the California Community Colleges have the capacity and procedures to ensure that California’s working adults, apprentices, and veterans regularly receive offers and awards of CPL, leading to increased equitable college access, completion, and career attainment.
Goals
Goal 1: Expand CPL Opportunities and Boost Student Success for at least 250,000 Californians, including 220,000 working adults and apprentices, and 30,000 veterans. Offer or award CPL using 1,000 statewide credit recommendations from 25 faculty/industry workgroups. Achieve 80% of CPL recipients reporting improvements in savings, belonging, well-being, completion, and career prospects, evidenced by data including 500 personal success stories documented in MAP.
Stretch Goal: Serve 500,000, including 450,000 working adults and 50,000 veterans, utilizing 3,000 credit recommendations from 40 workgroups, with 90% reporting improvements across 1,000 success stories.
Goal 2: Build a Unified, Statewide CPL System that creates CPL-embedded outreach pathways, enables seamless credit transfer across California higher education institutions and beyond, forges 50 industry, agency, and education partnerships supporting CPL, implements a comprehensive credential registry integrating academic and industry-validated competencies into eTranscript and Career Passport, and ensures CPL data interoperability and visibility across related systems.
Stretch Goal: Achieve full system integration, 100% institutional participation, and 95% stakeholder engagement with best practices.
Goal 3: Establish Clear CPL Policies, Sustainable Resources, Professional Development, and Best Practices by reviewing and revising laws and regulations to remove CPL barriers, implementing sustainable funding models, developing research-backed best practices, offering professional and technical assistance to all stakeholders, and recognizing high-performing colleges and partners.
Stretch Goal: Eliminate 100% of barriers, secure permanent operational and incentive funding for CPL, and achieve widespread adoption of best practices across all institutions and education and agency segments.”
Veteran Sprint
The Veteran Sprint led by the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office through the Mapping Articulated Pathways (MAP) team endeavors to accelerate how colleges recognize military learning through experience and coursework and award Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) for military students (veterans, active duty, reservists, national guard) as appropriate for their individual academic plan and pathway developed by their veteran counselor.
Key Goals
- Goal 1: Upload all enrolled military student JSTs into the MAP Platform.
- Goal 2: Award appropriate course credit for basic military service (commonly referred to as Boot Camp).
- Goal 3: Offer additional CPL opportunities through JST ACE Credit Recommendations faculty reviews.
Why It Matters
By coordinating efforts statewide, the Veteran Sprint helps colleges move from inconsistent, campus-by-campus transcript evaluation to a systemwide approach that recognizes military learning, accelerates degree completion, and strengthens workforce pathways for military-connected students. We can share articulations and collaborate to benefit as many veterans as possible. Awarding credit for validated training also saves students time, repeat study and helps them progress efficiently complete their degree/certificate. CPL also preserves the use of their educational benefits (e.g., GI Bill – 36 months) by minimizing duplicated coursework, validates the value of military experience, and helps ease the transition from military to civilian and academic life.
Apprenticeship Sprint
The Apprenticeship Sprint is designed to expand opportunities for Journey Workers and apprentices by awarding college credit for their extensive on-the-job training and experience. By integrating CPL into apprenticeship pathways, this initiative will increase degree attainment, accelerate career mobility, and strengthen the skilled workforce. The sprint will focus on three main objectives:
- Develop CPL pathways that lead to associate degrees by evaluating and awarding credit for Journey Worker experience. This includes outreach to regional Journey Workers and collaboration with industry partners to ensure alignment with college programs.
- Support colleges in establishing credit courses and programs that stack into certificates and degrees within apprenticeship pathways. These efforts will streamline the transition from apprenticeship training to higher education credentials.
- Enhance the MAP CPL Dashboard to include apprentices alongside veterans and working learners. This will allow apprentices to explore CPL opportunities and advance their educational and career goals.
Adult learners who receive credit for prior learning (CPL) graduate at almost twice the rate (49% vs 27%) of those who receive no CPL[1]. When CPL is isolated from other factors, the completion boost is 25% overall for community colleges, 24% for Latinx, 14% for Black, and 19% for Pell recipients.[2]
Only 1 in 4 veterans believe they received the college credit they deserve for military training. Working adults and veterans often receive just 2-3 units of credit for physical education. This is not good enough.
Veterans transitioning to civilian life are eligible for only 36 months of educational benefits—not enough to complete a 4-year bachelor’s degree. Giving them the credit they deserve could preserve enough eligibility to complete a bachelor’s or even go on for a master’s degree.
Spread over a 20-year period, if only 250,000 working adults, apprentices, and veterans are offered 15 units of CPL leading to degree and career attainment, these economic benefit is roughly $28.8 billion. [3]
15 units of credit preserves $14,475-$25,950 in educational benefits in California, which could provide for further study toward a bachelor’s, master’s, doctorate degree, or advanced career training. [3]
For working adults, apprentices, and veterans, savings due to CPL keeps money in their pocket, reduces the need to take out loans, and saves Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits.
These savings amount to over $14k and $26k per student for working adults and veterans respectively when 15 credits of CPL are awarded. These savings amount to roughly $3.7 billion. [3]
The CPL Initiative serves 116 California Community Colleges
CPL INITIATIVE TEAM
Samuel Lee
Senior Advisor to the Chancellor, Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) and
Chief Ambassador, CPL Initiative
Terence Nelson
Executive Director, CPL Initiative
Crystal Nasio
Director, Workforce CPL Integrations and MAP Operations
Janelle Brekke
Director, MAP CPL Counseling Support
Sigrid Williams
MAP CPL Coordinator
Calvin Klein Gloria
Director, MAP Military CPL Pathways
Malone Dunlavy
Director, CPL Infrastructure
Kristen Himmerick
Senior Advisor for Product
Lorena Rositas
Administrative Coordinator
Jessica Levitt
CPL Research and Support Analyst
Ashley Mooney
CPL Research and Support Analyst
Pedro Campos
MAP Chief Architect
Alex Campos
MAP Chief Technology Officer
Natalie Powell
Director of Customer Success
Chelsea Marada
MAP Customer Success Manager
Ally Barker
MAP Customer Success Manager
