Laylah Rivers, a former U.S. Army paratrooper with extensive experience in the tech industry, enrolled at West Los Angeles College at age 31. Despite her background, she began her studies alongside much younger students. The college recognized her prior work by awarding her seven credits after reviewing her military transcript and evidence of computer courses completed during her time at Amazon. “Of course, with 13 years of experience, I should get more credit for what I’m doing,” Rivers said. “But I’m grateful.”
California’s community colleges have been increasing efforts to award academic credit for prior work experience since 2017. Governor Gavin Newsom has supported this initiative, approving over $34 million in state funding in recent years and proposing an additional $37 million for the program.
The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office aims to significantly expand the number of students receiving such credits by 2030. However, because many colleges use their own tracking systems, there is no centralized record of how many students have benefited statewide. The chancellor’s office maintains a dashboard indicating that over 40,000 students have received at least one credit for pre-college work or education in recent years. Samuel Lee, senior adviser to the community college chancellor and overseer of the dashboard, estimated that the actual number is about twice as high but did not provide specific figures.
