Overview
The pipeline from continuing education (CE) classes and certificates to credit classes and credentials needs significant support to ensure that students in ACC’s high-wage career pathways can earn additional credentials of value. Workforce instructional leaders are working to develop a seamless pipeline to help future CE students move to credit certificates and degrees that are built on their entry-level CE certification and that support higher wages for students and their families.
Accomplishments
- Hired an assistant dean for faculty advising to work with CE students and foster
transfer to credit pathways, and identified four pathways to focus on for the initial pilot of this work:- Quickbooks/Bookkeeping to Accounting
- Administrative Assistant to Business Office Technology
- Certified Production Technician to Advanced Manufacturing
- Medical Billing and Coding to Health Information Technology
- Increased the number of students who have successfully transferred from Medical Billing and Coding to Health Information Management by creating a pathway that led to those students receiving up to 22 credit hours toward the Associate of Applied Science in Health Information Management.
- Developed a plan, including leading and lagging indicators, to increase the number of CE students who transition to credit.
Impact
We are targeting four pathways for AY24. Following are the totals for transfers over the past five years, illustrating the ongoing need to support this work:
B.S. Nursing
- 276 students across five cohorts full time and part-time
Accounting
- 972 students completed a CE certificate (31 pending/in progress)
- 105 transferred to a related credit program
- 47 completed a credit program
Administrative Assistant
- 98 completed a CE certificate (five pending/in progress)
- 5 transferred to credit
Medical Billing
- 217 completed a CE certificate (8 pending/in progress)
- 10 transferred to credit
Production Technology
- 224 completed a CE certificate (25 pending/in progress)
- 21 transferred to credit
Next Steps
- Hire and train at least three hourly faculty advisors to assist with students transitioning from CE to credit by July 15, 2023.
- Transition 40 additional students from CE to credit by fall 2023.
- Add two new pathways from CE to credit by fall 2024.
- Continue to identify barriers to transfer for CE students and solutions to those barriers.