DeAundre Nelson was 3 years old when he fell off a seesaw at daycare and hit his head on concrete. The accident left him with learning difficulties and led his mother to quit her job to care for him full time.
In the years that followed, his mother, Loyce Shelley, developed relationships at her son’s school and learned how to advocate for his needs, all to broaden “the village of people who were looking out for my son,” Shelley said.
She also launched her own event-planning business. And when her son had graduated from high school and was studying at the University of Memphis, Shelley was awakened to the idea that her personal journey through adulthood could buoy her own path toward a college degree.
Those lessons learned along the way about championing a disabled child and managing hundreds of successful weddings and other events, she learned, could be documented and used to earn college credit.
For adult learners returning to college, research shows, credit for prior learning saves them time and money toward earning a degree. Those who earn it are 17 percent more likely to graduate. And institutions benefit by offering credit for prior learning because it has a powerful influence on a student’s choice of school.
The college credits Shelley earned through credit for prior learning "really made me start seeing myself in a different way," she said. "Until then I was just an event planner/mom. I didn’t know that I had all of this in me because it was just a part of who I was.”
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