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Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) Scholarship

Charter Oak State College building

The Charter Oak State College Foundation provides a Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) Scholarship to encourage students with knowledge equivalent to college-level learning to pursue credit via established PLA pathways. This could reduce the cost of your education and your time to graduation. You can use PLA to apply for credit instead of taking courses and can make use of the scholarship funds to take standardized examinations, request credit for credentials, or use the portfolio assessment process.

ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS
To apply for the PLA Scholarship you must meet the following criteria to be eligible:

  1. Matriculated at Charter Oak
    • At the time of application
    • At the time of the award of the PLA scholarship
    • At the time of the use of any PLA scholarship monies
  2. Good academic standing
    • GPA of 2.0 or better
    • Not on academic probation
  3. Good standing financially with the College
    • Not owe any outstanding fees
  4. Submit a fully completed PLA scholarship application to the PLA Office
  5. Have no more than one unsuccessful prior attempt funded by the PLA scholarship

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS

  1. The PLA scholarship application is available in the PLA Forms section of Student Self Service on the ACORN Student Portal; log-in is required for access to that section.
  2. You should first review the PLA opportunities and draft a proposed PLA plan.
  3. Then you should discuss your proposed PLA plan with your Academic Counselor, paying special attention to the applicability of any course challenge(s) to your degree plan, and obtain approval to pursue the plan.
  4. After that you should submit your approved PLA scholarship application as an attachment from your Charter Oak email to pla@charteroak.edu.
  5. Only compete applications approved by your Academic Counselor will be considered.
  6. Responses will be sent from the PLA Office to your Charter Oak email within 15 business days of having received the completed PLA scholarship application.
  7. If you are awarded the scholarship, you must use the PLA scholarship funds within 60 calendar days of having been notified of the award. If the need arises for an extension, submit a request to pla@charteroak.edu. Extensions may or may not be granted at the discretion of the PLA director.

SCHOLARSHIP FUNDS
You may apply for and receive the PLA scholarship multiple times, up to a maximum cumulative annual award of $500 for the fiscal year (July 1 – June 30); awards for partially funded PLA plans may be made.

The PLA scholarship can be used toward any combination of:

  1. Funding to cover the cost of a standardized examination, including administrative fees.
  2. Funding to cover the assessment fee for a single-course portfolio.
  3. Funding to cover the credential evaluation program fee for one credential.

Get more information about the Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) Program.