Colorado Technical University (CTU) understands that two of the most important factors in your decision to pursue a degree in cybersecurity are time and expense. In order to assist you in making your choice, we provide multiple opportunities for our students to earn transfer credits to reduce both the time it takes to earn a degree and the costs associated with your program.
What Is a Transfer Credit?
A “transfer credit” is credit you can earn toward a degree program before you even start the program. Transfer credits can be based on the vast array of experiences and skills you have gained elsewhere, such as prior college experience, work experience, industry certifications and military training. At CTU, we value this learning. It makes our virtual classroom environment that much more diverse, and it’s an essential ingredient in our student and alumni networks. Therefore, our cybersecurity students are invited to submit their official transcripts for transfer credit evaluation, and we will thoroughly review all of your coursework and equivalency documentation to make sure you’re seizing every available opportunity for credit.
Transfer Credits in 3 Easy Steps
At CTU, we strive to make the transfer credit process easy for incoming students.
Step 1
Our Admissions Advisors will get you in touch with the Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) team to get a list of the documents you will need for transfer credit evaluation. The PLA team will also provide you with a calendar that highlights the deadlines for document submission. Spending time upfront with PLA is one way to help you explore all available options for transfer credits and help you plan the most cost effective and time efficient route to your cybersecurity degree.
Step 2
After you speak with your Admissions Advisor and PLA team, you will need to request your official transcripts from any colleges or universities you’ve previously attended. A transcript will tell us which credit hours you have earned to date, and this information will help us evaluate if the academic work you’ve completed in the past aligns with your cybersecurity degree requirements at CTU.
Step 3
Once we have your transcript, the PLA team will officially review your academic history. You may be asked questions about the syllabi for classes you’ve taken to determine which credits you can transfer to meet the requirements of your cybersecurity degree program. Qualifying college credits are awarded on a course-by-course basis, and credit determination is primarily based on how well the course aligns with your current cybersecurity degree requirements and on how well you performed in the course. Students transferring to CTU under established articulation agreements may transfer in a maximum of 75% of the required program credits in associate or bachelor’s degree programs.
Your Work Experience Can Work for You
At CTU, credits aren’t limited to classes you’ve previously taken at a college or university. We also believe the knowledge you’ve gained outside of the classroom may be relevant to your cybersecurity degree program. Therefore, our PLA team can also review what we call “experiential learning.” Experiential learning is knowledge gained through employment or other appropriate experiences, and we review this learning to assess whether you can receive “experiential credit.” To earn this credit, you will have to build an Experiential Learning Portfolio (ELP) for each course in which you’d like to receive credit. The ELP will need to show:
- A specific relationship to a course in your bachelor’s or master's degree program in cybersecurity.
- Documented evidence of experientially attained and mastered college-level competencies equivalent to the course outcomes at CTU.
- Learning through documentation such as work samples and/or references and verifications from supervisors.
Once your ELP is submitted, the PLA team and/or a Dean as well as a Cybersecurity Program Chair will review your documentation and determine whether experiential credit can be awarded. The maximum amount of experiential credit accepted toward graduation is 32 quarter credit hours for a bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity, and 8 quarter credit hours for a master’s degree in cybersecurity.
CTU Fast Track™ for Your Degree
The CTU Fast Track™ program is another way students who already have knowledge and experience in a field to earn credit towards their degree. With Fast Track, you can take a series of exams that test your knowledge of core course objectives. If you pass, you can earn college credit for this knowledge and complete your cybersecurity course requirements faster. By passing CTU Fast Track™ exams, you can save up to 30% in time and money. As an added bonus, Fast Track exams are available at no extra cost to all CTU students.
Your Professional Certifications Can Count Towards College Credit
Anyone with professional certification or Continuing Education Units (CEUs) in a professional training program knows how much time, and often money, they had to invest in the effort. Fortunately, you may be able to maximize the value of this investment by applying qualifying certifications and professional courses toward fulfilling your cybersecurity degree requirements.
At CTU, we accept many industry-standard certifications and professional courses for college credit. For example, students in our information technology (IT) degree programs, including cybersecurity, may already have industry certifications from associations like CompTIA. As long as your certifications or coursework have been recognized by the American Council on Education (ACE), the PLA team can review these to determine whether they can be applied as credit towards your cybersecurity degree. Depending on the type of certification or CEU you have earned, you may be asked to submit a learning narrative as part of the review process.
Military Training Can Count toward College Credit
In a 2017 survey, leaders in the cybersecurity industry were asked to list the skills and experience they look for in job applicants. Military experience was identified among these top 10 traits. Why? For starters, many military veterans have already been trained in some of the most sophisticated technologies in existence.1
Leaders in the cybersecurity industry aren’t the only ones who feel this way. At CTU, we value your military education and training – so much so that you have the opportunity to earn credit for it. Whether you are an active duty, reserve or veteran servicemember, we’ll review your military experience to determine whether it qualifies to transfer toward your cybersecurity degree requirements.
CTU uses the ACE Guide to the Evaluation of Educational Experiences in the Armed Services to determine credit eligibility for all newly enrolled military students. To get started, members of the Army, Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps can order a Joint Service Transcript (JST), and the Air Force issues its own transcript through the Community College of the Air Force (CCAF). Once enrolled at CTU, a PLA team will evaluate your transcript and determine how many transfer credits can be applied toward your cybersecurity degree requirements.
Transfer to CTU
As of 2017, there were more than one million2 open cybersecurity career opportunities in the U.S. CTU offers numerous programs that may fit your needs. Whether you’re currently enrolled at another institution or several years have gone by since you last took college classes, we invite you to request information and speak to an Admissions Advisor today.