When did credit banking become credit laundering?

[smartiepants86]

I took two Aleks courses and had them transcribed on ACE. My community college accepts it but I want to transfer to a university and most of them dont. So I was going to use credit banking. I was trying to see if that would work and was googling it and it was associated with credit laundering. What is this and is this true?

[Life Long Learning]

Great question?

I know TESC will not even accept some ----bottom of the transcript line- community college credits. It's always a crap shoot!banghead

[Leherself]

Credit banking is just getting one school or service to list all your college credits in one place - usually this is helpful in job settings (for an application or promotion) but not academic ones. Most academic settings want the original transcripts from wherever the credit was earned, and most don't accept a banked transcript. In a business setting it's handy to have one transcript that people can look at, if you work in an environment where that's needed.

Credit laundering is getting or trying to get a school to list your credit on their transcript so that it looks like you earned it at that school and not somewhere else. This is what happens when people pay Frederick CC to transcribe their fema credits. Most schools won't do this at all, and many schools will not accept credits that they believe have been laundered.

In sum, credit banking probably isn't going to help you transfer anything to a university down the road - the school will want to see the original credit source.

[cookderosa]

I took two Aleks courses and had them transcribed on ACE. My community college accepts it but I want to transfer to a university and most of them dont. So I was going to use credit banking. I was trying to see if that would work and was googling it and it was associated with credit laundering. What is this and is this true?

Credit laundering is a term I made up on March 17, 2008 right here in this forum. http://www.degreeforum.net/excelsior-tho...anked.html
If you're finding the phrase before then, or off this site, it's probably referring to credit as a debt, like a credit card - or bad credit. Not the same thing.

Leherself is right, it's simply putting credit somewhere and then hoping to send it on somewhere else, in effect "laundering" it into new credit. It rarely, if ever, works. There's nothing wrong or illegal or immoral, it's just procedural.

Imagine your credits like a witness in a trial, only your credits are witness to your work/grades/competency. Sending a transcript with credit from another source is kinda like hearsay - a rumor. The receiving college needs the original witness so it can decide for itself if they'll accept it.

An example of where this can work FOR you: say your community college put your AP exam on your transcript for 3 credits, and you sent your transcript to TESU. TESC won't look at your CC's opinion of that credit, they'll review the original score report/transcript, and they'll award you 6 credits (yeah!). It can work the other way, like when your CC has FEMA credit on there, it's going to be reviewed and then denied.

There is an exception- some 4 year colleges have written agreements with some schools to accept a full associate's degree no matter what it contains. In that case, the credit is "locked" into a package that is reviewed as a single source of credit- a block. TESU doesn't participate in that type of program, but you'll see it from time to time, especially at the community college level into public universities in that state.