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Civilian Education
Getting promoted in today’s army requires more than just being able to score a 300 on a PT test or spending
countless hours on your computer to knock out all of those boring and pointless correspondence courses. To
increase your chances of earning a promotion you should enroll in some college classes and it does not matter
whether you complete your college courses online or at the college campus as they will be worth the same amount
of points for promotion.
Soldiers receive one (1) promotion point for each semester hour (SH) completed. All quarter/contact/clock hours
will be converted to SH. SH are defined as 15 hours of classroom contact hours plus 30 hours of outside
preparation. 1 SH = 1.5 Quarter Hours (QH); 1SH = 15 Classroom, Clock, or Contact Hours (CH).
It is recommended that Soldiers consolidate all credits earned from various crediting sources, i.e. national
examinations such as The College Level Examination Program tests/Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education
Support (DANTES) tests, or educational institutions onto one transcript. Soldiers currently enrolled in a
college/university are required to provide a single transcript from their current college/university consolidating all
past civilian education.
Soldiers that have multiple transcripts who are not currently enrolled in a college/university may take these
transcripts and grade slips to the local education center for assistance. The local education center will provide only
an assessment of the total number of non-duplicated postsecondary credit for submission to the unit as the source
document to update TAPDB with the total number of credit hours.
There are many institutions of higher learning that may accept your military training and give you college credit for
military training that you have completed but you should check with the school that you are interested to find out
what courses are accepted and how many credits they can offer you.
Want more information? You can view degree programs and schools near you or online