Hello everyone, I am new here and to distance education. Initially I had thought distance education to prohibitively expensive for me but then I learned about Excelsior. My desire is to get a bachelor's degree in business with them. I have 2 years of college already but I might as well not because of large defaulted student loans from several years ago, before when I knew what my career path would be (I have the good job, though not well paying yet, and now I just need the degree to buttress myself in my new position). Please tell me if my breakdown of Excelsior college costs are correct... First year enrollment $1,000 Second year enrollment $500 third year enrollment $500 fourth year enrollment $500 graduation fee $500 proctored exams at Sylvan $1,000 books (bought secondhand to save money) $1,000 (or would books be twice this no matter what??) Total cost: $5,000 Please help me with whatever details you can. I especially want to know the nature and cost of proctored exam taking at Excelsior and with distance education colleges in general. I see it as a backbreaker expense and I want to get a handle on it. The admissions rep at Excelsior would not give me clear answers. And if there is a better school out there than Excelsior when it comes to price and academics combined, please let me know. thank you, BetterMan
Hi BetterMan, I am currently enrolled in the BS General Business program at Excelsior. Your costs are indeed correct for the Excelsior fees, but I think you're too conservative in your timescale. Assuming that none of your existing credits transfer (because the college refused to send Excelsior a transcript, for example), then you're looking at something around 30 exams. If you take only 1 a month you can be done in 2-1/2 years. Many people get done in 1-2 years. I plan to complete my degree in under a year, but I'm devoting a lot of time to it. Total estimated cost, including all tests and books, around $5K. Note that Excelsior doesn't proctor the exams (unless you're based in Albany I suppose). You take the exams at your closest testing centers and then they send Excelsior the results. It is likely that you'll need a combination of CLEP, DANTES and ECE (Excelsior College Exams) - the latter can be found at www.excelsior.edu, but CLEP is at www.collegeboard.com and DANTES at www.getcollegecredit.com. I recommend you take a look at the site: www.bain4weeks.com and look at the business degree. The name may put you off, but if you ignore the timeframe (unless you're especially knowledgeable and aggressive) and focus on the courses you will see a good template to work from - which is what I did. I can give you more info - send me a PM and I'll help where I can. Two work colleagues are going back to school because I could show them a workable plan. Then - all you have to do is execute. Cheers, Mark
