In the October 2010 issue of Sunset Magazine there is an ad by Soka touting free tuition for BA students whose family income is less than $60K. www.soka.edu
Soka was one of my California-approved favorites, back in the day. It went on to become regionally accredited and built itself a palatial campus in the Orange county hills, designed to resemble a Tuscan village. Soka definitely isn't DL. Soka's a B&M liberal arts college and most of its students live in the dorms. Everybody studies foreign languages as part of their program and most of their junior year is spent overseas. The locations of the foreign study depend on which foreign languages the student has been studying. (Those who study Spanish might go to Peru, and so on.) All of the costs, including air-fare, housing and everything, is included in tuition, so if the school is waiving tuition for students with family incomes below $60K, the international travel experience is free for these students. That's pretty cool. Frequently Asked Questions - Academics - Soka University of America
looks interesting, the only downer is that they accept ZERO previous credit from ANYWHERE period. They state you can only use prior credit (courses or AP) to gain advanced standing into more advanced courses. Ouch.
It's a really interesting and unusual school. Some other points of possible interest: - Only about 450 undergraduates - Relatively selective admissions, approaching the level of nearby UC Irvine. - Only one major, everyone gets a "BA in Liberal Arts". There are four "concentrations", but they are in fact quite broad. - 43 % of students from outside the US. This group may be largely Japanese. - White Americans are only 13 % of the student body. Asian-Americans are 24%. - Female students outnumber males by nearly 2:1 - Affiliated with Soka Gakkai International, a Buddhist sect that is popular (but sometimes criticized) in Japan, very well funded, and noted for global outreach My understanding is that the school does not have an explicitly religious orientation, but that in practice, most students are from SGI families
