upset at navytimes atricle on online degrees

If the data says it takes X years to finish the degree on average - should a writer for the times (who is not a professional educator) report that it takes some different number of years? Don't sailors have a right to know exactly what the numbers at APUS are? Only then can they look at ways that they can personally adapt their own program.

Honestly, the Times isn't a how-to magazine, it's a newspaper. Sure, there are all sorts of ways that the path "can" be shorter. There's no reason though to think it's a good idea for a reporter to report anything other than the facts as he knows them. The purpose of a news article is not to encourage people - it's to report facts. Ops/Eds encourage or discourage people.

If you think there's more that needs to be told - write an article (with some sources and high placed commentors) and submit it for publication in the Times. I happen to know that they like well written articles that may be of interest to service members. They may even pay you for it.

 

I agree with Randell. I completed my B.S at Troy University in 24 months while on active duty. Besides, I had deployment as well as CAX; which I withdraw several classes.

 

Perhaps he's simply reporting an empirical fact. Perhaps he's simply saying that military-friendly programs have longer allowable limits for the time in program because busy military people need more time to complete the degree than those young people who live a cocoon-like existence where free money from daddy allows for everything to be taken care of.

 

Every time I happened to read a copy of the Army Times, it would always go on about how its mission was to serve the Army community and their families. I don't really see how this article does that.

Perhaps I will.....I look at that article as sloppy journalism; regurgitating numbers give to the reporter without any follow-up investigation.

 

You'd be surprised at the number of people that I've spoken to here in .ca that have never heard of CLEP or DSST.... there are only a handful of places in Canada where you can take CLEP / DSST exams. I never heard of those until I came to this board, but am glad I did.. so far I've taken 3 exams, and will be taking 3 more this summer to test out of easy courses. Of course 6 courses translate into 1 1/2 semesters saved, not to mention about $2000!

 

My two cents

I was Army, both at the tip of the spear (infantry) and in the rear with the gear (military intelligence). Also, I deployed to Iraq as a contractor in support of an Army Stryker brigade, which allowed me to look at young soldiers - and their service life - through a different pair of eyes.

As a soldier, I CLEP'd my butt off (~40 credits, I recall) and took classes with UMUC and the local community colleges whenever I could. Even with those, it still required that I completely leave active duty for me to finish my BA. And our OPTEMPO was a fraction what it is today.

Soooo, I can totally see where the ~7 year figure is coming from. Enlisted personnel and NCOs need to be realistic about how much of a degree can be completed in the shorter active duty enlistment time frames. Commanders should be up front as to how much outside schooling their charges will be able to pursue, as mine was - to his great credit.

(Caveat: this may not apply to those MOS's the training of which confers Associates degrees - linguist, advanced electronics technician, etc. Most MOS's, however, don't fall in this category.)

 

Have to agree with Mr. Luechtefeld on this post.
It's all about motivation, how much you have CLEP'd and if your career fields education credits can count towards a degree like those the US Air Force awards. 7 years to me seems a little extreme, but I've had friends whose off duty time consists of weapons cleaning and sleeping with one eye open who due to OPSTEMPO take a while to finish their degrees. While others who don't deploy have knocked out degrees in 2 1/2 to 3 years with out becoming professional students, and slacking in their military duties.

 

I can see why you are saying this about the army and probably the marine core, these guys dont get hardly any college credit for training they complete or for their rank like the navy does, but that does not stop them from using their lunch break to clep test. That is what I did. granted I was on shore duty but up until recently your could do clep, dantes and ECE exams aboard ships. Most of the service members I talk to are afraid to go to college because they arent smart enough or that they might not have enough to study between work and getting intoxicated or for other reasons that may not be entirely valid, then the military times puts out an article to them that says it might take nearly a decade to get your degree there is no way they are going to even try. I am not trying to get across that 7 years for a degree is a lie, I just think 7 years is outrageous. The mission of militarytimes is to alert the military to things that they need to know about, if they are talking about distance learning the military needs to know about credit for exams to shorten their degree path that might have been 7 years long but with these tests is 2 or 3.

 

If someone wants to get college credits while in the military they can, if they really want put out the effort out.

* Get the government to give you money to go to a civilian college.
* DANTES/DSST and CLEP tests.
* AIPD Course (only a few logistics courses ACE rated).
* Air Force Institute (many correspondence courses ACE rated).
* Coast Guard Institute (several correspondence courses ACE rated).
* Marine Corps Institute (over 100 hours of ACE rated credits)
* Some training rated for college.
* Professional Military Education courses such as Command Staff College, War College.

One can get gets over 200 hours ACE rated college credit just through correspondence courses that can be done anywhere. I have done over 120 hours this way already. You will probably need a year or less of key courses that you may have to take at a civilian college to get the degree.

Too many in the military do not understand the correspondence course programs and the American Council on Education, and go a harder route. Some in the Army for example will not take free courses from the Marine Corps Institute out of a false sense of pride, or failure to understand that they can.

Some may already have done things worth college credit and not even know. All the while they sit around wondering how to even get started. The military needs to do a better job promoting its internal ways of earning credits.

 

Michael,

1. The gateway for enlisted Army troops into higher ed is largely through education counselors housed at the Army Continuing Education System (ACES), and its consellation of Army Education Centers. I can tell you that in my many visits to an Army Ed Center, the correspondence programs of the sister services were *never* mentioned. Checking now, I see that none of those are listed on the ACES website: https://www.hrc.army.mil/site/education/index.html

2. Also, unless things have changed, officer PME schools like CGSC and AWC correspondence programs are not available to enlisted personnel.

3. I CLEP'd until I started failing them (hello, AP Chemistry!); it was at that point that the ed center cut me off from any more CLEP'ing. Don't know if this was a local Ed Center decision or Army policy.

 

1. American Council on Education
Find out the value of training here.
http://www.militaryguides.acenet.edu
http://www.acenet.edu/nationalguide

2. There is officer PME courses and enlisted PME courses. Senior enlisted personnel can sometimes get a waiver to take officer PME.

The tax payers could save millions if the military encourage more people to do the correspondence courses they have that are ACE rated, rather then just sending members way to do all their college at civilian institutions.

 

True, but the original poster's complaint was aimed at the situation as it exists for lower enlisted personnel - not senior NCOs. A senior NCO would have more than seven years service and, hence, could complete a degree in the "normal" time frame.

Also, true...but then the military isn't "sending" lower enlisted troops to college - the troops are sending themselves. (As I recall, the Army's published career progression goal timeline for even highly-technical MOS's didn't call for senior NCOs to have a bachelor's degree until their 18th year of service...and even this was a non-mandatory guideline, meaning a bachelor's degree was not a pre-requisite for promotion.).

I hope you're not arguing that the services forbid troops from attending civilian institutions on TA funds until they've exhausted the ACE-evaluated options available from sister service correspondence schools.

 

Also, even if your service won't let you take USAF Distance Learning courses, I'm taking some thanks to Civil Air Patrol. (Weather Journeyman 1 (3 Semester Hours Meteorology (Lower Level), 2 Semester Hours Radar Operation (Lower Level)) and CAP Senior Officer Course (1 Semester Hour Communication (Lower Level), 2 Semester Hours Leadership (Lower Level), and 2 Semester Hours Military Science (Upper Level))

 

Help me (or rather, my soldiers out here). What specific steps does one have to take in order for a college to award credit per the ACE recommendations?

Shawn

 

Usually it only requires having a transcript sent from the military institution to your college. I had the Air Force my Air Force Institute for Advanced Distrubuted Learning transcript straight to my college and I had the Marine Corps Institute send my transcript straight to my college. My college looked the courses up in their paperback ACE Guides, and gave credit. There was no need for ACE contact or send a trancript to ACE. I have never been charged anything for having credit put on my transcript at a college in which I was already enrolled.

The reality was that I sent multiple transcripts from each source as new courses were taken and often credit was not given. The people reading the transcript at my college were not able to find the courses list in the guide (they were there) and denied credit.

I would often have to send back letters telling them they were wrong and that credit should be granted. I would copy the information out of the ACE online military guide and give them a link to the webpage that showed credit due under the ACE rating. That would settle things, but it required more time and work than it should have.

 

I know that each college is different - but I'd like to see some postings about people who have taken military training, converted it using the AATRS transcript (or equivalent), and were able to obtain credit at a state college. I have soldiers attending U of Wis. state schools right now, and I's like to guide a couple of them through this process.

Many thanks in advance.

Shawn

 

For any DoD personnel (military and civilian) that have taken training courses from the Defense Acquisition University (DAU), these courses may transfer to meet associate and bachelor degree requirements at certain civilian colleges and universities. DAU has established various partnerships with colleges and universities that have accepted DAU training courses for their degree programs. See [/url]http://www.dau.mil/about-dau/partners.aspx#EC[/url]

 

Shawn, I have had AARTS transcripts sent to Texas State and CTC. The problem with TxSt was I already completed enough required and elective credit from traditional courses at other schools that were previously sent to the university prior to AARTS transcript arrival. I would have loved to receive credit for BNCOC, ANCOC and other Army schools. At least I tried. City Colleges of Chicago granted credit for 15 hours using ACE based on my MOS, but this was very early into my military career and a few years before AARTS introduction. AARTS debuted around '89 or '90, if I remember correctly. I read about the program in Soldiers magazine and thought, "this is cool". Back then, servicemembers had to write off for the transcripts. There was an initial cutoff that excluded me due to my basic active service date, which was too early at that time. DA later lifted the restriction. I finally took advantage of the service during this century.

What I'm about to say seems like massive overkill, in addition to irresponsible chaos at a personal level, but I sent over 140 undergrad credit hours from various colleges (6 schools, to be exact) to San Marcos before taking my first class there. Funny how they counted my failed Calc I class from way back in '79 against my GPA. I recall my advisor shaking her head and telling me that I had earned more undergrad credits than she, and still had received no bachelor's degree in the process. And that was without CLEP or AARTS. What a mess my academic life had been during all those years. I will say this, though. When applying to grad school last year and a few years back, the exercise evolved into an administrative adventure largely because of all the required transcripts. I actually dread applying to UCF next year.

My sole reason for sending CTC the AARTS transcript was to substitute for the 1-credit physical education requirement, and nothing more. CTC counted nothing else because the remainder wasn't applicable. Remaining coursework either seamlessly transferred in or was completed through the college.

 

I agree that this article could discourage folks. I have accelerated my degree by taking four CLEPs so far this summer. All I used was a site called degreebyexam.com to prepare for them. I spent about a week to two on each, usually more seriously the second week. Haven't failed one yet, knock on wood. I probally wouldn't have been able to do it without the site though.