Cheap Graduate Credits Through Educator Professional Development Courses

I thought it would be a good idea to have a thread dedicated to sharing good sources of graduate credit from professional development courses for teachers. These courses are usually much cheaper than your typical graduate course. In the past, some people on the other forum have been awarded upper level credit for these courses in a TESU undergraduate degree program, but these courses can also potentially be transferred into graduate programs.

Most of the time, PD courses will have an education prefix even though the course content is specific to another subject. This can pose a problem when transferring courses into non-education programs or attempting to use them to accumulate 18 graduate credits to teach college courses in a particular subject. However, I did locate some colleges that will transcribe PD courses with non-education prefixes.

University of Phoenix offers 3-credit teacher education courses at $525 each plus a $75 resource fee. That makes the effective cost $200 per credit hour. There are a handful of courses with communications and history prefixes.

https://www.phoenix.edu/programs/continu...ation.html

Fresno Pacific University offers professional development courses for educators for $460 per 3-credit course. They have hundreds of courses that do not have an education prefix. Their history and literature courses are their best offerings, in my opinion. Examples of prefixes.

ART - art
ATH - athletics
BIB - Bible education
CSED - computer science education
ELA - language arts
HED - health education
LIT - literature
MAT - mathematics
PED - physical education
SCI - science
SOC - social studies (many history courses)

https://ce.fresno.edu/educator-courses

This is the letter you can send to schools that have questions about whether these are graduate courses.

https://ce.fresno.edu/media/1614/cegradlevelletter.pdf

Vanguard University offers graduate-level credit for College Credit Connection courses. The $297 cost of these courses is inclusive of the fee for the Vanguard credits. Courses are offered in multiple formats, but the most fun ones to take will probably be the Annenberg video courses. I've watched several of their series.

https://www.collegecreditconnection.com/...aspx?cid=2
https://www.vanguard.edu/academics/acade...nt-program

Trinity Washington University offers professional development courses that come with graduate credit. Each course is $530, but there is a $50 discount if you register online. Some of their courses have biology, chemistry, physics, environmental science, counseling, technology, and Spanish prefixes.

https://discover.trinitydc.edu/continuin...t-courses/

The American Museum of Natural History offers online courses for $549 each. Receiving graduate credit costs extra. Several colleges transcribe these courses with science prefixes instead of the usual education prefixes.

Bank Street College - Only available to current students and alumni
https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/seminar...-education

Adams State University - Science education prefix, but I guess that's a little better than just an education prefix.
https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/seminar...university

At Bridgewater State University, you can use these courses to earn a STEM graduate certificate.
https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/seminar...university
https://www.bridgew.edu/graduate/stem-certificate

CUNY School of Professional Studies transcribes some of these courses with biology, physics, and astronomy prefixes, but they're far more expensive than the other colleges.
https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/seminar...f-new-york

University of La Verne ($125/cr) offers professional development courses that are worth graduate credits. It looks like all the courses have education prefixes, but there are some interesting certificates that can be earned with these courses. For example, you can earn a certificate in Health and Human Development, Contemporary World History and Politics, World History, or Sports Psychology and Coaching (mostly KINE prefixes).

https://www.pdcourses.net/

Through Lindenwood University, one can earn graduate credits in school counseling from the American School Counselor Association. Each ASCA course costs $99 for members and $249 for non-members. I advise people to pay for a membership. It's only $69 for school counseling students and retired school counselors or $129 for current school counselors or those who don't fit into any other category. Lindenwood charges $75 per credit hour to award graduate credit. Minus the annual membership fee, each 3-credit course is $324.

https://www.schoolcounselor.org/getmedia...Packet.pdf
https://www.lindenwood.edu/pace/k-12-educators/self-paced-courses/asca-u-specialist-trainings/

University of Central Missouri grants undergraduate and graduate credits for ACTE courses. You must complete four modules per 1 credit. The difference between earning undergraduate and graduate credit is that, to earn graduate credit, one must write a reflection paper for each module and have a bachelor's degree. UCMO charges $125 per credit hour. ACTE charges $149 per course or $289 for unlimited courses. Most of ACTE's courses have education prefixes, but the leadership courses do not. I can't tell you if this affects how UCMO transcribes the courses. They might give a CTE (Career & Technical Education) prefix.

https://www.ctelearn.org/certified-cours...rship-team
https://www.ucmo.edu/college-of-educatio...cte-learn/

University of San Diego offers graduate-level professional development courses that are put on a transcript as graduate extension credit. They can be used for salary advancement, but a college may not accept them as transfer credits. The course prices range from $129 to 489. Their certificates in TESOL and Mental Health First Response may be of interest to some. Join their mailing list to be notified of periodic discounts.

https://pce.sandiego.edu/public/category...eaId=16306

https://pce.sandiego.edu/contentManageme...e=CM000094

Ashland University has a large list of professional development courses one can complete for graduate credit from dozens of different providers. The cheapest courses started at $155 per credit.

https://www.ashland.edu/coas/course-search/online

 

Definitely saving this. With some creativity in the international market, you could possibly leverage these into a full credential of some sort.