Premium Online Degree Completion Programs

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by nomaduser, Jul 12, 2020.

Loading...
  1. nomaduser

    nomaduser Active Member

    Let me introduce you some of online degree completion programs offered by top 200 universities in US.
    They're more expensive than the big three option (Charter Oak, TESU, Excelsior) but they have good academic reputation and are quite well-known among employers.

    1. University of North Texas - Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences

    https://www.coursera.org/degrees/unt-online-bachelor-completion

    • 120 total credits
    • 30 minimum credits from UNT (the average is 45)
    • Transfer at least 60 credits (core, concentrations, electives), up to 90 credits
    • Complete 3 unifying courses (9 credits), all core courses (42 credits) and 3 concentrations (36 credits). Each concentration is 12 credits.
    • $330 per credit hour for most (See Admissions Tab)
    This Coursera degree program allows you to transfer up to 90 credits out of 120. It means you can finish the program within a year after you transfer in all of 90 credits! and its price is surprisingly low... it costs only $330 per credit. So after you transfer in all of 90 credits, you can get your Bachelor's for $9,900 ($330 x 30).

    University of North Texas wiki:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_North_Texas

    2. University of Massachusetts Amherst - University Without Walls Program (Many majors available)

    https://www.umass.edu/uww/
    • Of the 120 credits needed to earn your bachelor's degree, up to 75 can be transfer credits and at least 45 need to be residence credits (earned through UMass Amherst).
    • $390 per credit for undergraduate online courses (starting fall, 2020)
    They offer many majors for this online degree completion program:
    https://www.umass.edu/uww/areas-study
    So after you transfer 75 credits, you can finish the degree for $17,550 ($390 x 45).
    They accept CLEP exam credits but they don't accept study.com ACE credits and Excelsior credits directly. You'll have to transfer ACE and Excelsior exam credits to other institution before you can transfer them.

    UMass Amherst wiki:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Massachusetts_Amherst

    3. Drexel University - Bachelor's in General Studies

    https://drexel.edu/goodwin/academics/degree-completion-programs/

    Drexel University have an online degree completion program that allows you to transfer up to 135 credits out of 180 required credits.
    Each of their credit costs $530. So after you transfer 135 credits, you can finish this program for $23,850 plus exam fees. Here's more info about BS in General Studies program tuition:
    https://www.online.drexel.edu/online-degrees/bachelors-degrees/bs-gs-mgmt/index.aspx#tuition

    Drexel University wiki:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drexel_University

    4. Boston University - Bachelor's in Liberal Studies

    https://www.bu.edu/online/programs/undergraduate-program/undergraduate-degree-completion-program/

    Minimum 64 credits must be completed through their online courses. Each of their credit costs $480.
    You can finish this program for $30,720 ($480 x 64).

    Boston University wiki:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_University

    5. Northeastern University - Bachelor's Degree Completion Program (Many majors available)

    https://www.northeastern.edu/bachelors-completion/

    Minimum 60 credits out of 120 must be completed through their online courses. Each of their credit costs $541.
    So you'll be able to finish the program for $32,460 ($541 x 60) after you successfully transfer 60 credits.
    https://www.northeastern.edu/bachelors-completion/tuition-and-fees/

    Northeastern University wiki:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_University
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2020
  2. TEKMAN

    TEKMAN Semper Fi!

    JoshD and nomaduser like this.
  3. JoshD

    JoshD Well-Known Member

    Great opportunity to utilize TESU, etc. and then transfer in to a well-known regional university.
     
    nomaduser likes this.
  4. nomaduser

    nomaduser Active Member

  5. TEKMAN

    TEKMAN Semper Fi!

    Is the Boston University's program offering through Metropolitan College?
     
    nomaduser likes this.
  6. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    I doubt that many (no more than 3, perhaps) of the test-out crowd are willing stack Big 3 credits and then pay anything like $540 a credit to ANY school. Defeats their purpose. Not their demographic. The info about getting cheap credits above is repeated ad infinitum in this forum (sticky thread here and entire test-out section elsewhere) and is practically the entire forum on another site. Did we really have to hear it yet again?
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2020
  7. nomaduser

    nomaduser Active Member

    Yes, I think all of BU online programs are offered through Metropolitan College.

    https://www.bu.edu/online/programs/
     
  8. JoshD

    JoshD Well-Known Member

    My apologies. Seems I struck a nerve with you although I’m not really sure why. Sure it may not be the popular route but I’m sure there are plenty who would utilize one of the Big 3 and then transfer their credits to one of the above.

    I’m not super familiar with the Big 3 as they are not my cup of tea when it comes to education.
     
    JBjunior and nomaduser like this.
  9. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Sorry, Josh. I didn't really look to see who'd written what. Didn't mean to get on your case. Blame it on nomaduser!:) (Not really - It's my personal bad.) It was just that summary of cheap credits. Such credits have been preached on this forum like no other source of education. "You CLEP these ten, DSST those other six, ALEKS half-a-dozen on the weekend etc. -- and you take all the rest in one giant six-month competence-based semester ..." I've been hearing it for 14 years or more, now. If higher education had to be all that way, I'd have been "out" long ago.

    Plus - here in Canada, testing out doesn't work. Not accepted. We don't have the Big 3, but the Big 4th (Athabasca, an RA school) does not accept CLEP etc. Writing a CLEP here is pretty difficult, unless you go across the border. Although I live in a fairly large city, the only Canadian site within 1000 miles that administers CLEP - won't, at least for me. It's in Toronto - a Jewish women's religious college - so I'm inadmissible on three counts. They used to administer CLEP for anyone, but now it's just for their own students.
    That's fine - no other school I know of in Canada accepts them. As far as I know, the DETC distance schools that opened in New Brunswick might have accepted them - but I think they're all closed as of years ago. I'm thinking of Meritus, Lansbridge etc.

    Cramming for CLEPS on the weekend is definitely not my style. Glad I never had to. There's more to education than competitive sport-stacking of cheap credits - at least for me. And I still maintain, the devotees of Big 3 are unlikely to pay anywhere near $500 a credit to ANY school. I don't believe it's they're style. Again, sorry about the raised hackles at the mention of cheap credits.
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2020
    JoshD likes this.
  10. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    I meant "their style." Darn that timer...
     
  11. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Then you do your capstone - right before you get your headstone.

    "Everybody must get stoned" - Bob Dylan

    "Look out kid, it's somethin' you did,
    G*d knows when, but you're doin' it again --
    20 years of schoolin' and they put you on the day shift" - Bob Dylan, again.
     
  12. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    They're mine, though. My Regents degree got me: recruited and employed by Xerox, commissioned as a military officer, admitted to graduate school, advanced standing towards my (now former) PMP, and who-knows-what-else.

    But that's the degree and you mentioned the education. I'm on board with that, too. If an adult can demonstrate that he/she already knows something, why not give him/her credit for it? Also, in my opinion, it's a shame to teach something to someone who already knows it. But....

    There are a lot of reasons for pursuing a college education and degree, and the experience of the process can be something a person wants. No absolutes; different strokes for different folks.
     
    JoshD likes this.
  13. JoshD

    JoshD Well-Known Member

    Some people excel at them, which is great! I do not look down upon them, that is just not how I learn. It is good that there are various options for people to pursue their degree(s).
     
    Rich Douglas likes this.
  14. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    I agree 100% but it must be against the Canadian Way, or something. Here, they assume you know nothing and teach it all - at great cost. They can find no other way of charging all students full whack. And foreigners nearly three-fold.

    I'm not arguing against giving credit for knowledge obtained by prior learning. My only gripe is the obsession with the "competitive sport-stacking" of cheap credits; the learn-and-forget cramming of test-prep materials, etc. Sure - a person gets a degree at long last - maybe not the one he/she had wanted, but that degree likely wasn't available in the desired cost and time frame.

    There's a clear and present danger to be concerned with. Since mass-degreeification and its quasi-mandatory continuation - in your country, mine and others, we have an increasing number of people who have degrees - in some cases a bunch of them, - but have very little in the way of actual education. The cramming of cheap credits, I believe, tends to accelerate this trend - if, as I think, it is such. Maybe investigating that might be a doctoral diss. possibility for someone - who knows?
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2020
    SteveFoerster likes this.
  15. nyvrem

    nyvrem Active Member

  16. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    PS - A personal demo of Canadian intransigence in the education system. Between College, a professional course and University (where it happened TWICE) I was forced to take basic accounting four times. Got four A's as it turned out. When I wanted to claim exemption I always got the line "yes, but you haven't taken it here" - even on the one occasion in which I had. Franz Kafka must have been in charge of registration. Or Ionesco or Genet perhaps - Theatre of the Absurd guys. Like arguing with a fence post. And if you argue strenuously enough - they call the head fence-post to rubber-stamp their decision. Second level accounting - I only had to take it once - another A.
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2020
  17. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Here's a little story from my DI files. A couple or five years back, I complimented a recent Big 3 B.A. grad on his creative coining of words - remarking that his professors must have found his essays very interesting. His reply, "I haven't had to write any essays since High School." ...How does this happen? I wrote 'em in English, at least three other languages, economics, psych, sociology, even biz. admin. All night school.
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2020
  18. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Perhaps. But the devil's advocate response is to ask what people who did things the old fashioned way really remember after a while. There's a reason that "Five Minute University" comedy sketch hits a chord....
     
    JoshD likes this.
  19. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    This is a vital point. I wonder if some people look carefully enough at things like delivery systems and ways one must demonstrate their learning?
     
  20. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    That wasn't my experience. And because I counseled more than a thousand adults on how to earn their degrees while working, it wasn't the experience of many, many others.

    One example: as I got into the Regents experience, I began sharing it with the people I counseled. At one point, five of us poor little enlisted people went on to earn a Regents degree within a yaer of each other and all five of us were selected to become officers. To my knowledge, none of them--nor anyone else I ever counseled, ever had trouble functioning at the "next level", either academically or professionally.

    Anecdotal? Sure. But again, I counseled a lot of people when I did that for a living. And I do have some academic training in this area.

    I appreciate the "credit stacking" concerns, but I think they're not supported. Even my boss, the base education officer, suggested I quickly "cover" my bachelor's with a master's degree--obviously because of the Regents degree's inherent weakness--or so he thought. He was dead wrong.
     

Share This Page