Why did you choose your college or university?

In 1980, I was an education specialist at Hanscom AFB. I was a senior airman by then, and had just completed my first Regents degree (a B.S. in Business). My boss, the base education services officer, advised me to quickly "cover" that degree with a master's. He theorized that the degree from USNY Regents wouldn't be worth much. And this was a guy who was responsible for delivering education to thousands of military members on the base!

Because my job was to counsel people all day about their educational goals and opportunities, I talked to a LOT of people about USNY Regents. Four of us enlisted members completed our degrees there (and one at UMUC), and we ALL went to officer training school. Dennis and I retired as captains. I don't know what happened to Marvin and Ruth after they were commissioned. Darrell retired as a lieutenant colonel. I feel a tad bit of ownership in each of their stories.

 

Because they were free to service members, I took CLEP, DANTES, AP, NY Regents, and GRE exams in everything I thought I had a chance to pass. From the CLEP general exams to specialized ones like Literature Analysis and Rhetoric, I took a swing at all of them. Two success stories:

I took a Marketing Management class at night, but it was a particularly busy time in my career and I just didn't take it seriously. I got my only B-. But I took a NY Regents exam in the same subject for 12 S.H. (which included an essay) and passed it. The second: getting a second bachelor's because I passed the GRE in Sociology (67th percentile) without studying for it.

Graduate school was harder. I had to take classes and everything!

 

I just came across this thread, very interesting responses, I'll play too.

The initial reason I went to college at all was a very generous education incentive where you could earn 10% raise for an Associate's degree, 20% for a Bachelor's, and 25% for a Master's or J.D (all degrees except the J.D. had to be in Criminal Justice).

Quincy College - It's a city-owned community college that offers a A.S. in Criminal Justice, accepted CLEP/DANTES credits, and I was able to double-dip discounts as a city employee and a Veteran.

Curry College - Local, had very flexible course schedules (8-week formats, evening, weekend, and summer classes), reasonable tuition, and would accept up to 90 credits in transfer. Between my Quincy College credits and CLEP/DANTES/portfolio, I transferred the maximum and only had to take 10 classes for my B.A.

UMass-Lowell - I knew I wanted to teach, so I wanted a relatively prestigious graduate degree to set myself apart from every other cop in Massachusetts who had their Master's degree from Anna Maria College or Western New England College (now University). Nothing wrong with those schools, but literally almost every cop in MA went there. My list came down to Boston University, Northeastern University, and UMass-Lowell, and the choice became very easy when I found out I could go to UML completely free (except for books) under a Veteran's tuition waiver, plus the classes were held at off-campus locations that were relatively convenient.

MSPP/William James College (I hate the new name) - I wanted a Forensic Psychology degree to complement my CJ degree, and I was also a police peer counselor at the time, so I found MSPP had a program in Forensic Psych that also qualified you to sit for the LMHC exam, plus they had somewhat flexible course schedules and were accommodating with arranging practicums and internships around my full-time work schedule.

CUNY/John Jay - One of very few schools at the time that offered a program in Investigative Psychology (Criminal Profiling) and the only one completely online. It was very reasonable cost, mostly asynchronous (one team project required a synchronous meeting), and interesting as hell.

Liberty - The Veteran's tuition rate is incredible for a RA graduate school and I liked the curriculum of the Executive Certificate program, as well as the format (8-week classes, reading and writing intensive versus interactive).