Adult starting from scratch

[Mom2my2]

North Carolina, USA 
Your Age: 48
What kind of degree do you want?:  Liberal Arts or Business
Current Regional Accredited Credits:  0 

Budget: I'd like to go the cheapest route possible, but will consider spending more for easy and fast.  
Commitments: I teach several highschool classes in our Co-Op, plus my own children, plus being the kids' taxi. It feels similar to a full time job but with flexible hours. 
Dedicated time to study: I can study as much as is needed during the night or weekends as long as my schedule is free. I estimate at least 15 hours a week, maybe.
Timeline: Finishing the courses required for the degree as fast as possible would be ideal.  
Tuition assistance/reimbursement: None


Hello!  Before kids I was in business and loved my work.  For the past 15 years I've been a stay at home mom. During this time, I've been homeschooling my children and teaching Middle School writing and High School logic and economics in our Homeschool Co-Op.   I feel like now, it's my time to invest time in obtaining a Bachelors degree.  


I've loved reading the posts on this forum and could use some personal advice on what direction to take and how to create a degree plan that uses my time well since I'm starting from scratch.   Since I don't have a plan for what to do with the degree afterwards, I am flexible on what to pursue...business, liberal arts, psychology- whatever is easiest and most expeditious . I do prefer writing to maths. 
Thank you!!!

[bjcheung77]

@Mom2my2, Welcome back, about two years ago I gave you some advice (same as your kids, except no AP/dual enrollment), your recommendation or strategy that I recommend two years later remains the same.  Having said that, I'd suggest you do the Pierpont BOG AAS and then ladder up to the UMPI BAS or BLS of a minor or two of your choice using mainly Sophia.org and cheapie or freebie Coursera/TEEX classes too.  To recall what advice you were provided, please review your previous thread here: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...experience

[Mom2my2]

@Mom2my2, Welcome back, about two years ago I gave you some advice (same as your kids, except no AP/dual enrollment), your recommendation or strategy that I recommend two years later remains the same.  Having said that, I'd suggest you do the Pierpont BOG AAS and then ladder up to the UMPI BAS or BLS of a minor or two of your choice using mainly Sophia.org and cheapie or freebie Coursera/TEEX classes too.  To recall what advice you were provided, please review your previous thread here: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...experience

Thank you! I thought for sure I'd posted before but couldn't find it, so I appreciate the link to the thread.  After reading it again, I'm still confused how to discern which CLEP or other classes to take to ensure that they line up for a degree, and how to find the NC colleges that offer low cost /free degrees for my situation. 

In looking at the Wiki for Pierpont to UMPI it expresses to proceed with caution if I don't have the RA credits already - which I don't.   Can you remind me how to get RA credits?   Also, can you share what makes you recommend the Peirpont BOG AAS?

[LevelUP]

I would recommend you do UMPI since this would be quickest, cheapest, and fit what you are trying to accomplish.

Do the Business with a marketing concentration
https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/UM...egree_Plan

Business and Liberal Arts are similar in terms of difficulty and considering your strong business background, I would assume business would probably be easier. 

If you want Psychology, then you are better off doing a minor in Psychology along with your business degree, which only requires 2 UMPI courses if you max transfer from Sophia and Study.com
http://catalog.umpi.edu/preview_program....turnto=225

Sophia PSY 100 - General Psychology
Sophia PSY 205 - Lifespan Development
UMPI YourPace PSY 311 - Research Methods
Sophia MAT 101 - Basic Statistics (In GE so don't have to take)
Study.com PSY 200 - Social Psychology
Study.com PSY 235 - Abnormal Psychology
UMPI YourPace (Pick course from available options)

Note: if you use Psychology courses as electives, it shouldn't add extra courses to take.

Pierpont BOG is recommended because it is basically free and gives students an easier first goal to achieve before completing their bachelor's degree.  All you need is one single RA credit from ASU, which costs only $25.
https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Pi...egree_Plan

You should have some fun and be excited about the process.  Once you pay the subscription, the courses are free to explore, so you can try out different things. Take courses that interest you.

Sophia is free for the 1st lesson for every course, and you can download the entire PDF course without paying.
https://www.sophia.org/

[Vle045]

Everyone always suggests UMPI right off the bat. That may or may not be a good fit for only 15 hours a week. The less time you have, the more money you will spend in a CBE program. Luckily, you have time to work on Alt credits before you decide. By then you may have a good idea how long things will take you. Once you get enough credits, then you can get that Pierpont degree. UMPI is a great option, but not if you have limited time to work on it. I fall in that limited time bracket. When I tried CBE, I didn’t get enough done to warrant the cost.

[Mom2my2]

I would recommend you do UMPI since this would be quickest, cheapest, and fit what you are trying to accomplish.

Do the Business with a marketing concentration
https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/UM...egree_Plan

Business and Liberal Arts are similar in terms of difficulty and considering your strong business background, I would assume business would probably be easier. 

If you want Psychology, then you are better off doing a minor in Psychology along with your business degree, which only requires 2 UMPI courses if you max transfer from Sophia and Study.com
http://catalog.umpi.edu/preview_program....turnto=225

Sophia PSY 100 - General Psychology
Sophia PSY 205 - Lifespan Development
UMPI YourPace PSY 311 - Research Methods
Sophia MAT 101 - Basic Statistics (In GE so don't have to take)
Study.com PSY 200 - Social Psychology
Study.com PSY 235 - Abnormal Psychology
UMPI YourPace (Pick course from available options)

Note: if you use Psychology courses as electives, it shouldn't add extra courses to take.

Pierpont BOG is recommended because it is basically free and gives students an easier first goal to achieve before completing their bachelor's degree.  All you need is one single RA credit from ASU, which costs only $25.
https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Pi...egree_Plan

You should have some fun and be excited about the process.  Once you pay the subscription, the courses are free to explore, so you can try out different things. Take courses that interest you.

Sophia is free for the 1st lesson for every course, and you can download the entire PDF course without paying.
https://www.sophia.org/

Thank you for the recommendation and mapping the psy courses!   Question about BOG - You mentioned it was basically free - is that because most of the courses are available through Sophia.org and that's $600/yr? (with other lower cost options) 

I'm interested in taking CLEP exams since those are a fixed price and not time based.  Taking these will give me a true sense of the amount of time I can study and allow time to ramp up the hours into my schedule.   From what I assessed these are part of the recommended courses and have a CLEP accepted at both Pierpont BOG and UMPI.  

College Alegbra - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits
US History I - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits
Psych - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits
Sociology - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits 
Intro to Chemistry - BOG 4 credits; UMPI 6 credits
Macro Econ - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits
Micro Econ - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits
US History II - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits
College Comp  - BOG 3 credits;  UMPI 6 credits

Is there any reason to be cautious in taking these CLEP exams for these Gen Ed Courses instead of using sophia.org?  Will taking these as CLEP hinder me in other ways?   
Sophia.org and CLEPs are not RA courses - correct?   Would Gen Ed courses be consdiered RA through ONU? If so, should I consider taking some of them through ONU (or similar) to boost my RA numbers in case I want to use TESU for the batchelors?   Is there a decent path from Pierpont to TESU? 

---

Everyone always suggests UMPI right off the bat.  That may or may not be a good fit for only 15 hours a week.  The less time you have, the more money you will spend in a CBE program.  Luckily, you have time to work on Alt credits before you decide.  By then you may have a good idea how long things will take you. Once you get enough credits, then you can get that Pierpont degree.  UMPI is a great option, but not if you have limited time to work on it.  I fall in that limited time bracket.  When I tried CBE, I didn’t get enough done to warrant the cost.

Yes, that's exactly my concern!   I like the idea of the Pierpont as a smaller milestone and by then, you're right, I'll know how much study time I can faithfully invest.   What path did you take for your degrees after you tried CBE?

[mohelena02]

Since you are starting from absolute zero I would suggest Pierpont as your first milestone through Sophia classes, then ladder up from there. I started from scratch, zero, nada in 2021 and now I am pursuing a PhD, you can do this.

[bjcheung77]

Basically, you can get about 90 credits done towards a degree from TESU or UMPI before you decide which one would be a better fit. I would take some time to review this thread here, even if you take a couple of sessions to three sessions, you'll be on par with TESU in energy, money, time: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...50-credits

[LevelUP]

I would recommend you do UMPI since this would be quickest, cheapest, and fit what you are trying to accomplish.

Do the Business with a marketing concentration
https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/UM...egree_Plan

Business and Liberal Arts are similar in terms of difficulty and considering your strong business background, I would assume business would probably be easier. 

If you want Psychology, then you are better off doing a minor in Psychology along with your business degree, which only requires 2 UMPI courses if you max transfer from Sophia and Study.com
http://catalog.umpi.edu/preview_program....turnto=225

Sophia PSY 100 - General Psychology
Sophia PSY 205 - Lifespan Development
UMPI YourPace PSY 311 - Research Methods
Sophia MAT 101 - Basic Statistics (In GE so don't have to take)
Study.com PSY 200 - Social Psychology
Study.com PSY 235 - Abnormal Psychology
UMPI YourPace (Pick course from available options)

Note: if you use Psychology courses as electives, it shouldn't add extra courses to take.

Pierpont BOG is recommended because it is basically free and gives students an easier first goal to achieve before completing their bachelor's degree.  All you need is one single RA credit from ASU, which costs only $25.
https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Pi...egree_Plan

You should have some fun and be excited about the process.  Once you pay the subscription, the courses are free to explore, so you can try out different things. Take courses that interest you.

Sophia is free for the 1st lesson for every course, and you can download the entire PDF course without paying.
https://www.sophia.org/

Thank you for the recommendation and mapping the psy courses!   Question about BOG - You mentioned it was basically free - is that because most of the courses are available through Sophia.org and that's $600/yr? (with other lower cost options) 

I'm interested in taking CLEP exams since those are a fixed price and not time based.  Taking these will give me a true sense of the amount of time I can study and allow time to ramp up the hours into my schedule.   From what I assessed these are part of the recommended courses and have a CLEP accepted at both Pierpont BOG and UMPI.  

College Alegbra - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits
US History I - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits
Psych - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits
Sociology - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits 
Intro to Chemistry - BOG 4 credits; UMPI 6 credits
Macro Econ - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits
Micro Econ - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits
US History II - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits
College Comp  - BOG 3 credits;  UMPI 6 credits

Is there any reason to be cautious in taking these CLEP exams for these Gen Ed Courses instead of using sophia.org?  Will taking these as CLEP hinder me in other ways?   
Sophia.org and CLEPs are not RA courses - correct?   Would Gen Ed courses be consdiered RA through ONU? If so, should I consider taking some of them through ONU (or similar) to boost my RA numbers in case I want to use TESU for the batchelors?   Is there a decent path from Pierpont to TESU? 

---

Everyone always suggests UMPI right off the bat.  That may or may not be a good fit for only 15 hours a week.  The less time you have, the more money you will spend in a CBE program.  Luckily, you have time to work on Alt credits before you decide.  By then you may have a good idea how long things will take you. Once you get enough credits, then you can get that Pierpont degree.  UMPI is a great option, but not if you have limited time to work on it.  I fall in that limited time bracket.  When I tried CBE, I didn’t get enough done to warrant the cost.

Yes, that's exactly my concern!   I like the idea of the Pierpont as a smaller milestone and by then, you're right, I'll know how much study time I can faithfully invest.   What path did you take for your degrees after you tried CBE?

Pierpont BOG Costs:
$25 ASU credit
$130 new student fee
$155 total costs + whatever it costs to earn ACE credits.

Sophia.org and CLEPs are ACE credits.

Using Sophia, a lot of people can earn 60 credits in around 3 months.

For CLEP's, it's free through ModernStates

For TESU RA credit, you could take TECEP exams or find other cheap sources for RA credit.

You could probably make a plan for Gen Ed courses that would match both TESU and UMPI so you can decide later which college you want.

CLEPs
College Alegbra - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits (Do this CLEP last as it will require most work)
US History I - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits
Psych - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits
Sociology - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits 
Intro to Chemistry - BOG 4 credits; UMPI 6 credits  (won't work for UMPI since it requires a lab.)
Macro Econ - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits
Micro Econ - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits
US History II - BOG 3 credits; UMPI 3 credits
College Comp  - BOG 3 credits;  UMPI 6 credits
U.S. Govt. (works for both TESU and UMPI Gen Ed)

Many people can study for 20 hours or less and pass a CLEP exam. You can try CLEP exams first, then later, Sophia, and see which is easier for you.

[slaterjack]

Here is the plan I did myself, although I don't think the Google Course is free still, not sure but others here will know. Hope it helps in someway

https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...#pid386854