Degree/Planning Advice: Retired LEO Seeking BA and MA after life-altering injury

[Han_Shot_First_IYKYK]

First, thank you for your service.

Among the listed choices, I would recommend UMPI for the following reasons:

• They are CBE and you can work at your own pace on Sophia and Study dot com prior to starting at UMPI to add any credits not already within the AA. 
  
• UMPI allows up to 90 credits to be transferred into the degree (no upper limit overall) and you can transfer in additional courses for a minor, if you should desire one.
  
• You need to complete a minimum of 30 credits at UMPI (10 classes). Even if you space out 10 classes to 4 terms, it is still costing around $6k for the BA, even with 5 terms (2 classes per 8-week term) it comes in at $7.5k.
  

Links

• Here is the mapping for the General Education requirements, which can filled in quite well using Sophia for anything that might be missing from your AA - Sophia likely has the smoothest path towards math requirements: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/UM...ts_Roadmap
  
• Here is a degree plan for the BA in Criminal Justice, for which you likely already have many of the credits from your AA: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/UM...egree_Plan
  
• Within your electives, you can also do 3 classes during your undergrad that can fill in 3 classes of your MAOL, saving you both time and money. Here is a short write-up on those classes: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Un...L)_at_UMPI
  

Next steps recommended:
If you decide that UMPI is best, it would be good to set up a shared spreadsheet with your existing credits and share it as read-only, so other can offer additional advice. If you want to consider additional schools, you can also still set up a spreadsheet with such requirements, to more easily compare and contrast.

Thank you for your detailed responses. I bookmarked all the links including the ADA accommodation link from your second response. I will review and get started on the spreadsheet.

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UMPI: Has a BACJ and an MAOL that are CBE, “YourPace”. Self-paced CBE sounds well suited to my situation. I like that it’s a State school. They state that “previous college credit, certifications, and work—as well as life experiences—are considered and help you graduate faster” but I’m not sure what that would mean specifically for my situation. Would they give additional credit beyond my 90 transfer units to apply towards the CJ requirements and electives based on my certifications and work experience?

UMPI's Prior Learning Assessment page for YourPace helps explain how certifications and life experience learning could yield credit there.

No matter how many units you bring in from outside sources, you will have to complete 30 semester hours in coursework from UMPI. This "residency" requirement a hard minimum at almost every known accredited school in the US (except the three schools we call the Big Three). You could transfer more than 90 sh, but that would be running up your career total beyond 120, as you'd still need 30 sh from UMPI.

LUO: Offers a 25% tuition discount for First Responders and “Personalized service throughout your college experience from a team of knowledgeable academic advisors”. LUO has a wide variety of degrees to choose from including Masters and Doctorate Degrees but it doesn’t appear to have an equivalent to the CBE self-paced curriculum.

Correct, no CBE program at Liberty.

As a general rule, don't give many points to a school as your undergraduate choice because it has a graduate program you're interested in, unless you're going for a specific bachelor's-to-master's provision that save you significant time by counting courses towards both. Most schools don't have such provisions.

Liberty's integration of religious material into maybe every course, and social and political associations attached to its brand and history, are material to some prospective students.

Excelsior: Accepts Credit for Professional and Workplace Training and accepts up to 113 transfer credits for a BSCJ degree. This doesn’t appear to be Self-paced CBE. I don’t see myself attending this school if I need to take more than 7 classes and I’m unsure if I could handle 7 classes in this format.

Correct, no CBE program at Excelsior.

Clarification: Each regular course is 3 credits (semester hours). The 7 credit residency requirement at Excelsior means only 2 regular courses and one 1 sh mini course on information literacy.

TESU's Criminal Justice degree is similar to Excelsior's but completing TESU's requirements might well be a bit more convenient than Excelsior's.

Purdue: Offers an Accelerated Masters in Psychology while obtaining BA in Criminal Justice. They offer up to 25 Credits for POST training and credit for work experience.  They have an “ExcelTrack” that purports to give you to “the same degree faster and for less money.” This school has a for-profit feel to it and they require 180 credits for a degree, not 120. A Master’s in Psychology is far more interesting to me than an MAOL but either will work for me.

Purdue Global's degrees are the same length of academic credit as each school above. The difference is that most schools count credits in semester hours, with most bachelor's 120 sh. Purdue Global is part of the minority of schools that count credits in quarter hours, with most bachelor's 180 sh. If you take a 5 qh course from a quarter-hour school, it will transfer as 3 sh to a semester-hour school, and vice versa.

ExcelTrack is a CBE program. Conventional wisdom is that PG ExcelTrack requires more writing and is less accelerable than UMPI YourPace. The BA in Criminal Justice is offered by ExcelTrack but the MS in Psychology is not. I'm not sure what they mean by this bachelor's to master's plan. If they mean that some of your BACJ ExcelTrack courses would apply to an MSP, that's great. But my guess is they mean you can enroll in the BACJ and though you could do much of it ExcelTrack, you could also take some non-ExcelTrack courses that would apply to both degrees. But those non-ExcelTrack courses would be non-CBE, traditionally scheduled and priced.

Purdue Global used to be the for-profit Kaplan University. As part of the agreement by which it was acquired by the Purdue system, the for-profit company Kaplan Higher Education continues to be involved in operations as a contracted Online Program Manager.

Tuition assistance/reimbursement: I will be funding out of pocket without loans.

You might be eligible for a Pell Grant. Might help.

Thank you for this helpful information. The overview you provided of these schools is helping me better understand my options.

I'm looking at the link you provided for UMPI's PLA. It looks like I could receive up to 30 credits for a Bachelor’s degree at $50 per credit for the Portfolio Assessment. I'm speculating that a portfolio based on my work experience, training, and certifications could potentially satisfy a substantial portion of the CJ degree requirements, and I could satisfy the remainder of 10 class, 30 unit residency requirement with other classes, such as the 3 undergraduate classes in Business Administration and apply them towards the MAOL.

I should also verify similar options for PLA credits for Excelsior and TESU because that could potentially mean far less classes to meet degree requirements compared to UMPI.

I will verify eligibility for FAFSA and grants.

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Also research various scholarship websites to see what their requirements are. This would also help in funding your degree.

Will do. Thank you.

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@Han_Shot_First_IYKYK, Welcome to the board, that's an amazing post with all the info asked for in the addendum, template, and additional info that provides a better overall picture of your scenario... I think you've leaned on the right path, the UMPI undergrad and graduate combo.  

I would slice things differently though, my recommendation usually is to get the balanced mix/match trifecta of certs, degree, experience, you have the certs/experience, you can go for the UMPI BLS with a minor in CJ with 3-4 classes that transfer into the UMPI MAOL, then complete the MAOL.

The main reason for UMPI is the ADA accommodations, one of moderators Ashkir ultimately went that route to get a BABA & MAOL combo, after getting the ENEB MBA, Ashkir then got a VUL DHA... You don't need a BABA to get into the MAOL, you can do the BLS to max transfer your current credits!

In total, this is all within your budget and time frame, plus you can 'pause a session' when you're on vacation!  I would apply, send all transcripts to UMPI, and see where this leads you.  You may be able to finish the BLS in 2 sessions, and the MAOL in another 2 sessions, that'll be $3K and $4.3K respectively.

Thank you for the response. Everything you're recommending appears to be spot on and in alignment with my situation and needs. I understand the general concept of your recommendation broadly, but not entirely. I want to learn more about this pathway.

Do you think I should first try to determine what GEC classes I still need to satisfy, if any, through Sophia/SDC, and complete those prior to applying?