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

[rachel83az]

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.

FYI, the PLA process at UMPI is significantly more difficult and time-consuming than their YourPace classes or the Sophia.org classes you need for GEC/elective requirements. The PLA process at UMPI is less work (and less expensive) than their non-YourPace classes, but YourPace students shouldn't use PLA. Instead, they should use their experiences to complete YourPace classes and/or Sophia.org classes more quickly and efficiently.

Also, PLA credits do not count toward residency. So you'd be doing a lot more work, and spending more money, for no real benefit.

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.

We have a few students who have gone to both UMPI and TESU or Excelsior or to both TESU and Excelsior. These students report that there is about as much writing for Excelsior's capstone/cornerstone as there is at TESU. And that TESU/Excelsior's capstone is more work than the approximately 10 UMPI classes you'd need. If you want to save time and money, you can't just compare 10 classes @ UMPI to 2 classes @ TESU or 3 classes at Excelsior. 10 is bigger than 2 or 3, but it's comparing apples and oranges because the classes are structured differently.

Most UMPI students have been able to easily finish a degree in 2 or 3 sessions (4-6 months). A not insubstantial percentage of TESU students wind up needing an extension for their capstone - even when it's the only class that they're taking that semester. Normally, a TESU capstone is 12 weeks (3 months), but the extension makes it 20 weeks (5 months).

A TESU CJ degree is expensive and time-consuming because most of the CJ classes aren't available elsewhere. UMPI, on the other hand, offers all necessary classes and there is no need to search elsewhere for classes. Of course, if you want something like a BSBA/BABA, that's a lot easier to get at both schools.

Excelsior is a bit weird and difficult about transfer credit lately. Essentially, every time you send in additional transcripts after the initial enrollment period, you'll be paying a $300 transcript evaluation fee. (It's a bit more complicated than that, but it's close enough to the truth.) This makes it essential that you make a best-effort to hit all requirements before you even apply. Otherwise, Excelsior will quickly get very expensive, indeed.

It's not particularly clear to me either and I completely agree. Whatever degree makes the best use of all my existing credits, certifications, and work experience is what I'd like to pursue. Especially if it dovetails nicely with a MA, like the MAOL.

For UMPI, you can progress directly from a Bachelor's degree to the MAOL (and have 25% of the MAOL complete) by taking 3 classes - possibly as electives - during your Bachelor's degree: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Un...L)_at_UMPI This isn't something you can easily do elsewhere. This is a way to "cheat" and have your FAFSA cover (some of) your Master's degree. FAFSA eligibility ends once you graduate. Completing a TESU Master's degree or an Excelsior Master's degree is significantly more expensive, even with the help of TESU's Bachelor's-to-Master's program.

What are your thoughts on consulting with services like College Hacked to assist me with this? I'm wondering what the general consensus is on services like these for folks like me.

Aside from what I said in my prior post that was already quoted, I sometimes watch videos from these kinds of services. From what I can tell, they mostly glean information from this forum/wiki and then they're still woefully out of date. There was one video I watched that suggested students take a certain type of discontinued exam for credit - the exam had been discontinued several months prior. The discontinuation was announced a few months ahead of time. As an education "professional", there was no excuse to not know about the upcoming change. There are a lot of more subtle changes that would be even easier to miss, so I wouldn't really trust them. IMO, once you find this forum, the only reason to pay for a service would be if you really hate money and want to get rid of it quickly.