Degrees available with Saylor Academy and OnlineDegree

[cvalor]

I am on disability and do not have excess funds to work on a degree. I also cannot at this time go to a regular university. I would like to be productive and could afford to get credit at OnlineDegree.com and Saylor Academy. Are any of the degrees you discuss on this website accessible with just credits from these two sources?

[bjcheung77]

Hi cvalor, Welcome to the board! Before Sophia.org changed to their current pricing model, Onlinedegree.com and Saylor.org were one of a few options I recommended in addition to CLEP/MS. You wouldn't be able to complete the degree, but you'll be at least 90 credits into a degree, 3/4th of the degree would be done for under a few hundred dollars. You should fill us in on a few things within the template and last post addendum here: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...Area-works

[cvalor]

Your Location: Utah, United States
Your Age: 34
What kind of degree do you want?: None specific, IT or Business or General Liberal Arts
Current Regional Accredited Credits: None

School Name Total Credits: #
Class Name, Credits, Grade

Current ACE, CLEP, or NCCRS Credits: None


Any certifications or military experience?: None
Budget: Currently have little to no financial resources. Looking for the cheapest sources of credit
Commitments: I have ample free time and can dedicate to a full time level of study 
Dedicated time to study: Studying for a degree would be my main use of time
Timeline: No need to get done quickly
Tuition assistance/reimbursement: None, eventually Vocational Rehabilitation could pay for courses at a normal state college.

I am also considering strongly completing a degree with University of the People. A pathway towards this even though it is not regionally accreddited would be acceptable. I would likely qualify for Financial Aid and this could be cheap credit.

Nations University and a Bachelor of Religious Studies is another thing I have interest in

[rachel83az]

What kind of money are you looking at for vocational rehab? Do they only cover the cost of Utah schools or would they cover classes anywhere?

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There are a few issues at play here: inexpensive credit for the bulk of your degree, residency credit for the school in question, and UL credit for the major. There may also be an issue with a required number of Regionally Accredited credits.

For the first point, Saylor and OnlineDegree seem like the cheapest option, but not necessarily. Saylor is $5 per exam and OnlineDegree is $9; there is no coursework, so everything rides on the exam. Cheap, right? Not so fast! If you need to do any retakes, you're doubling or tripling your costs. Now, you're looking at $10/$15 or $18/$27 for one class. I don't have any strong stats to back it up, but I would guess that people are able to pass on the first time 50-60% of the time, needing 2 exams would be maybe 30-40%, 3 exams would be 10-20% and then a small portion never pass their exams. For someone on a very strict budget, that's not ideal!

Not to mention, Saylor and OnlineDegree courses can be slow. It can take weeks of studying, then you don't pass, and you have to wait a month to be allowed to retake.

There are also CLEP exams; they're completely free through ModernStates, assuming you pass on the first attempt. However, each one does require a monetary investment from you. You get a voucher from ModernStates to cover the testing fee, but you still have to pay the location/proctoring fee out of pocket. ModernStates will reimburse you, but this process can take 3-4 months if you're lucky. With a proctoring fee of $50-$60, this isn't ideal. Though, I think some locations will allow you to pay a single fee and you can complete multiple CLEP exams if you're able to finish within the given time?

Enter Sophia. Sophia is $99/mo. and you are allowed to complete as many classes for that $99 as you can during this period. If you are doing this full-time, there is a good chance that you'll complete classes every other day, on average. Completing 20+ Sophia courses in a month isn't typical, but it's not unheard of either. This brings the cost per class down to below OnlineDegree, possibly even cheaper than Saylor. Especially once you factor on the cost of retakes to both OnlineDegree and Saylor.

For most students, Sophia will actually be cheaper than attempting credits at OD or Saylor. Definitely faster, and often more affordable, than "free" CLEP exams. If you can manage $100/mo. for 2 or 3 months, you'll have all the LL credit you could need for your degree.

There are also some credits available 100% free through Coursera. https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Coursera (look for The American Dream Academy/TADA).

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Now, residency credit. Excelsior has no residency requirement, per se, but there are 7 credits that can't be covered by outside credit. At $510 per credit tuition + $68 misc fees per credit, you're looking at $4046 for the required Excelsior tuition.

TESU allows you to choose your poison, in a sense. They have a 16-credit residency requirement, but you can get around that by only taking the required capstone & cornerstone with them. Then you would pay the $3288 residency waiver fee. This fee is usually not covered by financial aid, tuition assistance, etc. 6 credits x $535 + $3288 = $6498 tuition & fees to TESU. But, if you have the time/energy, it's also possible to take 16 credits in a single flat-rate term. Tuition for this would be a flat $4778. Because you'd be taking 16 credits, there'd be no residency waiver fee. Kind of spendy for someone with a limited budget, but they do have a Computer Science degree available.

Finally, possibly the best for last. UMPI! UMPI has a 30 credit residency requirement. You can fill out the bulk of your credit needs through Sophia and maybe Coursera (depending on degree). This will leave you with 10-15 classes (30-45 credits) to complete at UMPI. UMPI charges a flat-rate $1500 per 8-week session and they allow you to complete as many classes as you're able to within that period. Some students are able to finish off the remainder of their classes within one session. Most take 2 or 3 sessions. If you qualify for a Pell Grant and work with UMPI staff, this degree will likely be FREE and you may even get money back. This school requires the least amount of class juggling and planning to have Financial Aid cover the bulk of the cost. For the highest financial aid award, I think you need two sessions. UMPI has a bunch of Business and Liberal Studies degrees available.

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Now, to UL credit.

Excelsior requires 30 credits of UL classes. Saylor has some UL, but I think the bulk of your credits would need to come from Study.com and/or Coopersmith. SDC is about $200/mo. for up to 2 exams per month. Coopersmith is $150 per course (plus proctoring fees, I think?). You're looking at about $1000 for Excelsior and SDC/Coopersmith UL credits.

TESU only requires 18 UL credits, 3 of which can come from the Capstone. For some degrees (such as Computer Science), TESU would require classes that are only available through SDC and not other sources. This drives the cost up. Depending on degree, you're looking at somewhere around $600-$1200 for UL credits. Saylor is mostly business-type courses and most of those credits wouldn't apply to the cheapest Liberal Studies degree.

UMPI: bad news is that it depends. Good news, it's all part of the classes you have to take from them anyway. They require about 24 UL credits and you need to complete at least 30 UMPI credits. Again, most students are able to complete these required credits in 2-3 sessions.

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Finally, RA credit requirements. Of the schools mentioned above, only TESU has this requirement. They require students to have at least 30 RA or foreign RA-equivalent credits in a Bachelor's degree. There are ways to get these credits inexpensively, almost free, but it takes planning. If you really, really want a TESU Computer Science degree, this will likely add another $200-$500 to the cost of your degree.

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Lastly, would having an Associate's degree help you in your journey? It is possible to get one for approximately $150 from Pierpont. Costs would breakdown as follows: 1 month of Sophia for $99, $25 for a class from Arizona State University, $15 to send the ASU transcript to Pierpont, $0 for credits from Coursera through The American Dream Academy (if desired/needed). More information here: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Pierpont_C%26TC

I know this is all a lot of information to digest at once, feel free to ask any questions!

[SweetSecret]

DVR will also allow people to complete their degree at an out of state college if you can show your plan is more cost effective. If it involves testing out you need to build up evidence that you are capable of passing the exams. You might want to look into scholarships to that you could use towards TECEPs if you choose to go with TESU. If you pass one or two of the TECEPS you could show that to DVR to get them to pay for more TECEPs.

[Avidreader]

I would like to offer a heads up that Onlinedegree's Psychology class is no longer available for credit. Anyone that enrolls after June 14th 2023 is out of luck. You can take the class for personal fulfillment, but you can only get credit if you enrolled before that date.
Not sure if other courses are affected by this.

[allvia]

I'd have to agree Sophia and then the YourPace program through UMPI (it is a RA state school in Maine) would be the lowest cost options, and once you apply to UMPI you should apply for financial aid.

[origamishuttle]

UMPI: bad news is that it depends. Good news, it's all part of the classes you have to take from them anyway. They require about 24 UL credits and you need to complete at least 30 UL credits. Again, most students are able to complete these required credits in 2-3 sessions.

I truncated here for brevity, but this was an epic post! You provided an excellent overview of options for anyone who has enough time and motivation but limited money. I also agree with your UMPI advice; it reminded me of this thread: UMPI Bachelor of liberal studies-management minor - Start to finish in 5 months (degreeforum.net) He profited almost $1,000 after all was said and done, which is obviously an outlier, but it's nice if you can get anywhere close to $0.

One thing to note about UMPI is that we're expecting the learning platform to change soon, and we don't know how it will affect the speed with which courses can be completed. We're hoping things won't change all that much, but it remains to be seen. More and more students are completing in 1-2 sessions now, so 2-3 should still be a safe estimate.

[rachel83az]

UMPI: bad news is that it depends. Good news, it's all part of the classes you have to take from them anyway. They require about 24 UL credits and you need to complete at least 30 UL credits. Again, most students are able to complete these required credits in 2-3 sessions.

I truncated here for brevity, but this was an epic post! You provided an excellent overview of options for anyone who has enough time and motivation but limited money. I also agree with your UMPI advice; it reminded me of this thread: UMPI Bachelor of liberal studies-management minor - Start to finish in 5 months (degreeforum.net) He profited almost $1,000 after all was said and done, which is obviously an outlier, but it's nice if you can get anywhere close to $0.

One thing to note about UMPI is that we're expecting the learning platform to change soon, and we don't know how it will affect the speed with which courses can be completed. We're hoping things won't change all that much, but it remains to be seen. More and more students are completing in 1-2 sessions now, so 2-3 should still be a safe estimate.

Oops, the part you quoted should have said that "they require about 24 UL credits and you need to complete at least 30 UMPI credits". I guess I didn't proofread as much as I thought. 

[bjcheung77]

@cvalor, You've completed the template, addendum, and indicated a Liberal Studies, Business, IT with a limited budget. So, you're starting from zero, this is where I usually recommend getting three things under your belt, Certs, Degree, Experience.  You should have one subscription open at a time, instead of paying for multiple subscriptions at once, go in orderly fashion by pacing yourself.

As I mentioned earlier, you can get from zero to 90 relatively cheaply, my suggestion is the same as Rachel83AZ, start with the Coursera/TADA offerings to get some certs/credit usable for transfer, Sophia.org, and to go for the UMPI BLS Management & MIS minors (or you can add the project management as well for a triple minor like what ss20ts did!)

Recap Steps: Even though Onlinedegree/Saylor, CLEP/MS may be cheaper/free, Sophia.org is easier/faster to complete.
Coursera/TADA, complete the offerings that you're interested in and has credit towards Pierpont & UMPI.
Coursera, Complete the ones that go towards Pierpont & UMPI and that you're interested in: Coursera
Pierpont, take the ASU $25 for 1 RA credit, the rest should come from Sophia.org: Pierpont C&TC