Earning a degree entirely through military training, is it possible?

[Sidewinder2N]

Is earning a degree entirely through military training, is it possible?

It’s no secret that there is a wealth of college credit granting courses and training available to those of us that serve in the Military. However, I mostly hear about people doing it to credit bank, get a transcript, and get promotion points to get promoted. I know many of us use these courses to also apply toward actually getting a college degree as well. However, most of these courses are applied as elective credit and we still have to complete the general, core, and concentration courses with the actual school. Unless you CLEP them, which is an option, if you can pass the tests though. Then of course there is often a mandatory initial course, school required courses, a capstone, and a certain number of credit hours that have to be completed with the school. With all of that that said the answer to earning a degree entirely through military training is likely not possible…or maybe it is and nobody has figured it out yet.

Which brings me to my second question; how close to degree completion can you get with only military courses and training? What school did you do this at? What courses /training did you take? What type of credits and courses did it count for in your degree plan? Is this course/training only available to your branch only or can everyone do it? (i.e. I am in the Army but I can take MCI courses, but I can’t do CCAF)

I thought I would share my knowledge so far with you. This is my transfer credits toward a BA degree plan in Intelligence Studies (concentration Low Intensity Conflict, they don’t offer this one anymore I got in it before they changed everything) with American Military University (AMU)
So far I transferred 16 Credits from Marine Corp Institute and 18 with my AARTS. (Army only) These transfer credits only counted as Electives.

This is from my AMU degree Plan:
[AARTS-SCHOOL] (Transfer Credit) 18 (This has Basic 5 credits, AIT 10 Credits, and Warrior Leader Course 3 Credits)
[US Marine Corps Institute - Land Navigation/Military Science/Orienteering] (Transfer Credit) 3
[US Marine Corps Institute - Record Keeping] (Transfer Credit) 1
[US Marine Corps Institute - Corrections] (Transfer Credit) 3
[US Marine Corps Institute - Small Unit Tactics/Military Science] (Transfer Credit) 3
[US Marine Corps Institute - Food Service Operations] (Transfer Credit) 1
[US Marine Corps Institute - Personal Finance] (Transfer Credit) 3
[US Marine Corps Institute - Introduction to Antenna Theory and Construction] (Transfer Credit) 1
[US Marine Corps Institute - Electronic Communications] (Transfer Credit) 1

I recently contacted Excelsior College about this new thing the Army has going on, if you completed SSD Level 1 Excelsior will give you credit for it. More to follow on that in hopefully the near future.

[robrasta]

I personally don’t think it can be done only with military training. I completed my Associates with Excelsior. I received 45 credits for my MOS and NCO schools. I needed to complete English, math, humanities and science to finish the degree.

[dcan]

You can't complete any degree with only military training because military doesn't give you the gen-eds required. CCAF comes close, but we still have to complete like 15 credits after all our PME (leadership schools) and everything else factored in.

Speaking of CCAF, the Air Force for the past few years now has the AU-ABC (Associate to Baccalaureate Cooperative) that is basically an articulation agreement between CCAF and partner colleges. The partners agree to accept the CCAF degree in full for 60 or 64 transfer credits towards a comparable 4-year degree in the same field. So you get halfway there right out of the gate. It's a pretty amazing deal, and unfortunately I know a lot of people in the AF who just don't realize how incredible they have it with CCAF and now AU-ABC making things so much easier for them. It's even more amazing when you realize CCAF only awards AAS degrees, which usually are only minimally transferable.

For the Army you should check out the new program y'all just started up. If you have a Combat Arms MOS then the Army has basically set up a combination of CCAF and AU-ABC, an agreement with 30-something schools to accept AARTS training towards a defined 2-year degree with minimal gen-eds required. The other services have long wanted a CCAF of their own, and it would be a great thing for them to have, but given all the red tape (money, accreditation, etc) involved they routed around the problem to get soldiers a true benefit.

Regardless, you still need the gen eds to finish even a 2 year degree. Military training alone won't get you there, even for us spoiled with CCAF.

[CLEP101]

You can't complete any degree with only military training because military doesn't give you the gen-eds required. CCAF comes close, but we still have to complete like 15 credits after all our PME (leadership schools) and everything else factored in.

Speaking of CCAF, the Air Force for the past few years now has the AU-ABC (Associate to Baccalaureate Cooperative) that is basically an articulation agreement between CCAF and partner colleges. The partners agree to accept the CCAF degree in full for 60 or 64 transfer credits towards a comparable 4-year degree in the same field. So you get halfway there right out of the gate. It's a pretty amazing deal, and unfortunately I know a lot of people in the AF who just don't realize how incredible they have it with CCAF and now AU-ABC making things so much easier for them. It's even more amazing when you realize CCAF only awards AAS degrees, which usually are only minimally transferable.

For the Army you should check out the new program y'all just started up. If you have a Combat Arms MOS then the Army has basically set up a combination of CCAF and AU-ABC, an agreement with 30-something schools to accept AARTS training towards a defined 2-year degree with minimal gen-eds required. The other services have long wanted a CCAF of their own, and it would be a great thing for them to have, but given all the red tape (money, accreditation, etc) involved they routed around the problem to get soldiers a true benefit.

Regardless, you still need the gen eds to finish even a 2 year degree. Military training alone won't get you there, even for us spoiled with CCAF.

:iagree:

General Education credit is a must for every degree and military training alone, no matter what kind of training you've had, will not get you those credits. Unless there are some schools out there that I don't know about.

[CLEP101]

Which brings me to my second question; how close to degree completion can you get with only military courses and training? What school did you do this at? What courses /training did you take? What type of credits and courses did it count for in your degree plan? Is this course/training only available to your branch only or can everyone do it? (i.e. I am in the Army but I can take MCI courses, but I can’t do CCAF)

To answer your second question, go to Dcan's DegreeForum Wiki site and see my degree plans that show how Excelsior used my military credits for my two degrees I got from them. There are other degree plans posted there as well from other members from here.

Excelsior Degree Plans - Degree Forum Wiki

[RugbyMan187]

Another thing to look into is Skillsoft. They have a bunch of courses worth credit free to the military and send them to ACE.

[dcan]

I just researched this exact thing. Turns out to get the ACE credit for Skillsoft courses you must take a proctored exam. I can get unlimited Skillsoft courses for free through the portal, but zero proctored tests, so no credit. Just make sure you don't waste time on something (one course was over 100 hours of CBTs!!) and find out you don't get anything for it.

[jetwiz]

I contacted the base education office and they were able to get me a list of places that proctor the skillsoft exams some of them for free. You might check into this some libraries by where I live proctor those tests.

[JBjunior]

Just to add, I have had massive amounts of military training that counted for credit. Too bad a lot of it was repetitive or just simply didn't apply, even to a liberal studies degree.

[valsacar]

I just researched this exact thing. Turns out to get the ACE credit for Skillsoft courses you must take a proctored exam. I can get unlimited Skillsoft courses for free through the portal, but zero proctored tests, so no credit. Just make sure you don't waste time on something (one course was over 100 hours of CBTs!!) and find out you don't get anything for it.

You just need a proctor, which is easy to get. Ed Center might be able to do it for you (I know overseas they will), or as jetwiz said they can give you a list of local places that will proctor. Most places accept an officer as a proctor (just some paperwork to fill out), so that's probably another option you could use.