Need 4 year degree for career adavncement

[Judgedredd]

Hey All,
I'm a law enforcement officer and I need to earn my four year degree in order to be promoted to the next rank. I currently have an associates degree, but I have around 114 credits in total. These credits are a collection from several colleges, and the police academy (that I had placed on an excelsior transcript). I have applied to Thomas Edison, but I'm wondering if there are better options out there. Thomas Edison more or less told me that they will take all my credits if I pay for some kind of residency waiver. I'll be perfectly honest, I'm looking for the path of least resistance, I want a college that will give me a degree without having to write a bunch of papers, exams are fine but I'm in a supervisory position and I have two newborns at home, so I have little in the way of free time. Also I'm currently studying for my promotional exam which will probably be at the end of the year. I don't need my degree to take the exam, but I will need it to be promoted. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[sanantone]

Not that it will likely be cheaper, but did you get an evaluation at Excelsior? There is also Charter Oak State College. Those two along with Thomas Edison State University are pretty much your quickest options because those are the only options in the country that will allow you to transfer up to 114-117 credits. The competency-based schools often mentioned on this forum won't give you credit for the police academy, and they usually require a lot of writing. I believe Patten University is the only competency-based school that offers a criminal justice degree that could utilize law enforcement credits.

Edit: I forgot that the American Public University System now has a competency-based degree in criminal justice, but they require an associates degree, and I doubt they will be fast enough for your situation.

[kb4ns1]

Judgedredd, I found myself in a similar position as you nearly a year and a half ago, only with less credits (I had 17 hours from EMT classes at a community college well over a decade ago). I've been a municipal police officer for over 12 years and, more than anything, needed to be able to "check the box" that says I have a Bachelor's degree. I procrastinated for many years because going for a four year degree just seemed so daunting. I had looked at a lot of the options available (especially the "FOP University" collection of schools that give FOP members discounts and are supposedly prepared to evaluate police academy and post-academy training/experience), but that was before I found this forum. I ended up deciding that I wanted to go the TESU route because it would be cheaper and -most importantly- faster.

I initially planned to knock out some general education credits (via CLEP, DSST, SL, study.com, etc.) before applying to TESU and then go for PLA credits in hopes to maximize academy training, investigations training, etc. with the ultimate goal a Criminal Justice degree. But once I started doing those initial courses, I realized how fast I could rock and roll through them. I ended up coming up with a degree plan for Social Sciences and completed my BA without any PLA-style credit. I embarked on my journey (with nothing more than those 17 hours from community college) on 10/25/2015 and my BA was conferred by TESU on 06/10/2016. You can see the courses I used below in my signature line. It may be more expensive now than it was for me since I managed to get in before that expensive residency waiver came about last year, but I'm sure you'd still come out with a Bachelor's degree for less than you would spend for a single year at most universities (let's be honest - less than a single semester at many).

So my advice is to not limit your options by expecting 'credit for experience' to be your best bet. In some cases it may be, but in many cases it will not. Another plus, in my opinion anyway, is having a degree in "Social Sciences" instead of "Criminal Justice" like 90% of my colleagues who have degrees. I like being able to go into a promotional interview and bring up something to the effect of "how I didn't use my experience to bypass some requirements; I believe college is meant to make a more well-rounded person and expose them to new things, so I seized the opportunity to expand my horizons and fulfill degree requirements while gaining exposure to new disciplines." Of course, I don't say that to knock anyone who uses experience for credit or think any less of them/their degree. It's just a line I can use to try to schmooze over the panel of interviewers when I'm clamoring for the same promotion as all of my coworkers!

I didn't have newborns to contend with, but I was working full-time (and then some) and was freshly divorced with my 9 year old daughter with me on nearly all of my off days, so I was far from stress-free when I worked on my degree. Even though I was extremely motivated and am rather disciplined when it comes to staying on track, the community here was absolutely crucial to my success. There are plenty of folks here who really know their stuff when it comes to the "Big Three" and will go out of their way to help in any way they can. If I can help in any way, please let me know. The hardest part is getting started. Once you get going, it's all downhill from there!

Good luck!

[kb4ns1]

Oh... and don't forget to look over the Wiki while you're trying to figure things out. There is a ton of good info on it!

Degree Forum Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia

[cookderosa]

<<I initially planned to knock out some general education credits (via CLEP, DSST, SL, study.com, etc.) before applying to TESU and then go for PLA credits in hopes to maximize academy training, investigations training, etc. with the ultimate goal a Criminal Justice degree. But once I started doing those initial courses, I realized how fast I could rock and roll through them. I ended up coming up with a degree plan for Social Sciences and completed my BA without any PLA-style credit. >>

This.
That was my issue too. I was attracted to the marketing carrot of PLA or at the very least wanted credit for my prior schooling, however, at the end of the day it was exceptionally faster to choose the right school and re-do a lot of stuff instead of finding a school based around my older credit. In other words, I would have paid 3x and it taken me 2 years to go with a school that perfectly accepted all of my older credit...or....I paid about $5000 and did an AA and BA (social science) in 18 months.
So, in short, you have credit, and it may make sense to use it- but don't hold on to it so tightly that it prevents you from obtaining the faster/cheaper options because of determination to use those old credits come hell or high water.

[dfrecore]

If you post all of your credits here, we can definitely help you plan what to do.

Just put them in this format:
Type of school (2-yr or 4-yr), and type of credits (semester or quarter)
Under each school, tell the course # and full name so we can determine where they would fit into each of the 3 schools
Include the number of credits, and grade if less than a C (makes a difference for some classes but not all)
Repeat for each individual school

I can do a degree plan for TESU, after figuring out the best degree for the credits you already have (I may need some help there). Others can help with COSC and EC.

[rlw74]

I wouldn't let the residency waiver at TESU worry you. If you can test out of everything or use a resource like straighterline or study.com you will end up spending less overall than any four year college I've seen and it will be so much faster. If your credits matchup for business you won't even need a capstone (which is just a research paper).

For example: I applied to SNHU and would have been limited to only 6 credits per 9 week term and each class would have cost $960 + books. I would have graduated around June 2018 with 15k in student loans. Instead I applied to TESU and have completed 39 credits in 10 1/2 weeks through study.com, the free courses and shmoop. With the Guardian scholarship at study.com I only had to pay for a month of study.com and a month of shmoop. ($199 for study.com; $70 for an extra test; $87 for shmoop). The capstone is $1400 and the residency fee at TESU is $1800 with the study.com affiliate membership. I haven't looked yet to see what the exact fee is for graduation but I think its around $375. So I am saving myself TIME - a whole year!!! and MONEY - saving over 11k!!! Plus, no student loans!!! I will have invested less than 4k. My associates degree cost more than that. And I'm not using financial aid so your costs may be less. Plus it sounds like you have more credits than I came in with. I only had 83 credits transfer in. So its totally doable for you to have a degree in a short period of time and not spending a lot.

[KayV]

As Dfrecore said, post your credits. And welcome!