Need Help Planning An affordable Computer Science Degree for international students

[rkotak2]

Good day,
Hope all is well. So I am embarking on an ambitious personal project to help skill unemployed high school graduates (no college) in Uganda, Africa and i need your kind input, please.
Situation: There are so many unemployed youths in Uganda at the moment and these are people who I believe if they have access to the resources can do some good in this world.
My proposed solution: I want to use my personal resources for now, to turn 100 youth into 100 computer scientists. I want them to get computer science skills(through certs) and also get the degrees to show proof(so they can easily get employed). So what i want is a degree similar to that of wgu which is quick, very affordable (of course cost should be lower than that of wgu), and packed with all the IT Certs. At the end of it I want the student to graduate with all the necessary IT certs plus a degree creating chances for them to proceed to employment or masters degrees if they so wish.
Please advise -  All suggestions are welcome. Thank you
Resources: 
Budget: 1000 - 2000 $ per student
Their Location: Uganda, Africa
Their Age range: 18 - 35
What kind of degree do you want for them?:computer science
Current Regional Accredited Credits: 0

School Name Total Credits: #0
Class Name, Credits, Grade

Current ACE, CLEP, or NCCRS Credits:0

Provider Total Credits: #0
Class Name, Credits, Grade

Any certifications or military experience? None - Just High school diploma

[origamishuttle]

Are you sure you're thinking of a degree? Especially a CS degree? You mention certifications, which typically do not go hand-in-hand with a CS degree. Even at WGU, there are only two, relatively expensive, not very marketable certifications in the CS degree. CS degree can be thought of as a foundation for a career in IT, but the marketable skills are largely developed outside of the degree.

What type of job are you hoping they'll get? If it's software development, then maybe a boot camp would make more sense. They'll need to build skills and create a portfolio to demonstrate those skills. A CS degree will help, but not nearly as much as skills and experience, which they will need to get a job, in addition to the degree. Better to plan the fastest track to a job, then work on a degree once they have income.

[bjcheung77]

Interesting, I had a similar plan for not just students in Africa, but anyone who would like to learn Business/IT.  Each of those students will have a different scenario, their budget, commitments, dedicated time to study and timeline to finish will vary.  As I mentioned to you and others, I would work on 3 things. Certs, Degree, Experience.  While your students continue working on freebies or inexpensive certificates, they're gaining experience.  My suggestion so far is to work on Coursera, Google, IBM and some introductory Business/IT cheapo/freebie certs.  They can use online open education resources for learning.  When the time comes for completing credit, they can take ACE/NCCRS options such as Davar, Sophia.org, or Saylor.org courses and exams for credit.

[origamishuttle]

Speaking of Business, there is the ASU program, which is free:

https://thunderbird.asu.edu/lifelong-lea...t-graduate
https://thunderbird.asu.edu/lifelong-lea...n-bootcamp

[rachel83az]

Have you looked into University of the People? UoPeople accepts some credits from Sophia.org, which could help with costs. Many students in Africa may qualify for the scholarships that they offer, making a degree free (or nearly so). https://www.uopeople.edu/tuition-free/our-scholarships/ I don't believe many people in Uganda speak Arabic, but UoPeople also has business degrees for Arabic-speakers: https://ar.uopeople.edu/

I would also recommend https://github.com/ossu/computer-science to see if the students even WANT (or are able) to do computer science.

How strict is Uganda with degrees? What I mean is do the students have to get a degree in computer science specifically? Some countries require this, others don't care as long as you have a degree of any kind. The fastest and cheapest option for most might be for them to get a business degree from somewhere like UMPI and then use a portfolio generated by the work on OSSU to land them a programming job.

[Insert Name]

Looking at the price range, is there an AS somewhere that would fit the goal? Also, I’m wondering if the degree has to be a U.S. degree, or if there’s a way to utilize XAMK? I’m thinking the IBM/google/etc certs are a good idea too.

[rkotak2]

Are you sure you're thinking of a degree? Especially a CS degree? You mention certifications, which typically do not go hand-in-hand with a CS degree. Even at WGU, there are only two, relatively expensive, not very marketable certifications in the CS degree. CS degree can be thought of as a foundation for a career in IT, but the marketable skills are largely developed outside of the degree.

What type of job are you hoping they'll get? If it's software development, then maybe a boot camp would make more sense. They'll need to build skills and create a portfolio to demonstrate those skills. A CS degree will help, but not nearly as much as skills and experience, which they will need to get a job, in addition to the degree. Better to plan the fastest track to a job, then work on a degree once they have income.

Thank you. A boot camp sounds good and quick though the job market in Africa is not as friendly as the US Job market. So to ensure their success, they need the degree to prove that they have they can be employed. Then of course they can add bootcamps, certifications and build their portfolios. I am hoping they can develop softwares/apps/ innovate -for both self employment and working for companies.
(I actually have a free bootcamp by ALX that i am registering them to just to build skills but i dont think its sufficient - here's the link if anyone maybe interested: https://www.alxafrica.com/programme_post...-engineer/)
 I am hoping that if this first batch is successful then they can train others as well say each of the 100 graduates trains a 100 youth each in computer science - the multiplier effect would bring amazing results (theoretically).

---

Interesting, I had a similar plan for not just students in Africa, but anyone who would like to learn Business/IT.  Each of those students will have a different scenario, their budget, commitments, dedicated time to study and timeline to finish will vary.  As I mentioned to you and others, I would work on 3 things. Certs, Degree, Experience.  While your students continue working on freebies or inexpensive certificates, they're gaining experience.  My suggestion so far is to work on Coursera, Google, IBM and some introductory Business/IT cheapo/freebie certs.  They can use online open education resources for learning.  When the time comes for completing credit, they can take ACE/NCCRS options such as Davar, Sophia.org, or Saylor.org courses and exams for credit.

Thank you. This is exactly what I am trying to build. This is the plan that i need guidance in drawing. I want them to take on certs which will help them gain experience but they can later on be used for credit. If i can get a list of the Coursera, Google, IBM and some introductory Business/IT cheapo/freebie certs that you think would help these students build a solid foundation in IT - and also the order in which they can be taken if possible then i can draw up a study plan quickly -get them signed up on all these platforms and get the ball rolling before they can move to the ACE options for the degree.

---

Speaking of Business, there is the ASU program, which is free:

https://thunderbird.asu.edu/lifelong-lea...t-graduate
https://thunderbird.asu.edu/lifelong-lea...n-bootcamp

Definitely going to add this to the list. Thank you.

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Have you looked into University of the People? UoPeople accepts some credits from Sophia.org, which could help with costs. Many students in Africa may qualify for the scholarships that they offer, making a degree free (or nearly so). https://www.uopeople.edu/tuition-free/our-scholarships/ I don't believe many people in Uganda speak Arabic, but UoPeople also has business degrees for Arabic-speakers: https://ar.uopeople.edu/

I would also recommend https://github.com/ossu/computer-science to see if the students even WANT (or are able) to do computer science.

How strict is Uganda with degrees? What I mean is do the students have to get a degree in computer science specifically? Some countries require this, others don't care as long as you have a degree of any kind. The fastest and cheapest option for most might be for them to get a business degree from somewhere like UMPI and then use a portfolio generated by the work on OSSU to land them a programming job.

Yes I have looked into the Uopeople bachelor of computer science and If they can transfer in sophia credits without extra costs then it is a viable option. But I have been searching for information about transfering in the credits and based on what i have read there might be additional charges which could drive the costs high. Still I am interested if someone has information about their transfer policy. I have tried their customer care/live chat/Whatsapp but can't get through to their agents to ask for more information. 

Since the OSSU is free - I can definitely put it in their study plan. Thank you
The private sector is not extremely strict and will allow them to work long as they have computer certs +business degree + portfolio. The government will not accept that however and they need a computer science degree to get employed in the sector. If we cant get a better option - then this can be a possible route for them. Please inform me please about what is the fastest and cheapest degree  - and what is the maximum amount it would cost? And it does not have to be American only (Although USA is preferred)

---

Looking at the price range, is there an AS somewhere that would fit the goal? Also, I’m wondering if the degree has to be a U.S. degree, or if there’s a way to utilize XAMK? I’m thinking the IBM/google/etc certs are a good idea too.

Thank you. The degree does not necessarily have to be a US Degree (But of course it is the preferred option). I am open to using XAMK or any other University in Europe if it will lead to them getting a computer science at a lower cost. And yes the IBM/GOOGLE/etc certs have to be included in the plan though I am requesting the for advice for which specific certs to include and in which order because i have to design the study plan to follow. Please give me more information on you think i can incorporate XAMK and how much it will cost. Thank you

[rachel83az]

UoPeople does cost money to transfer credits in, but this is less than taking the courses at UoPeople. If you can transfer in 10 courses from Sophia, that'd be about $100 for Sophia + $170 at UoPeople, total cost of $270. 10 courses from UoPeople, without scholarships, costs $1200. But, again, there are scholarships that could make a UoPeople degree 100% FREE for your students. I would strongly recommend checking out the scholarship page and helping them to apply for any that they might remotely qualify for.

The absolute cheapest degree would be for students who are 20 years old or older. Using Sophia and Study.com, it is possible to get a business degree or a Liberal Studies degree with a minor in Management Information Systems for $1600-1800. This would involve getting as close to 90 credits as possible for transfer to UMPI before continuing. However, students who did this would need to be strong writers in order to finish in a single session. Each additional 2-month session would cost another $1400 at UMPI.

For XAMK, I would recommend that the students sign up for this FREE certificate as soon as possible: https://www.xamk.fi/en/open-amk-courses/...-creation/ It includes programming and other aspects of video game creation.