Need a degree to get the CFP

[dfrecore]

I think you may want to provide us more details on any commitments you have and college credits you may possess already.  If you have kids, work, volunteering, etc...  Further to that, if you have any tuition benefits or reimbursement from work, do you have a budget?  The reason is because it will determine if Big 3 is a better option or going the competency based degree option... Last but not least, do you just want a degree to check the box, or are you looking at BSBA Finance, or a General Business degree... again, more info, the better!

Definitely check to see if, and how many, credits you have already. It will save you both time & money if you have some credits. Especially if any of these credits happen to be English Composition!

Since you say you have "almost" unlimited money for this, I'm going to suggest that you might prefer ASU Universal Learner courses for at least some of your RA credits. See https://ea.asu.edu/courses/ and https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Ar...al_Learner Each course only costs $25 to begin. You owe nothing further unless you pass the course in question, then it's another $400. If you don't pass the course, nothing happens; there's no record of your attempt on your ASU transcript.

A lot of courses consist mainly of watching videos or reading text weekly for 1-3 hours per class, then taking a quiz. Culminated by a proctored final exam. The ones I've taken are some of the most chill, yet also most interesting, classes I've had. If you take a class and it turns out that you've bitten off more than you can chew, you're only out the initial $25.

A few ASU classes to avoid would be: English Comp (so much writing), Intro to Sociology (I think this one also has essays), Human Communication (definitely essays), Intro to Psychology (might have essays). We do not yet know how the CIS-3XX courses are, because they are new, but some of them might be easy for you (due to your current employment) and could make good electives (BSBA Finance has 15 free electives) at the very least.

And this is all accredited?

ASU = Arizona State University

[rachel83az]

I think you may want to provide us more details on any commitments you have and college credits you may possess already.  If you have kids, work, volunteering, etc...  Further to that, if you have any tuition benefits or reimbursement from work, do you have a budget?  The reason is because it will determine if Big 3 is a better option or going the competency based degree option... Last but not least, do you just want a degree to check the box, or are you looking at BSBA Finance, or a General Business degree... again, more info, the better!

Definitely check to see if, and how many, credits you have already. It will save you both time & money if you have some credits. Especially if any of these credits happen to be English Composition!

Since you say you have "almost" unlimited money for this, I'm going to suggest that you might prefer ASU Universal Learner courses for at least some of your RA credits. See https://ea.asu.edu/courses/ and https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Ar...al_Learner Each course only costs $25 to begin. You owe nothing further unless you pass the course in question, then it's another $400. If you don't pass the course, nothing happens; there's no record of your attempt on your ASU transcript.

A lot of courses consist mainly of watching videos or reading text weekly for 1-3 hours per class, then taking a quiz. Culminated by a proctored final exam. The ones I've taken are some of the most chill, yet also most interesting, classes I've had. If you take a class and it turns out that you've bitten off more than you can chew, you're only out the initial $25.

A few ASU classes to avoid would be: English Comp (so much writing), Intro to Sociology (I think this one also has essays), Human Communication (definitely essays), Intro to Psychology (might have essays). We do not yet know how the CIS-3XX courses are, because they are new, but some of them might be easy for you (due to your current employment) and could make good electives (BSBA Finance has 15 free electives) at the very least.

And this is all accredited?

Yep, 100% Regionally Accredited. On this forum, there are always warnings for things that are unaccredited or are Nationally Accredited instead of Regionally. NA degrees work for some people in some circumstances, but a lot of people prefer getting an RA degree.

[bjcheung77]

To be technical, no, the courses you are taking if it's ACE/NCCRS are not "accredited", they're recommended for credit and most institutions that are Nationally accredited or Regionally accredited will accept these for transfer credit. These courses are pretty much similar to CLEP/AP and IB courses/exams you take that grant you academic credits at institutions, some colleges grant just advanced standing/exemption...

Having said that, yes, the final result you get from the institution, if you graduate from them, is an accredit degree as these institutions take up to 90 credits of alternative credit transfers, 30 will come from the institution such as PUG, UMPI/WGU. If you decide on the Big 3, Excelsior allows up to 113 alternative credits, 7 have to be residency credits, for COSC/TESU, you need 30 RA credits, the rest can be alternative credit.

From what you have provided above, without knowing your commitments (you didn't mention earlier if you have kids, etc), you have mainly two options - Big 3 if you want to use the max out of alternative credits and want to "self-pace" your education. The other option is competency based where you go through assessments and exams, this is recommended if you have experience in the subject matter, you should review PUG, UMPI/WGU.

You need an action plan: To start off, since you have X credits, I suggest taking up to 30, 45, 60 credits from Sophia.org that can transfer into the institutions above, and while working on these courses with an additional monitor for multi-tasking, decide on the degree/school of choice. You don't have to rush through it, but decide before you get past that 60 credit threshold... https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/So...lency_List

---

Forgot to mention, if you're just looking for that degree to check the box, and you seem to have a good budget - You may want to go for a TESU BSBA / WGU MSML combo as they have programmatic/secondary accreditation through ACBSP. I would suggest a general management option so you can test out using Davar instead of writing assignments with Study.com courses.

[rachel83az]

I would not suggest UMPI at all in this instance. Too many essays/projects. Very few exams. Classes are ended with an essay or project. PUG is notorious for being VERY writing-heavy. I am not sure how a WGU business degree would work. I would suspect that it's mostly exams, but for maximum transfer there would need to be more classes from Study.com that have essays or other projects.

With such specific requirements, I would not recommend starting to blindly take Sophia courses. This would be my suggested order:

1. Start finding out what, if any, credits you already have. If you already took Intro to Sociology, for instance, it'd just be a waste of time to take it again from Sophia. 
   
2. Decide what degree you want. I still recommend BSBA Finance from TESU because you can avoid most essays/papers with this degree.
   
3. Figure out what RA classes you're going to take. For TESU, you need a total of 24 RA credits + the cornerstone & capstone. If you have 9 credits already, that leaves you with 15 RA credits or about 5 classes to take. Depending on what you have already, these may need to be gen ed credits or they could be electives. 
   
4. Assuming you're going with TESU, apply the school ASAP and send in your previous transcript. 
   
5. Start taking courses from Sophia.org that do not have Touchstones: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/So...lency_List Exceptions could be Greek Philosophers, Business Law, and Communication at Work. Taking Greek Philosophers makes Intro to Ethics easier. (You actually don't need to complete the course and get credit for it; just reading the course materials and answering the questions should be good enough. Then, you can drop the course.) Business Law is one short paper on why or why not a certain situation is legal. You could take the exam at Davar to get this credit, but the Sophia course is honestly super easy. Communication at Work would be an elective; the single Touchstone has you writing a business memo to "coworkers". It'll probably take you 5 minutes to do the assignment.
   
6. Return here for further instructions on what to take to fill in the remainder of your degree!
   

[dfrecore]

I would not suggest UMPI at all in this instance. Too many essays/projects. Very few exams. Classes are ended with an essay or project. PUG is notorious for being VERY writing-heavy. I am not sure how a WGU business degree would work. I would suspect that it's mostly exams, but for maximum transfer there would need to be more classes from Study.com that have essays or other projects.

With such specific requirements, I would not recommend starting to blindly take Sophia courses. This would be my suggested order:

1. Start finding out what, if any, credits you already have. If you already took Intro to Sociology, for instance, it'd just be a waste of time to take it again from Sophia. 
   
2. Decide what degree you want. I still recommend BSBA Finance from TESU because you can avoid most essays/papers with this degree.
   
3. Figure out what RA classes you're going to take. For TESU, you need a total of 24 RA credits + the cornerstone & capstone. If you have 9 credits already, that leaves you with 15 RA credits or about 5 classes to take. Depending on what you have already, these may need to be gen ed credits or they could be electives. 
   
4. Assuming you're going with TESU, apply the school ASAP and send in your previous transcript. 
   
5. Start taking courses from Sophia.org that do not have Touchstones: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/So...lency_List Exceptions could be Greek Philosophers, Business Law, and Communication at Work. Taking Greek Philosophers makes Intro to Ethics easier. (You actually don't need to complete the course and get credit for it; just reading the course materials and answering the questions should be good enough. Then, you can drop the course.) Business Law is one short paper on why or why not a certain situation is legal. You could take the exam at Davar to get this credit, but the Sophia course is honestly super easy. Communication at Work would be an elective; the single Touchstone has you writing a business memo to "coworkers". It'll probably take you 5 minutes to do the assignment.
   
6. Return here for further instructions on what to take to fill in the remainder of your degree!
   

I agree with all of this.  You need to create a degree plan (or a few) and put in your completed courses, to see what you have left to complete.  Then, you plan out your courses.

Anything else is a waste of your time/money/effort.

[freeloader]

mikemart82, you probably are already aware of this, but the educational requirement for the CFP is 2-part. You have to have a bachelor's degree AND you have to complete a CFP board registered program. You also need the bachelor's degree to receive the CFP designation, but do not need it to sit for the examinations.

I looked into CFP years ago and remember that there are credit-bearing and non-credit-bearing CFP board registered programs. If you end up at TESU, you will need 30 RA hours. Just from a quick Google search, it looks like the credit-bearing CFP programs are in the 21 credit hour range. Since you have 9 CC hours, a credit-bearing CFP program might make sense for you. This would get you to the 30 RA hours you need and would get you that much closer to your BA.

[mikehart82]

I would not suggest UMPI at all in this instance. Too many essays/projects. Very few exams. Classes are ended with an essay or project. PUG is notorious for being VERY writing-heavy. I am not sure how a WGU business degree would work. I would suspect that it's mostly exams, but for maximum transfer there would need to be more classes from Study.com that have essays or other projects.

With such specific requirements, I would not recommend starting to blindly take Sophia courses. This would be my suggested order:

1. Start finding out what, if any, credits you already have. If you already took Intro to Sociology, for instance, it'd just be a waste of time to take it again from Sophia. 
   
2. Decide what degree you want. I still recommend BSBA Finance from TESU because you can avoid most essays/papers with this degree.
   
3. Figure out what RA classes you're going to take. For TESU, you need a total of 24 RA credits + the cornerstone & capstone. If you have 9 credits already, that leaves you with 15 RA credits or about 5 classes to take. Depending on what you have already, these may need to be gen ed credits or they could be electives. 
   
4. Assuming you're going with TESU, apply the school ASAP and send in your previous transcript. 
   
5. Start taking courses from Sophia.org that do not have Touchstones: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/So...lency_List Exceptions could be Greek Philosophers, Business Law, and Communication at Work. Taking Greek Philosophers makes Intro to Ethics easier. (You actually don't need to complete the course and get credit for it; just reading the course materials and answering the questions should be good enough. Then, you can drop the course.) Business Law is one short paper on why or why not a certain situation is legal. You could take the exam at Davar to get this credit, but the Sophia course is honestly super easy. Communication at Work would be an elective; the single Touchstone has you writing a business memo to "coworkers". It'll probably take you 5 minutes to do the assignment.
   
6. Return here for further instructions on what to take to fill in the remainder of your degree!
   

I requested a copy of my transcript from Bucks County Community College this morning.  Stay tuned.

[rachel83az]

Awesome! Make sure to list all the credits and their grades as soon as you know what you have.

[allvia]

mikemart82, you probably are already aware of this, but the educational requirement for the CFP is 2-part.  You have to have a bachelor's degree AND you have to complete a CFP board registered program.  You also need the bachelor's degree to receive the CFP designation, but do not need it to sit for the examinations.  

I looked into CFP years ago and remember that there are credit-bearing and non-credit-bearing CFP board registered programs.  If you end up at TESU, you will need 30 RA hours.  Just from a quick Google search, it looks like the credit-bearing CFP programs are in the 21 credit hour range.  Since you have 9 CC hours, a credit-bearing CFP program might make sense for you.  This would get you to the 30 RA hours you need and would get you that much closer to your BA.

This might be a clever way to get the end result your need for both the degree and the education requirements for the CFP.  The only for credit program that is coming up as self paced is the one at Southern Wesleyan University - https://www.swu.edu/online/financial-planning (appears that you can take the program as stand alone or as a minor - this link just gave the best overall information on the courses).  The course numbering indicate they would count as UL Finance courses; not sure how many fit the Finance requirements for the TESU BSBA-Finance (sure others here will have a better idea on that). They could be used as electives at the very least, and they would count as RA credits along with meeting the requirement you need for the CFP. Here is the link for all those that show college credit offering - https://www.cfp.net/get-certified/certif...,selfstudy

[rachel83az]

mikemart82, you probably are already aware of this, but the educational requirement for the CFP is 2-part.  You have to have a bachelor's degree AND you have to complete a CFP board registered program.  You also need the bachelor's degree to receive the CFP designation, but do not need it to sit for the examinations.  

I looked into CFP years ago and remember that there are credit-bearing and non-credit-bearing CFP board registered programs.  If you end up at TESU, you will need 30 RA hours.  Just from a quick Google search, it looks like the credit-bearing CFP programs are in the 21 credit hour range.  Since you have 9 CC hours, a credit-bearing CFP program might make sense for you.  This would get you to the 30 RA hours you need and would get you that much closer to your BA.

This might be a clever way to get the end result your need for both the degree and the education requirements for the CFP.  The only for credit program that is coming up as self paced is the one at Southern Wesleyan University - https://www.swu.edu/online/financial-planning (appears that you can take the program as stand alone or as a minor - this link just gave the best overall information on the courses).  The course numbering indicate they would count as UL Finance courses; not sure how many fit the Finance requirements for the TESU BSBA-Finance (sure others here will have a better idea on that). They could be used as electives at the very least, and they would count as RA credits along with meeting the requirement you need for the CFP. Here is the link for all those that show college credit offering - https://www.cfp.net/get-certified/certif...,selfstudy

Assuming that those are, indeed, all UL courses, that should take care of the entire Finance AOS. All that would be needed would be the Business Core and Gen Eds.