Quickest way to BA or BS (already have 40ish credits)

[neverfinishedBA]

Hi, I am looking to complete a Bachelor's degree I started over ten years ago. Quick background: I'm Canadian but I graduated high school in the U.S. and all of my existing college credit is from U.S. (more specifically Texas) colleges but over ten years old by now. After I dropped out of college after two years, I started my own tech startup, raised angel and venture funding, managed to build a great team around me and grew the business to a market leader in our specific field. While I still own the business, I no longer run it full time. I now stay busy doing business consulting, helping companies scale their sales and operations through technology. Being in my mid 30s now, it somewhat bugs me that I never finished my Bachelor's degree, hence I want to finish it. I don't want to go to a school, hence only looking at online options. I want the degree to be from a U.S. school, not a Canadian one, preferably regional accreditation but open to a DEAC school if it's not a typical degree mill. I think I possess a lot of the skills needed to test out of courses so if the school allows for competency evaluation, that would be great. I also like doing things on my own terms, so ideally before enrolling in a school, I would love to knock out as many courses as possible via Sophia.org and Study.com. Below, I'll list all my academic credits I have (I'll only list those that are C or better as I doubt any Ds can transfer). Additionally, I'll list any non academic background I have that might count for some credit. If so, please advise. I would love to receive a guide that I can follow easily to get me to a Bachelor as quickly as possible. I'd be happy to pay for that guide/degree plan so if that's something you do, feel free to contact me via PM. The two Universities that caught my attention the most so far are WGU and UMPI. Okay, here are my credits:

Academic Credits (obtained in 2006 - 2008)

Fine Arts Interaction (3 credits Grade B)
Introduction to Business (3 credits Grade B)
First Year Institute Seminar (1 credit Grade A)
Academic Lab Reading (1 credit Grade A)
College Algebra (3 credits Grade C)
Freshman Varsity Athletics (1 credit Grade A)
Intro to Psychology (3 credits Grade B)
Rhetoric & Composition (3 credits Grade C)
American Government (3 credits Grade C)
Plane Trigonometry (3 credits Grade C)
Introduction to Speech Communications (3 credits Grade C)
Microcomputer Applications (4 credits Grade A)
Sophomore Body Conditioning (1 credit Grade A)
United States History I (3 credits Grade C)

Academic Credits (obtained in 2018 when I took some college courses at a Texas community college)

Principles of Financial Accounting (3 credits Grade C)
Composition I (3 credits Grade B)
Texas Government (3 credits Grade B)

Non-academic skills that could get me some credit... maybe?

Fluent in German
Attended three well known business accelerators
Private Pilot's License (both Canadian and FAA)
Business advisor for one of Canada's leading business incubator

I am looking forward to your responses. Again, if someone does this for a living, creating efficient degree plans for people that includes Sophia and Study.com courses and what not, feel free to reach out to me via PM.

[bjcheung77]

@neverfinishedBA, Which city/province in Canada were you from? There are only 4 RA institutions in all of Canada... Did you take any courses up there at all that may generate or worth credits? Welcome to the board, you provided a great introduction and actually have more details that will help us decipher a course of action for you. At the time being, you may want to take a look at TAMUC if you're still in Texas, and also take a look at TESU as they grant credit for a few of your licenses... You should also fill in the missing info on the addendum/template here to give an even fuller overview of your budget, commitments, tuition reimbursement, study habits, etc: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Forum-D...ing-Advice

[rachel83az]

What kind of degree are you looking for? I don't see that specified at all. A liberal studies degree is usually fastest/easiest... but many students need more than a check-the-box degree once they stop and think about it. A business degree might be good, but if you hate business then it's going to be super slow. If you love History, it might be extremely quick for you but another student would take longer because they don't care about history that much.

[neverfinishedBA]

@neverfinishedBA, Which city/province in Canada were you from? There are only 4 RA institutions in all of Canada... Did you take any courses up there at all that may generate or worth credits? Welcome to the board, you provided a great introduction and actually have more details that will help us decipher a course of action for you.  At the time being, you may want to take a look at TAMUC if you're still in Texas, and also take a look at TESU as they grant credit for a few of your licenses...  You should also fill in the missing info on the addendum/template here to give an even fuller overview of your budget, commitments, tuition reimbursement, study habits, etc: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Forum-D...ing-Advice

I live in Ontario, halfway between Ottawa and Toronto. I did not take any courses in Canada that would be worth any credits. All of my education was in the U.S. TAMUC probably isn't an option as I no longer live in Texas. TESU appears to grant credits for commercial pilots but not for private. 

To answer some more questions as per the template: 

Budget: Not defined. I obviously don't want to overspend but speed is the most important factor for me. 
Commitments: Very flexible
Tuition reimbursement: Nope
Study habits: Don't like studying lol

---

What kind of degree are you looking for? I don't see that specified at all. A liberal studies degree is usually fastest/easiest... but many students need more than a check-the-box degree once they stop and think about it. A business degree might be good, but if you hate business then it's going to be super slow. If you love History, it might be extremely quick for you but another student would take longer because they don't care about history that much.

Honestly, I don't really care what kind of degree. Considering my background in business (and I certainly don't hate business lol) and the fact that I already have some business college credits, I assume a business degree would be fastest and easiest for me but I'm open to suggestions. If a liberal studies degree gets me across the finish line faster and easier, I'm all for it as long as it's a Bachelor's degree. In terms of interests: 

- Business
- Entrepreneurship
- Law (business and/or security law mostly)
- Aviation

[rachel83az]

For sheer speed and low cost, UMPI would probably be faster than TESU. They have multiple Business degrees that might be of interest. There are degree plans here: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Category:UMPI Should you choose UMPI, you'll want to take an ACTFL exam for German because UMPI wants 3 credits in a foreign language. You'll also want to do your science requirements at Sophia and not with UMPI.

If none of those interests you, TESU has a BSBA Entrepreneurship (and other BSBAs). Degree plans here: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Sa...ts_Roadmap TESU would probably cost 2-3x as much and may or may not take about twice as long. Since you already have more than enough RA credits, you don't have to worry about getting more. Depending on time/money budget, you could finish everything off with Sophia and Study.com courses.

TAMUC is still a possibility. Since UMPI raised their session rates to $1500/session, these two schools now cost the same per term/session. You already have the Texas Government class, so it's certainly something to consider.

[bjcheung77]

Basically...If you have your mind set on UMPI or WGU, you should take a look at TAMUC as they use a competency based option as well, I would suggest them over UMPI/WGU for undergrad. You can then ladder up to the Masters at UMPI for their MAOL or WGU for the MSML, if you want to go the MBA route, you can ladder to WGU MBA (Texas Endorsed, or another state you're in that may have endorsed them).

[neverfinishedBA]

Basically...If you have your mind set on UMPI or WGU, you should take a look at TAMUC as they use a competency based option as well, I would suggest them over UMPI/WGU for undergrad.  You can then ladder up to the Masters at UMPI for their MAOL or WGU for the MSML, if you want to go the MBA route, you can ladder to WGU MBA (Texas Endorsed, or another state you're in that may have endorsed them).

Thanks. That's good to know. I had a call with UMPI earlier today and didn't really like their approach and pushiness. I'm scheduled for another call with WGU later today. I do like the idea of TAMUC since all of my college credits so far are from Texas colleges so I'd complete my degree in the same state I started it. Does TAMUC accept Sophia, Study and Saylor credits? I'm almost thinking my best course of action would be to just enrol in Sophia, Study and Saylor and simply knock out credits based on gut feeling what's needed to complete a degree + interest, do that for like six months and then apply to the above mentioned schools and maybe even others and simply see which ones transfer the most credits and then pick the one that does. For example, I read that Excelsior allows you to transfer up to 110 of 120 credits required. If I can get 110 credits transferred to Excelsior, I'd only have 10 credit hours left to complete the Bachelor. That can easily be done in one semester. Sure, they charge over $500 per credit hour so it would probably more expensive than some of the other schools, even if I only need 10 credit hours, but speed to completion is slightly more important to me than cost at this point.

[natshar]

Lsit the D grade credits too. TESU counts them at least.

[Avidreader]

I am not sure if UMPI accepts German classes for the language requirement. Try to ask if you can about that. If they say they only accept Spanish or French, Sofia has both languages.

There might be proctor testing centers in Canada where you can do CLEP exams super fast. If not, maybe crossing the border to do the exams in the US is an option.

I just did 2 ACTFL exams, the results come super fast. I found the speaking exam to be very easy. If you are fluent in German, you will do very well. The speaking exam can be done in 40 minutes at your home and grants up to 12 credits. My results came in 3 days later. Apparently these credits are only good for liberal arts degrees, but I am very happy to have done them.

[fromthedepths]

TAMUC takes up to 84 credits. If you've taken Texas Government then it's one less class you have to take. Each term is 7 weeks and others, like myself, have completed 4+ classes per term.