Send me your college names!

[Prloko]

Requiring admissions requirements above those of other students is discrimination.....

Point taken.

[OtherSyde]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Ashford here already! They have mid-level reviews on the web, but almost every review is a non-military civilian complaining about their financial department's (apparently ass-backwards) way of dealing with non-military FAFSA TA. If you're active duty military or working off of VA benefits, however, it's a streamlined process with extremely few hiccups; my wife is using some of my GI bill to finish her English BA and it's all totally automated; I'm active duty and I just send in a voucher about a week before each new class begins. Ashford is regionally accredited and accepts lots of CLEP/DANTES credits (Up to 99 transfer credits), as well as a lot of military experiential credits (up to 75 non-traditional credits). Two other guys here on Joint Base Pearl Harbor have recently received their BA's from Ashford, I'll be the third. They have a 30-credit residency rule, and I'm 15 credits into that.

[Prloko]

I wouldn't recommend Ashford to a home-schooler. Ashford just recently tried to switch accreditation to WASC and got denied. They still have their previous accreditation for HLC, but have already been issued a show-cause by the HLC due to the fact the school is accredited in IOWA, but almost all their staff and servers are in california. It's a technicality, and you'll graduate with a RA degree, but if they don't get re-accredited by HLC anyone who started the program is in danger of not getting what they signed up for. Also, they don't have any national accreditation to fall back on if they lose accreditation. If I was a new student, I'd take a different route until Ashford hammers out their issues.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Ashford here already! They have mid-level reviews on the web, but almost every review is a non-military civilian complaining about their financial department's (apparently ass-backwards) way of dealing with non-military FAFSA TA. If you're active duty military or working off of VA benefits, however, it's a streamlined process with extremely few hiccups; my wife is using some of my GI bill to finish her English BA and it's all totally automated; I'm active duty and I just send in a voucher about a week before each new class begins. Ashford is regionally accredited and accepts lots of CLEP/DANTES credits (Up to 99 transfer credits), as well as a lot of military experiential credits (up to 75 non-traditional credits). Two other guys here on Joint Base Pearl Harbor have recently received their BA's from Ashford, I'll be the third. They have a 30-credit residency rule, and I'm 15 credits into that.

[cookderosa]

I wouldn't recommend Ashford to a home-schooler. Ashford just recently tried to switch accreditation to WASC and got denied. They still have their previous accreditation for HLC, but have already been issued a show-cause by the HLC due to the fact the school is accredited in IOWA, but almost all their staff and servers are in california. It's a technicality, and you'll graduate with a RA degree, but if they don't get re-accredited by HLC anyone who started the program is in danger of not getting what they signed up for. Also, they don't have any national accreditation to fall back on if they lose accreditation. If I was a new student, I'd take a different route until Ashford hammers out their issues.

I agree, Ashford is in trouble. Their B&M campus is here in my community, so I'm also familiar with what they USED to be before they were eaten by the online-for-profit-greed-monster, ummm I mean "expanded" under new management. Their campus program has an amazing scholarship program- free tuition for any transfer student from ANYWHERE with a 3.75 transfer GPA. Can't beat it. However, they are a sinking ship, taking on water fast.

[frankiebleyes]

I can't speak for other schools, but my local community college Chattanooga State Community College accepted 32 cleps towards my A.S. degree. I had a few credits that my University did not lose so I came in with 40 and had to take 20 on campus. Easy to accomplish since they have a great on-line department. Finished up in less than one term. They are cost effective for Tennessee and Georgia students, but other than that I wouldn't recommend it cost wise as out of state tuition is high for a community college.

I would not recommend University of Tennessee Knoxville as they loss (over 80 credits from my previous college years with them) and never found them and never cared. I simply had to start from scratch except for a few courses that were in my married name. Still can't explain this, but over it now. Just would not want anyone else to hit that mark, especially a young person.

Have found Penn Foster to be absolutely great working with my son with the courses that are ACE transferrable. We all know that Straighterline can be beneficial. I also took some courses through Ft. Hayes and found them especially helpful, but just not cost effective. My oldest attended Western Governor's and I am still on the fence about them. They have a pretty good tuition policy, but when all is said and done their classes are actually tests just like we take for CLEP and DSST at about 300% of the cost. My son took three courses, $3,000 a semester and no teacher, no actual work just studying and then take an exam for credit. I believe he would have saved a ton taking CLEPs and DSSTs and using one of the big 3. I believe he will finish with TESC shortly, but for now he hasn't decided.

Personally, I am happy with my choice. I am plugging along with TESC. Haven't taken anymore CLEPs or DSSTs. Since my strokes I'm not comfortable with the format like I used to be. I'm sure I could do it, but prefer to take it slow and go the traditional classroom setting at present. Won't be long now about six more hours to go.

Hope this helps Jennifer.

[sanantone]

I agree, Ashford is in trouble. Their B&M campus is here in my community, so I'm also familiar with what they USED to be before they were eaten by the online-for-profit-greed-monster, ummm I mean "expanded" under new management. Their campus program has an amazing scholarship program- free tuition for any transfer student from ANYWHERE with a 3.75 transfer GPA. Can't beat it. However, they are a sinking ship, taking on water fast.

In a way, it's kind of surprising since Ashford was supposed to be one of the better for-profit schools along with American Military University. A guy on another forum had so much faith in Ashford (where he got his MBA), he invested in the company. I know he lost a lot of money because that stock plunged! I'm glad to see the HLC finally cracking down on schools. There is a reason why most regionally accredited for-profits were founded in or moved to the North Central Association. Their standards are more lax than the other regional accrediting organizations.

[OtherSyde]

Well crap, I guess I'd better kill off my BA ASAP then, before everything goes south. Hopefully they won't tank within the next 5-6 months :O

[EDIT] - On that note, does anyone know what would happen if Ashford did lose accreditation before I graduated? I mean I would immediately leave, because obviously my degree would not be accredited, but would that also mean that I couldn't transfer any credits to anywhere else, essentially making 30-40 credits worth of classes useless fluff on my transcripts? Or could I jump ship over to one of the Big 3 and finish up there? I'm concerned now, since I'm fairly invested...


[EDIT] - OK, they still have their HLC accreditation from the North Central Association until 2014, plenty of time for me to kill off the last 6 months of my BA. Whew. I was worried for a minute there. Still, hopefully they get their crap together soon, meaning they quit hiring recruiters and bean-counters and hire more professors/academic staff.

What if I finished my degree first, and THEN they lost accreditation later on? Would my degree suddenly become non-accredited as well, after the fact? Can that happen? If that CAN happen, should I knock out my degree (only 5 classes left), and then immediately enroll in Excelsior/TESC/COSC and finish a degree there as well, just as insurance?

[cookderosa]

Well crap, I guess I'd better kill off my BA ASAP then, before everything goes south. Hopefully they won't tank within the next 5-6 months :O

[EDIT] - On that note, does anyone know what would happen if Ashford did lose accreditation before I graduated? I mean I would immediately leave, because obviously my degree would not be accredited, but would that also mean that I couldn't transfer any credits to anywhere else, essentially making 30-40 credits worth of classes useless fluff on my transcripts? Or could I jump ship over to one of the Big 3 and finish up there? I'm concerned now, since I'm fairly invested...


[EDIT] - OK, they still have their HLC accreditation from the North Central Association until 2014, plenty of time for me to kill off the last 6 months of my BA. Whew. I was worried for a minute there. Still, hopefully they get their crap together soon, meaning they quit hiring recruiters and bean-counters and hire more professors/academic staff.

What if I finished my degree first, and THEN they lost accreditation later on? Would my degree suddenly become non-accredited as well, after the fact? Can that happen? If that CAN happen, should I knock out my degree (only 5 classes left), and then immediately enroll in Excelsior/TESC/COSC and finish a degree there as well, just as insurance?

Your degree will always hold the accreditation it has at your graduation. I had an opposite experience, where my first degree (culinary) was NA when I attended but they are now RA. My degree, however, remains NA. I will also tell you people don't always look- I had a few places give me potential transfer credit until they checked my dates, so you could have the reverse issue if they lost accreditation in the future- meaning an initial check could make it look as though that school isn't RA thus you're degree is not RA, so you may have to explain that if that happens.

Here's my thoughts- RA is hard to get. Very, very hard. Even NA is hard to get. To let your accreditation go is suicide because your students won't be able to pay, thus you won't make any money. I assure you that Ashford is HIGHLY MOTIVATED to keep their RA status, and will likely do what is necessary to do so.

[Carnation]

The California State University (CSU) system allows you to use CLEPs and DSSTs for the general eds.
The University of California (UC) system by contrast doesn't allow any CLEPs or DSSTs.

[cookderosa]

The California State University (CSU) system allows you to use CLEPs and DSSTs for the general eds.
The University of California (UC) system by contrast doesn't allow any CLEPs or DSSTs.

Sometimes there are ways around it, for instance some schools will accept (not re-evaluate) transfer from in-state associate degrees. It would be worth looking at if this is the case. I only looked for a few minutes and couldn't find anything, but that's typically something that requires deeper digging!

In any event, they happily accept all AP credit with scores over 3, so that's a good way to bring in test credit. University of California - AP credits