Should COSC Lose Stand Alone Category Here?

[natshar]

At this point COSC has a place. It would be good if you were in this scenario:

-You have a lot of RA credits and ideally lots upper level but no degree. (90+ - 114)
-You want to do as little work as possible to get a degree (meaning less classes)
-You might qualify for some aid

In this case, it would likely be cheaper than EC and TESU and only two classes at COSC so not much work to do. But for starting from zero or close to zero COSC is not a good idea.

The big 3 refers to the fact you can transfer in 100+ credits. Even UMPI, WGU, PUG, UMGC, etc all require 30 in residence or 25% or the degree at their school. That is the universal minimum and the big 3 are the only USA RA schools that have lower than 25% residency requirement.

[elcastor21]

At this point COSC has a place. It would be good if you were in this scenario:

-You have a lot of RA credits and ideally lots upper level but no degree. (90+ - 114)
-You want to do as little work as possible to get a degree (meaning less classes)
-You might qualify for some aid

In this case, it would likely be cheaper than EC and TESU and only two classes at COSC so not much work to do. But for starting from zero or close to zero COSC is not a good idea.

The big 3 refers to the fact you can transfer in 100+ credits. Even UMPI, WGU, PUG, UMGC, etc all require 30 in residence or 25% or the degree at their school. That is the universal minimum and the big 3 are the only USA RA schools that have lower than 25% residency requirement.

Doesn´t CUNY SPS accept 102 credits out of 121/123?

[LevelUP]

At this point COSC has a place. It would be good if you were in this scenario:

-You have a lot of RA credits and ideally lots upper level but no degree. (90+ - 114)
-You want to do as little work as possible to get a degree (meaning less classes)
-You might qualify for some aid

In this case, it would likely be cheaper than EC and TESU and only two classes at COSC so not much work to do. But for starting from zero or close to zero COSC is not a good idea.

The big 3 refers to the fact you can transfer in 100+ credits. Even UMPI, WGU, PUG, UMGC, etc all require 30 in residence or 25% or the degree at their school. That is the universal minimum and the big 3 are the only USA RA schools that have lower than 25% residency requirement.

Doesn´t CUNY SPS accept 102 credits out of 121/123?

CUNY takes 105 transfer credits.

[studyingfortests]

COSC has literally done everything humanly possible to drive people away.  They have changed many of their degree-completion policies. They have eliminated much of the ACE credit they used to allow.  They have added additional requirements that are difficult to complete outside of a class at COSC. And quite a few other things.

Their admissions process (at least for me, and I went through it twice, abotu 5 years apart) is arduous and bureaucracy filled. One of their admissions counselors, who I got assigned to both times, is useless; she never returned any my calls or emails, when she did respond (often 10+ days after I had emailed), I responded within minutes... only to sit in radio silence for more days.  This wasn't isolated; it happened multiple times, on both admissions processes.

COSC accepted way fewer of my credits (nearly all of which were from conventional accredited bricks-and-mortar schools) than either Excelsior or TESU. And there was a strong sense they wanted me to spend money with them rather than complete the credits in lower cost ways.

And the final nail in the coffin for me:  About a year ago, they reached out to me, and apparently a lot of other folks who applied to COSC but ended up going to another school. They paid each of us $150 for a focus group where the focus group leader collected all sorts of data, in excruciating detail, about why they were so awful and what they could do to fix it.  Almost everyone on the call was in a similar situation to mine: familiar with the other degree completion schools, and chose another school over COSC because of their utter nonresponsiveness and bureaucratic incompetence.

And as near as I can tell, after paying out thousands of dollars to get information on why they were not getting students, and how they could fix the problem, it appears that they have done absolutely nothing to change their student-hostile policies.

I really can see no reason why COSC is a remotely appropriate choice that should be promoted as a realistic option when there are really excellent alternatives like TESU, Excelsior and UMPI.

[LevelUP]

The main reasons why we don't recommend COSC anymore.

• 30 RA credits required
  
  
• Most of Study.com is no longer accepted, which makes it hard to get UL credits.
  
  
• B is required for transfer credit.
  
  
• There is nothing special about COSC to make it worth it jumping through all the hoops.
  

[elcastor21]

The main reasons why we don't recommend COSC anymore.

• 30 RA credits required
  
  
• Most of Study.com is no longer accepted, which makes it hard to get UL credits.
  
  
• B is required for transfer credit.
  
  
• There is nothing special about COSC to make it worth it jumping through all the hoops.
  

Also, very unrelated and off-topic and opinion based only: Charter Oak sounds like a name from a Psychiatric Asylum and not an University...

Just my opinion...

[bjcheung77]

Yeah, and for international students, I'd recommend sticking to the "University" as it's more recognized, some countries don't recognize 4 year colleges as universities just because of the name. That's another reason to look at Charter Oak State College, for the most part, keep your eyes on the main providers we recommend, Excelsior University, TESU, UMPI, WGU, even PUG, SNHU, UMGC, UMass Global, and various other universities we have written about...

[faresayari]

Yes! And put Purdue Global instead of it

[ashkir]

Yes! And put Purdue Global instead of it

We get our equal share of Purdue Global horror stories as well. There's a reason why it hasn't dominated these forums.

COSC used to be a great school with great requirements. But, it's changed. New guys that came up such as UMPI, Pierpont, and WGU have quickly outpaced it. COSC is blind to the changing digital world we live in.

[ReyMysterioso]

The thing about COSC's model is that they made very little revenue off people coming in with 114+ credits needing to pay tuition only for the corner and cap. The bulk of their revenue is students who take 30-60 or more credits in residency. More conventional students. 

The state kept facing educational funding shortfalls for the last several years and kept looking for ways to cut corners and costs - the most significant move was consolidating all the community colleges into one unit under one administration to cut overhead. Enrollment was down across the board and down 18.6% (to 1,618 students) at Charter Oak State College specifically. 

So with all the turbulence, it's my personal speculation that they made a business decision to boost enrollment in the area that drives more revenue - which is those students taking more than 30 credits in residence. And as a byproduct, they narrowed the doorway on all the alt-credit students just so they could focus more of their "bandwidth" of education services on those kinds of students. 

I don't really blame them, but at the same time, it's pretty obvious that with all these alt-credit, non-traditional students flooding UMPI and a couple other pathways - there is OBVIOUSLY an underserved need for fast, affordable, adult education. And it's certainly a missed opportunity for COSC to mostly abandon that kind of student rather than finding a way to tap into that underserved market in a way that can both help student and institution.

It does seem backward-facing that their original goal and mission was niche degree completion for adult learners, yet they've the steps they keep taking move them in the direction of being just another state college.

It pains me to say I regret choosing COSC as my undergrad over a different program.