TESU no longer accepts courses based on ACE/NCCRS recommendation alone

[shadowgem]

The two SDC courses that they said were "no longer accepted for credit" were Microbiology and Healthcare Informatics.

Are they no longer accepted for credit at all (like not even in Free Electives), or were they referring to a specific degree and saying these courses weren't equivalent?

Apparently, not at all.    

They noted something about aside from ACE/NCCRS end dates that TESU processes local reviews to decide if a course is in fact transferable for credit. They then indicated that these two courses were "no longer accepted for credit". They did say they would accept SL's version of microbiology instead.

On the other hand, Medical Terminology at SDC is still being accepted, but the Coopersmith Medical Terminology course is also "no longer received for credit" for some reason. 

So the decision to accept/reject appears to be course specific unfortunately.

[cookderosa]

It's not unusual to request official transcripts from non-colleges, we see that with CLEP and AP already, and so asking for Studycom transcripts isn't *totally* shocking, unusual, but not shocking.

What is shocking, imo, is TESU's disregard for ACE. Many colleges don't accept ACE credits, but TESU historically has, so by requiring ACE providers to ALSO be evaluated individually feels to me like TESU is trying to tighten controls, and time will tell what that looks like.

We now have 2 ACE approved providers that have been denied by TESU (Shmoop, InstantCert) this is not a small thing when you historically ALWAYS accepted any credit that was approved by ACE.

I would not be surprised if we continue seeing changes that restrict, no open, the pathways to a degree at TESU.

[jamshid666]

I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but could the business relationship with SDC be the reason that TESU is denying credit from other ACE-approved sources?

[dfrecore]

I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but could the business relationship with SDC be the reason that TESU is denying credit from other ACE-approved sources?

They started this a while ago, they are just as much of a pain for Study.com as any other provider that I've seen.

[cookderosa]

I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but could the business relationship with SDC be the reason that TESU is denying credit from other ACE-approved sources?

It is in TESU's financial interest to deny all ACE credit.

[jamshid666]

I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but could the business relationship with SDC be the reason that TESU is denying credit from other ACE-approved sources?

It is in TESU's financial interest to deny all ACE credit.

Makes me wonder, what's the profit per semester hour that a school earns once you deduct all applicable expenses (instructor salary, electricity, administrative overhead, etc.) and how does closely does that profit value match up with the value of the residency waiver fee.

[Ideas]

In my opinion, Shmoop literature courses are hard. I feel that Online Degree courses and some SL courses were much easier. I think they are solid courses since proctoring was added.

The Shmoop non-literature courses I took seemed fine as well. About the same as SL, Sophia, Saylor, TEEX, etc. (I'm not counting those few crazy hard Saylors.)

[davewill]

I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but could the business relationship with SDC be the reason that TESU is denying credit from other ACE-approved sources?

Doesn't seem all that likely. For one, they've been whittling away at the SDC discount and giving them a hard time about course equivalencies, too. I find it more likely that that someone got a bug in their bonnet over the Shmoop thing, decided to question the general quality of ACE/NCCRS courses and this policy is the result.

Also, as the providers are gearing up with more courses, they are probably getting more DIYers than they've had in the past and they probably aren't that happy about that, either.

[posabsolute]

I'm thinking the same thing as Davewill. I'm not sure this will drive the results TESU is expecting however, it all depends if the pathway is easily achievable within the new restrictions. I'm sure a lot of money is driven through DIYers. I also think ACE ****** up giving "accreditation" for exam only, no proctoring courses at Shmoop, so it's not just TESU here.

Personally I'm saddened this is the way things are going at TESU, with so many of us being graduate there, I don't feel compelled at all to do donations.

[jsh1138]

If you guys want to blame someone, blame the person who did 30 Shmoop tests in a month, or whatever it was, and made it obvious that this format was just being abused. The lack of proctoring was always going to be an issue sooner or later, and we all knew it.

It's not a coincidence that Study.com recently limited their tests to 5 a month either. You can read between the lines on this stuff and see what the problem is.