Thomas Edison State College associate degree or bachelors?

[Sdotmeek]

I ve recently enrolled in TESC majoring in accounting. I m starting to think I shouldn t complete my BA at TESC, I don t want future employers to not value my degree. I m thinking I should get my associates at TESC then transfer to a school like Rutgers, Montclair State etc. to obtain my BA. The only issue is I work full time and really don t have time to attend a traditional brick and mortar school, so online classes is best for me. I don t know what to do. Did any graduates from TESC have trouble finding employment? Should I stay at TESC?

[High_Order1]

I'm not a graduate,

but I researched this *extensively* before I ever, ever, ever laid the first penny or minute of study down.

Here is my opinion; sample size = 1


You're fine in about 85-90% of cases.

For a fact, the US Government accepts a TESU degree and I never found an instance where they were selective about it.
For a fact, the state of Tennessee accepts TESU degrees. Same about not finding where they discriminated against one degree conferrer over another.

My experience with these things prior to starting around Feb / Mar of last year was that online schools that weren't an offshoot of a 'name brand' brick and mortar college were scams at best, and lies at most. Reference ITT Tech, for instance. I had friends that went that route, and (yes, I know. It was a b&m school, too. Allow me some leeway) then when they tried to pursue a successive degree, it was for naught. I know of at least one instance where they were told it wasn't acceptable for employment, but I forget the specifics now.

Then you always had those 'send me a grand, and I'll send you a paper with Phd conferred on it' diploma mills.


So, that's why I say 85 - 90%. I am betting there are still dinosaurs who are thinking like I thought out there, and in positions to deny you a job. But that number continues to shrink.

Factually, getting a valid, legit degree online, in some cases, totally online is a real thing, and it is a disruptive influence on society and collegiate life in particular. In response, greater numbers of college systems are having to bow to this trend. The community college I used to work for just last year began portfolio assessments and relaxed restrictions on where credits could transfer in from.

I suspect there are several drivers behind this; but I'm trying to keep my answer readable. Just know this, there is no way, NO way I'd be investing thousands in TESU if I didn't think a) it was not going to lead to a quote / unquote 'real' degree, and b) that there would be a place that after handholding them if necessary, wouldn't accept it.

I am not a TESU shill, btw. I am a very very cautious consumer of college products, and am applying a small inheritance to furthering my education.

[Synicaal]

I ve recently enrolled in TESC majoring in accounting. I m starting to think I shouldn t complete my BA at TESC, I don t want future employers to not value my degree. I m thinking I should get my associates at TESC then transfer to a school like Rutgers, Montclair State etc. to obtain my BA. The only issue is I work full time and really don t have time to attend a traditional brick and mortar school, so online classes is best for me. I don t know what to do. Did any graduates from TESC have trouble finding employment? Should I stay at TESC?

This questions gets asked a lot. TESU isn't a diploma mill school. It allows people to utilizes alternative credits unlike a lot of schools. This is a 100% legit degree that you have to WORK for. It seems easy to do but it's not. Don't bother getting an Associates degree from TESU its a waste of money imo if you just planning on trying to transfer it to another school. Most likely those schools wont take most of your ACE credits because they are greedy. I cannot speak for TESU directly but one of the big 3 is excelsior. A degree from Excelsior (in NYS) is looked at highly from employers. I was making a plan to go to SUNY Albany after my Associates from HVCC but found out about TESU did my research and said yeah I'm going this route. I too did a lot of digging contacting civil service and other agency's to validate TESU and Excelsior (were my top two choices). I also asked hiring managers at my job to look over two similar resumes and tell me who they would hire. They all said it was 50/50. I gave them a resume with a Bachelors Degree from Siena College(top rated school locally) and Bachelors degree from TESU. GPA at Siena was 3.4 and at TESU no existent. I then did comparable job history (I have job history so I wanted to add some) and they went back and forth between them all. For the ones who chose the Siena Person they said they liked there job experience better. For the ones who like TESU most said the same exact thing as the Siena ones. I then asked them did GPA matter, they said they didn't even look for the GPA. I asked them is they noticed the time to earn the degree, only had one person say they did and was impressed and confused at the same time that it took someone a year to get a bachelors. FYI that person said they would most definitely call that person for an interview to talk about how they accomplished that.

Either way TESU is just as good as any other school, Better then some, but of course there is schools that will always look better then TESU. Ivy League > TESU, everything else pretty much level playing field. As you can see Siena V TESU was a tie (like it should be, came down to experience)

https://www.siena.edu/
in case you all wanted to check out Siena

Disclaimer - I do know a lot of the hiring managers at my office which made this test easy to do. Also this was for tax and finance department at NYS and I obviously didn't test IT or HR or anything like that. But I think I might try it with HR and see what people say.

[alzee]

A real but potentially irrelevant bit of trivia: Many B&M schools offer online degrees these days. None (or next to none) indicate if a degree was earned butt-in-seat or online. This includes well known and prestigious schools like NYU. I think any hiring managers who are looking down their nose at degrees earned at "online schools" simply aren't aware of this.

[davewill]

In general, a TESU degree is as good as any from a state school that most people have never heard of. For accounting, if you want to work in public accounting for one of the big accounting firms, there's probably no substitute for graduating from a good B&M that has relationships with the big national and local firms.

[Synicaal]

In general, a TESU degree is as good as any from a state school that most people have never heard of. For accounting, if you want to work in public accounting for one of the big accounting firms, there's probably no substitute for graduating from a good B&M that has relationships with the big national and local firms.

Well put, this is why If I do go on the get my masters I will be attempting it at a State School and not WGU or something along those lines. Plus I will be doing it much slower and may try 1 online course and in in class course per term. I assume graduate courses are much harder and I wouldn't be able to handle 5 per term like I'm doing now at a CC lol.

[AJ_Atlanta]

In my experience with a few F500 companies; our HR department check that the school is accredited. Honestly they didn't regional v national, just legal or not. After that it was up to individual hiring managers, if they recognized it great if not that was also fine. Most any manager knows the ivy league and the schools they think are ivy league and then onto the big name schools or local schools.

I would not worry too much about name recognition unless you have the option for a big name school, are planing on moving to a top executive level (where your bio is public), or going into teaching.

Always remember there are over 900k people with University of Phoenix degrees banghead

[cookderosa]

I ve recently enrolled in TESC majoring in accounting. I m starting to think I shouldn t complete my BA at TESC, I don t want future employers to not value my degree. I m thinking I should get my associates at TESC then transfer to a school like Rutgers, Montclair State etc. to obtain my BA. The only issue is I work full time and really don t have time to attend a traditional brick and mortar school, so online classes is best for me. I don t know what to do. Did any graduates from TESC have trouble finding employment? Should I stay at TESC?

Why would you enroll first and ask questions second? I don't think you should stay enrolled.

Here is what you don't know yet:
The name of the school is Thomas Edison State UNIVERSITY, not college.
An associates at TESU doesn't transfer perfectly into either school you mentioned.
TESU's online classes are very expensive.

[dfrecore]

I ve recently enrolled in TESC majoring in accounting. I m starting to think I shouldn t complete my BA at TESC, I don t want future employers to not value my degree. I m thinking I should get my associates at TESC then transfer to a school like Rutgers, Montclair State etc. to obtain my BA. The only issue is I work full time and really don t have time to attend a traditional brick and mortar school, so online classes is best for me. I don t know what to do. Did any graduates from TESC have trouble finding employment? Should I stay at TESC?

The ASBA at TESU is not worth any more than an AA in Accounting at any CC that could be had for a lot less. So, in my opinion, getting an AA at TESU is a waste of time and money.

AND, if you don't think the BSBA is valuable, then why would you think the ASBA would be any more valuable?

Find the BA program that you DO think is valuable, and then figure out how to get THAT instead of one you don't really want.

[Synicaal]

I love seeing all the post about people de valuing the degrees from TESU, do they think they just enroll pay 2k and receive the degree. Are they not aware there is actual work involved in earning it. I'll admit I was a bit skeptical at first myself but I did some actual research as you can see in another one of my posts and this degree will be on an even playing field as someone getting there bachelors from Siena college. I'm sorry but the cost/time of TESU out weights the 4years and about 120k at Siena any day. For specialized degrees if your that worried about TESU degrees being devalued then do what I am doing, I'm taking about a bunch of my AoS stuff at a Traditional B&M school getting more "acceptable" transfer credits. Plus if an employer asks for a GPA I will give them my CC transcripts along with the complete TESU one so they can see all them A's lol. By the way Sdotmeek, an employer is going to look up your school assuming they never heard of it, see that is regionally accredited and move on. They are not going to be like oh that school ewww. Or see that its accepts a ton of Alternative Style credits. Also if you look at some of the schools you are talking about many of those accept CLEP and ACE also. They just usually have that 30credit residency requirement where you need to take 10 courses or 1 years worth of credits from them. SUNY Albany is a highly accepted school where I am from and during my planning for the original plan I had planned for them to take 90/120 credits from a mix of CLEP/CC/ and ACE so its usually that small 30credits where you think a degree is more valued then TESU.

Side Note: If you get an associates from TESU there is ZERO guarantee you will get 60 credits transferred in to your BA at Rutgers, Montclair State etc.

Please reference this thread below on the test I did with hiring managers.