Total cost of a Psycology degree?

[Kev]

I just finished a degree (traditional associate's degree) and now have way more time on my hands. I'm focussing on getting more contracts at the moment, but once that gets going, I want to start new and big projects—like getting a Psychology degree (this isn't to become a psychologist, but either for general consultation or maybe teaching ESL abroad—as well as out of interest in psychology). I asked some months back about the duration this would take and the answers were very helpful (thanks again). At the moment, I'm organizing my finances and seeing how to include a university degree as well.

I tried searching for the answer, but had difficulty finding it. I would like to know: how much would a Psychology degree cost in total (in USD)? I'm aiming for TESU, and want to complete it in 1-1.5 years—maybe 2 years—if those things are important to know. Also important (as obviously the total cost wouldn't take place all at once), how would those costs be spread out throughout the Psychology degree?

[Ideas]

What psychology credits do you already have?

I believe TESU (with special pricing) is $1800 for residency waiver, $75 Application fee, $1497 Capstone, and $323 graduation and most of that you can pay at the end. But then you need the courses. You can get lots of cheap credits at Shmoop, ALEKS, etc for Gen Ed requirements and then I'm not sure about what psychology courses/exams you still need.

So your current degree is not from TESU?

COSC is probably cheaper for Psych if you use the Psych GRE and get a high enough score.

[rlw74]

Study.com has quite a few courses that come in as UL at TESU.
Psy 104 Social Psychology (if you need sociology I recommend taking it back-to-back; a lot of the information is similar)
Psy 105 Research Methods in Psychology
Psy 106 Abnormal Psychology
Bus 107 Organizational Behavior comes in as Psychology UL at TESU
If you get the Guardian scholarship you could take those for free (which is what I did). If you have to pay for them it's $199/month which includes 2 exams and you can pay for additional exams for $70/each.

It is hard to pinpoint how much it will all cost in total. The residency waiver/grad fee/capstone course are kind of a set amount unless they make changes in the next year. How you access your courses will have variable costs depending on how fast you get through them and who you choose to use as a course provider. Typically on this forum we average it out to be about $100 a course - it could be more or less depending on the course provider. I spent less than $400 on 42 credits but I had the Guardian scholarship, took shmoop courses for my electives and only had to pay for a few study.com courses. I see people posting that they got twice as many credits for just a few hundred dollars more in less time using Straighterline with coupons.

My recommendation would be to take all the courses you need except the hard to find courses. Go through them as quickly as you can to maximize monthly subscriptions. Look for coupons. Apply for the Guardian scholarship. Then, my guess is, if you are still a year to a year-and-a-half away from completion that you could take everything except those couple of hard to find courses and they will probably be added by study.com or straighterline by then. I know study.com said several were in the works already and could be added soon.

[Synicaal]

Common theme is how quickly you complete can save you a lot of money. Step one would be map out all the Shmoop courses you could use for the degree then try and get them all done in a month subscription. I think someone on here did like 12 or more in one month. Shmoop courses are not fun but if you need 1 or more its worth it. I think the cost is $88 and you can get as many courses done in that time as possible. This can bring your total cost way down. The same with study.com's guardian scholarship. You should apply for that and if you get it take all the psych courses you don't have. I would focus 100% on psych course with study.com as you can get a bunch of the other stuff other places or cheaper. Also ALEKS is a cheap source for up to 12 math credits that can fit into many areas. Then there is the $25 saylor exams for credit that can save you a ton if you use those. So outside of the "Fixed" cost you can be looking at a whole different number depending on how it goes for you speed wise.

Before Reimbursement or the Scholarship I am at 24.43$ per credit for 121 credits. With Guardian Scholarship my amount is $19.04 per credit then I was lucky enough to get CLEP reimbursement so my true amount per credit is $14.70. It will be $12.79 is funding comes back and I get reimbursed for the two TECEPs.

Please note that number is with 44 or so credits earned at CC where my PELL and NYS TAP covered just about every penny of the courses. I did pay for books but I am not counting those as it would be to hard to figure out that number. Also I sold a bunch of the books back for a decent amount and I rented other books for really cheap.

[dfrecore]

Since you have an AA, then you may have most of your Gen Ed credits, in which case Shmoop will not be helpful. If you post the credits you already have, that's helpful. I can create a degree plan for you to show the costs. Most of it is on the back end, so you'll need to save up in addition to the costs of the courses you need to take.

[rebel100]

All good advice so far. Couple of thoughts for you:

I've always liked the look of the independent studies degree from CSU-Pueblo https://www.csupueblo.edu/extended-studi...grams.html Yes Sociology or Social Science not Psych....but close enough, from a solid state school, and very flexible...they even have a pretty generous allowance for CLEP. I took seven courses from them when completing my BS. BEST CUSTOMER SERVICE EVER...hands down. They have a huge lot of course offerings https://www.csupueblo.edu/extended-studi...index.html The degree program is also financial aid eligible.

in addition to those classes U of Idaho offers a nice handful of UL Psych courses at relatively reasonable prices. https://www.uidaho.edu/academics/dee/ind...psychology

At COSC one could certainly assemble the 9 UL courses from the two schools above to round out a major. You might be able to use free FEMA IS courses to help make up the overall cost.

[rlw74]

This is just to demonstrate the variation I mentioned earlier - I just went back to see what I spent - granted I already had all my other credits but here is what it looked like for me:

Study.com Guardian Scholarship - six courses FREE = 18 credits
shmoop.com - 3 courses for $88 = 9 credits [I could have done more but my study.com scholarship came through and I didn't need more shmoop credit]
Ethics from the Institutes; TEEX and NFA - FREE = 6 credits
One month of study.com plus one extra exam $269 = 9 credits

42 credits
Total spent = $357
That came out to $8.50 credit hour!

Now lets say for the sake of argument you could knock out 4-5 Alek courses in a month for $20 = 12-15 credits
and you can do 10 shmoop courses in a month for $88 = 30 credits
You could potentially be pending $108 for 42-45 credits. That is really, really ambitious but its been done by people here on this thread.

Same number of credits with study.com but taking two courses a month, spread out over 28 months = over 5k
or using straighterline as an example where the average course is $60 + the $99 subscription, also two courses a month = over 6k
PLus you'll still have your capstone, residency waiver and graduation fee.

Speed, more than anything, is going to determine your costs. That and whatever courses you still need. If you can't use Aleks or Shmoop you might be spending more at SL or study but even there, extra exams and course costs are less if you fit them into the same month which reduces your subscription fees.

All this is the reason its almost impossible to calculate how much it will cost. My guess is, you need 60 credits and depending on what you need and how you get them, you can do this for as little as 4-5k including the cost of a capstone, residency waiver and graduation fee if you can work through the courses pretty quickly. Or it could cost as much as 10k if you just do one or two courses a month over a couple of years. ***Some of the psychology courses are not offered at study.com yet so I'm not taking into account that you might be spending $500 or more on a course at a local college or with another course provider***

[theonlyski]

Study.com has quite a few courses that come in as UL at TESU.
Psy 104 Social Psychology (if you need sociology I recommend taking it back-to-back; a lot of the information is similar)
Psy 105 Research Methods in Psychology
Psy 106 Abnormal Psychology
Bus 107 Organizational Behavior comes in as Psychology UL at TESU

Quick question, what did BUS-107 and PSY-104 come in as (which requirement did they fulfill)?

I've got Psychology-101,105, 106 and 107 from Study.com listed but I still need to find some of the other requirements and those may help.

Thanks!

[Ideas]

rlw74 pointed it out at the end of his post already, but many of the replies are focused on cheap credits which won't fulfill your Area Of Study requirements. UExcel has some Psychology exams.

[dfrecore]

Quick question, what did BUS-107 and PSY-104 come in as (which requirement did they fulfill)?

I've got Psychology-101,105, 106 and 107 from Study.com listed but I still need to find some of the other requirements and those may help.

Thanks!

Org Behavior is a Psych Elective, Social Psych comes in as the second half of the Social Psych requirement.

TESU requires 6cr in Social Psych, you can take Ed4Credit's LL Social Psychology as the first half (it comes in as PSY-237).

I think the only things you can't find inexpensively here is Ethics in the Social Sciences, and History & Systems of Psych. BUT, Study.com has said that they are working on those as well as Physiological Psych, so you should be able to get your entire Core/AOS through them if you want to.