Which Major at TESC? BSBA in Finance or General Management?

[Getiton1]

Hi All,

I've been off the forum for a while…thanks to this forum and it's senior contributors I finished my BSN at TESC last Autumn. It felt really great to get the Sigma Theta Tau and Arnold Fletcher Awards which learned about on this forum about 2 years ago. I've been busy and became an inspiration to my husband.

My Husband is lucky. His work pays for classes at New England College of Business, however he's taking something called "CFT" courses that would feed into a NECB degree. When he compared prices, and heard how much I liked TESC, he changed his mind and wants to go to TESC now for a BSBA in either Finance or General Management.

Here's a list of the courses he passed: Accounting, Analyzing Financial Statements, Business Communication, Business Math, Consumer Lending, Economics, Law and Banking, Marketing, Money and Banking, Principals of Banking, Residential Mortgage Lending. He works in a local bank and needs the degree to advance since even though he went to college in England (where he's from), it was for music and no one at the bank cares that he can play classical guitar. Which degree would be the fastest/best. How can we move through this degree quickly and cheaply?

Thanks!
Tara

[alleycat]

Are these CFT courses already placed on a ACE transcript? I know someone that had CFT courses n went to NECB. I would check the ACE website. I believe most are lower level business courses and if I remember right only Management was upper level. But it's a great start for him. I would get my transcripts from ACE.

[dfrecore]

He should apply to TESC as BSBA General Management, and then get all his transcripts sent over. Once he has the eval, he can run the "what if" scenario to see what they show for the Finance degree. The main difference between the two are the ease of finding courses. With General Management, there are more than enough available via testing and inexpensive online courses to get the degree. With Finance, it's much more difficult to get the courses that way.

But, if your husband's company will pay for the finance courses, then he could take the ones he needs and then transfer them to TESC for the Finance degree. I would have TESC approve them first (you will want to make sure they will accept them, and that at least 4 will be UL).

[Getiton1]

Are these CFT courses already placed on a ACE transcript? I know someone that had CFT courses n went to NECB. I would check the ACE website. I believe most are lower level business courses and if I remember right only Management was upper level. But it's a great start for him. I would get my transcripts from ACE.

I didn't even think of that. Is CFT a regionally accredited program? I know nothing about CFT courses except many companies (especially banking, insurance and finance companies offer their courses "free" or heavily discounted.

I will have to check on if they are ACE approved. I supposed I go on the ACE website for that?

Thanks!

[Getiton1]

He should apply to TESC as BSBA General Management, and then get all his transcripts sent over. Once he has the eval, he can run the "what if" scenario to see what they show for the Finance degree. The main difference between the two are the ease of finding courses. With General Management, there are more than enough available via testing and inexpensive online courses to get the degree. With Finance, it's much more difficult to get the courses that way.

But, if your husband's company will pay for the finance courses, then he could take the ones he needs and then transfer them to TESC for the Finance degree. I would have TESC approve them first (you will want to make sure they will accept them, and that at least 4 will be UL).

This sounds like what I did. I looked around at the colleges suggested on this website and also heard a commercial on the radio about TESC…when I went to an open house at TESC, I liked what I heard/saw and enrolled just after being laid off from my old job. Little did I know then that lay off would fire ME UP to complete my BSN in about 16 months. I did it the same way you suggest. I applied transferred all but one of my credits in and just got it on! My only concern for my husband is, he only has about 40 credits, shouldn't he wait until he has more so he doesn't have to pay that annual fee every year? He's going part-time and his work only pays for about 10K a year in tuition. I know that's awesome, but I am wondering if he'll be over the 10K limit and be stuck paying for the rest on his (our own). We just bought our first house, so money is a concern. Still, I think you have a point. Better to know for sure and have a plan than be surprise later.
Thanks!

[Getiton1]

This sounds like what I did. I looked around at the colleges suggested on this website and also heard a commercial on the radio about TESC…when I went to an open house at TESC, I liked what I heard/saw and enrolled just after being laid off from my old job. Little did I know then that lay off would fire ME UP to complete my BSN in about 16 months. I did it the same way you suggest. I applied transferred all but one of my credits in and just got it on! My only concern for my husband is, he only has about 40 credits, shouldn't he wait until he has more so he doesn't have to pay that annual fee every year? He's going part-time and his work only pays for about 10K a year in tuition. I know that's awesome, but I am wondering if he'll be over the 10K limit and be stuck paying for the rest on his (our own). We just bought our first house, so money is a concern. Still, I think you have a point. Better to know for sure and have a plan than be surprise later.
Thanks!

PS Thanks for suggesting General BSBA and the rationale. I thought that would have been the easier and faster of the two degree programs and I trust this forum and people like you that have been through the system and understand testing out. I appreciate the help/input.

[dfrecore]

If he's going to be testing out/taking ACE-approved inexpensive courses as well as taking course at NECB, he may be just fine with tuition reimbursement. Ask if they'll pay for exams as well as online courses that are ACE-approved, show them that TESC will accept the courses and they will be saving a lot of money this way (win-win).

If he wanted to make sure that the courses were pre-approved by TESC, then he'll need to apply. Good news, he can enroll under the per-credit option, and there is no fee, just a 24-unit residency requirement to graduate. He just has to plan 8 TECEP's into his courses at $111 each, and that gives him his residency plus the some hard-to-find UL coursework.

He also definitely needs to have his transcripts from England, they may or may not transfer, but hopefully that will clear up a lot of his general ed courses. Don't discount that overseas degree!!

As for his NECB courses being ACE-approved, most schools are not ACE-approved because they don't need to go through that process. It is very easy to transfer units between U.S. colleges - especially if the college you're transferring from is regionally accredited (which NECB is). Schools like Penn Foster, which are nationally accredited, may apply through ACE to get specific courses ACE-approved because of the difficulty of transferring their courses to RA schools. That's the only way you would see actual college courses on ACE (most likely anyway).

So skip ACE (unless you have other ACE-approved courses), apply to TESC, and send in his transcripts from NECB and England, and then see where he sits. He may be a lot further along than he thinks he is. While the app and eval are in process, have him come here and do some research on how this works - he will begin to see a path, and can figure out the best way to get the courses he needs, and using his tuition reimbursement. He could easily get a BSBA in General Management for less than $5000 using the methods we talk about here on this forum.

Once he gets his eval, he can post it on here and we will help him plan the rest out.

[KayV]

Your husband should also have his credentials from England evaluated and sent to TESC. We have had several people he get lower-level General Ed credits from just their A-levels, so a music degree might have a lot of potential credits for him to transfer to TESC.

The international credit evaluators are listed at the bottom of this page:
International Student Policies