Will it Thrive or Die?

[Publius]

I would say I wish they would clarify this on their site, but my experience is that they don't want to advertise how to get credits outside of paying for their courses. Testing out of a majority of the degree is very very rare even at the Big 3. From what I understand the majority of people are taking classes at TESC after transferring in coursework from one or more other schools, not testing out of everything they can.

We are the 1%. milelol:

I doubt anyone would be able to argue with that, and I certainly agree. But now, take all the traditional college students and add them to the mix and we're not even 0.1%. This method of obtaining a degree is almost to good to be true, for us not the schools. Granted we're a very small minority, but that minority is growing rather fast. As more and more people keep doing this, would it ever be possible for this to become nonexistent, or will it be more likely to have more then just the "Big 3" to choose from a decade or two down the road?

With the schools loosing millions of dollars (potentially billions) they've got a reason to try and put a cease to most if not all of this type of testing on one hand, and a golden opportunity to dramatically increase their number of graduates if they "copied" the Big 3 on the other. The schools have the money and the numbers needed to apply some pressure to get laws passed. If the government can say whether we have a certain light bulb in our our sockets or not, what would keep them from demanding one has at least 60 semester hours from the school of their graduation (or something of the like)?

Right now, this is an alternative path for obtaining a degree, and it's cheaper, faster, and largely unknown. However, is this method dangling from a thin string, or is it the revolutionized form of college?

[ryoder]

Strayer is now a Straighterline partner school. I took a bunch of tests at my local Strayer and there were lots of other people doing it too. I think Strayer encourages testing out or atleast tells students about it.
If you don't know about Strayer, its an urban school and they have a couple of locations in the Tampa area. The people are very professional and courteous.

[dcan]

In another thread I proposed a free or nearly-free university funded by charitable foundations that teaches no classes but takes 100% transfer like the Big 3. I see no reason it couldn't be accredited even using SACS own guidelines, but I'm not an expert.