Central Texas College is awesome!

[sanantone]

For anyone who lives in Texas or is in the military, I highly recommend Central Texas College for associate's degree programs and certificates. I would actually recommend them over the Big 3 since the final cost of the degree would probably be cheaper. If you want to move on to a bachelor's degree, you might as well pay all of the high fees and tuition at the Big 3. Now, the Southern Association, which accredits CTC, does require that 25% of your degree be completed in residence at the college awarding the degree. This can be done online or on campus. CTC is about $82 per credit hour for Texas residents now and a little cheaper for those in the Killeen area. Almost all of their IT courses and some of their math and social science courses are self-paced within 8-12 week terms. They have several degree and certificate programs that can be done completely online with them, but it's possible to complete other degree programs with CBEs and transfer credits.

Sort of like Excelsior, they are picky about what they'll accept for English II. As far as I know, they will not accept any CBEs; but there is the chance they'll accept ACE credits. Out of all of the schools I looked at, they have the most liberal credit award policy for science CBEs. Many community colleges in Texas will award 8 credits for the biology and chemistry CLEPs, but many of them also don't accept DSSTs. CTC accepts DSSTs, CLEPs, and ECEs. CTC even awards 8 credits for the calculus CLEP. I just confirmed that they'll accept ALEKS and Straighterline credits, but the department chairs have to evaluate each course to see if it meets their standards. For example, they'll accept Straighterline's Medical Terminology, but they will not accept their pharmacology courses.

They have documents showing which tests are already pre-approved, but they are a little out of date. There is a chance they would accept some of the newer ECEs and they are always open to evaluating any ACE-approved credits.

Central Texas College

The Alamo Colleges, which serve San Antonio, have a partnership with Learning Counts. However, they are difficult to deal with when trying to get approval for ACE credits. When you ask the department chairs for approval, most of them will not answer you. The ones who will answer you act lost and they'll ask you to bring transcripts, syllabi, and course descriptions to them. I got approval for an English II course that was previously rejected by the district's main evaluators, but that was a few months ago and it's still not on my transcript.

[namwen]

Thanks! That is good to know. We live in New Braunfels, so CTC could be an option for us.

[clep3705]

Houston Community College is also worth considering. They award credit for AP, CLEP, DSST, and IB. 8 hours for chemistry, biology. They award 6 hours for College Composition as ENGL 1301 and ENGL 1302. 6 hours for Analyzing and Interpreting Literature.

Remember once you get credit in Texas it is on your transcript and will transfer to any public college or university in Texas by law. This point is not in dispute. Out of district they charge about $400 for a 3 semester hour course. You must have 6 hours before they grant CBE.

You must compete 18 hours at a Texas college to be eligible to get an associate's degree. Online courses are just as good as in person classes.

[sanantone]

Thanks! That is good to know. We live in New Braunfels, so CTC could be an option for us.

Since you're in New Braunfels, I think you might get in district tuition at the Alamo Colleges. They offer a lot of online courses, but they only accept one DSST: Criminal Justice. They will, however, grant 6 credits for the English Comp CLEP. Their customer service is not nearly as good as CTC's. They are slow to do everything. CTC is built around serving the military, so they're good at dealing with distance and non-traditional students.

Houston Community College is also worth considering. They award credit for AP, CLEP, DSST, and IB. 8 hours for chemistry, biology. They award 6 hours for College Composition as ENGL 1301 and ENGL 1302. 6 hours for Analyzing and Interpreting Literature.

Remember once you get credit in Texas it is on your transcript and will transfer to any public college or university in Texas by law. This point is not in dispute. Out of district they charge about $400 for a 3 semester hour course. You must have 6 hours before they grant CBE.

You must compete 18 hours at a Texas college to be eligible to get an associate's degree. Online courses are just as good as in person classes.

I tried looking for other Texas CCs with low, out-of-district costs and a lot of online courses. I don't remember coming across any. HCC's out-of-district tuition rate rivals the in-state tuition rates at some of the 4-year universities in Texas. They also have a 24 credit limit on CBEs. The Alamo Colleges have a 32 credit limit and I haven't seen that CTC has a limit at all. At least HCC accepts DSSTs. Plenty of Texas CCs are liberal in awarding credit for CLEPs, but not too many are open to accepting DSSTs.

Don't forget about the Virtual College of Texas. CTC does not participate in this, but the Alamo Colleges do. If you can't find an online course offered by one of the Alamo Colleges, you can take it at another VCT college at the in-district tuition rate.

I forgot to add that CTC gives 6 credits for the accounting CLEP.

[namwen]

Since you're in New Braunfels, I think you might get in district tuition at the Alamo Colleges. They offer a lot of online courses, but they only accept one DSST: Criminal Justice. They will, however, grant 6 credits for the English Comp CLEP. Their customer service is not nearly as good as CTC's. They are slow to do everything. CTC is built around serving the military, so they're good at dealing with distance and non-traditional students.

Those are the reasons I haven't dealt with Alamo Colleges much.

[clep3705]

HCC has a published 24 hour limit on CBE. I have 52 hours of CBE and my kids have more than 24 hours each of CBE. What is published isn't necessarily the limit.

[sanantone]

Did y'all transfer these over from another Texas CC? Have y'all had your degrees conferred?

[clep3705]

I amended the previous post to clarify. My point is that we all have more than the published 24 hour limit.

[sanantone]

I guess that's fine if you're credit laundering, but do you have conferred degrees from HCC? I have over 100 credits at CTC, but I would still have to complete 15 CTC credits in order to graduate.

[clep3705]

Degrees, yes. Upon finally hitting 36 hours of HCC courses, we'll get second degrees and have both A.S. and A.A.