Did this Excelsior Admissions Counselor just lie to me?

[Leherself]

For myself personally, it made sense to use my GI Bill for Excelsior for a few reasons -

One, I don't ever plan to "go" to university. The only schooling I intend to do is the kind that I can manage from where I am, and without excessively interfering with my work schedule. Regardless of how "prestigious" a B&M degree might be - if it required me to uproot myself and quit my job, that would be a cost of around $75,000 a year in lost wages alone, and there's no guarantee that I would be able to get a better job upon graduation (or hell, even a comparable one). Since I'm already limiting myself to online schools, I might as well go with one that allows me to graduate as quickly as possible, so that I can get that oh-so-important piece of paper and hopefully qualify myself for a promotion.

Two, I actually feel that I am getting the maximum benefit I can from the GI Bill. By simultaneously enrolling at Excelsior (mostly Uexcel exams), and a local B&M school, I make myself eligible for the full monthly housing allowance. By the time I finish my degree program (hopefully this summer), I will have pocketed about $20,000 for attending college (a little over $2000 a month - I live in a high cost of living area. That's a nice chunk of change when you consider that it's in addition to my regular paychecks). That's money in *my* pocket - not tuition dollars paid to a school. I don't see how having the government pay a school higher tuition rates would really benefit me... but getting paid *myself* to attend school recently assisted me in putting a down payment on a house, which I think is *amazing*. And I've only used about 1/3 of my GI Bill benefit so far.

It would probably be impossible to do something similar for a graduate degree though - since it's much harder to transfer credit at the graduate level, it's unlikely that I'll be able to simultaneously enroll in local and online classes for grad school (in order for the GI Bill to pay for something like that, the courses taken at both schools have to be going toward the same degree program). Since none of the local schools offer what I'm interested in studying at the graduate level, and I wouldn't be able to do a full course load in person while working full time anyway, I'll be doing that degree entirely online - online rate monthly housing allowance is only about $700 a month. But since I also still have tuition assistance, as well as access to free graduate coursework through my job, it makes more sense for me to use my GI Bill as a money maker during my undergrad, then switch to "merely" going to school for free for grad school. It's not quite as exciting as getting paid to go to school, but I certainly can't complain . And then I can save the other 2/3 of my GI Bill for something else (just can't save it for too long - the benefits expire once you've been out of the active duty military for 15 years).

I think that for people who are entering a new career field, whether they're just entering the workforce for the first time, or changing jobs, having a name brand education can help them get their foot in the door. But for someone like me - someone with almost a decade of experience in a single career field where I intend to stay for the forseeable future? I just need the piece of paper. Now, I need a legitimate, accredited piece of paper. But at my level a bachelor's degree is just about checking a box. It could be from Harvard, and it would still only be a bachelor's and meet the absolute minimum educational requirement for my next pay grade. It's not going to impress anyone. At my level, the only way someone gets interested in my education is if I have a Ph.D. They don't even count education as a replacement for experience unless it's at least 30 graduate credits *beyond* the Master's degree. My work experience is what qualifies me for my current position, not my education - it's just that I've hit the ceiling of how far I can get without any formal credentials at all. Really, it's almost like a high school diploma - for the most part, no one cares where you got it, and no one is really impressed by it, but eventually if you don't have one it can be a big problem.

**shrug** Everyone's situation is different, and everyone has different goals.