College Plus

[barcotta]

Well, to get off the razor thin ice, let's look at it this way. It's a service. You can get a manual, find the parts and fix your car yourself--or you can pay for a mechanic. You can change your own oil or you can pay more and someone will change it for you. You can offer your house for sale "by owner" and save thousands in commissions and do all the work yourself, or you can hire a real estate agent. You can go to the grocery store and buy a bunch of ingredients and take them home to prepare a meal, or you can pay more and eat at a restaurant.

Sometimes it's easy to forget how befuddling this all can be when one first learns about the alternatives available to obtaining a college degree. If you're already on this board, chances are very good that YOU are a driven, self-directing person who can figure things out for yourself. Others need some help. It appears that CollegePlus exploits the $$ gap between the expensive traditional route and the relatively inexpensive "big 3" route. In other words, you can spend a little and do it yourself, or spend a little more--but still much less than most traditional degrees--and have an "advisor."

I don't know anything beyond what I've read on the CollegePlus site and this forum--but that's what I get from it. Additionally, it appears to be an outgrowth of the Christian home-schooling movement and to the extent that you remain part of that community in a formalized program I would think that has some value to people. Finally, if I understand the CollegePlus plan, they are also providing a connection for job experience and maybe missionary work--the theory being that their program is superior to a traditional program because you come out of it with your degree (in less time) AND work experience.