Hello!Starting at ZERO credits and beginning my journey to a TESU Bachelors Degree.

[DavidHume]

If he did go for his liberal arts,what would be the cheapest and/or easiest way to get the 15 upper level credit

For me, the easiest way to get upper level credits was the UExcel exams. There are 6 upper level social sciences/history exams available that are part of their package deal that gets you access to 2 free practice exams (each are about 1/2 the length of the real exam) and a free re-take. I'm not sure if the re-take is only available if you fail the initial exam or if they allow you to re-take to improve your score/grade. The 4 I took all transferred as upper level to TESU. I believe that even though Juvenile Delinquency is listed as upper level for the exams it transfers to TESU as lower level SOC-242 so I would be wary about taking that one.

I know some folk think that the $110 for the exam or $145 for the package is a bit pricey, but it's still a big savings from traditional 3 credit courses. You also get the benefit that a letter grade is assigned by Excelsior and that grade does show on my TESU transcript. While it is not used to calculate your TESU GPA it would give you some additional graded components for calculating an overall GPA as you do when applying to most graduate programs, should that be in the future.

Another advantage that may apply is that you will get a 1098-T from Excelsior that you can use towards the Lifetime Learning Credit or American Opportunity Credit, depending on your particulars.

Personally, I really liked these exams. I took the first 2 without the benefit of the practice exams, just using the sample questions in the content guide and reading the listed texts. The second 2 exams I had the practice exams because they started offering the package deal. Overall I got two As and two Bs. I likely could have done better if I had invested more time in preparation, but I took all 4 over the course of 2 months while enrolled in 3 traditional classes (plus working full time and commuting between two residences......) Also, I took 2 exams on the same day both times which the testing center folk seemed to think was an odd choice.