The Real "Big 4" is Here!

[dfrecore]

Agreed. The only associates that are worthwhile are specific career focused associates like nursing, IT or trades.

That's not really true. This might be different across regions, or maybe even industries. In my state, 60 credits qualifies me to work as a substitute teacher, a tutor, or for various administrative positions. It's not a catapult into the middle class, but it certainly opens doors to fields or positions I wouldn't be qualified for without at least an AA. I've worked in offices and restaurants for the last 15 years and when promotions are on the table, generally a Bartender with an AA will be promoted to bar manager over one without, all things being equal. There are also a lot of entry level jobs that will list an associate's as a prerequisite if someone has other related experience. Many of the positions at the local community college are worded that way. It's not worthless - for many of us starting out at the bottom socioeconomically, that climb from 20k to 28k in earnings is HUGE - as well as the nod of respect that comes with having completed SOME kind of degree.

Quick question - when you say 60cr qualifies you to be a substitute, is that an actual AA, or just 60cr?  Because there is a difference.

Also, the talk here was of the limited usefulness of an AA.  It MAY be good for some people, and those people usually come on here and ask about them because they actually need an AA for a particular reason.  We are happy to help them get one.

But for someone who doesn't need one, and just thinks that an AA might be useful in some way, we try steering them to actually complete the BA (especially because some of the Big 3 require a capstone course for an AA, or the same price for the Residency Waiver as a BA, in which case the AA becomes fairly expensive).