TESU - when to apply?

[Merlin]

Thanks so much! You are right. I am confusing the capstone and cornerstone. I'm getting there! : ) I also didn't know that about study.com. I just knew that they used give a residency waiver for affiliation and now they don't. That's very sad.

Time to gear up and apply I guess!

Study.com affiliation still provides a discount for the residency waiver fee. Instead of $2,500 SDC affiliates pay $2,200, or a $300 discount. In the 2017-2018 catalog year, the discount was almost double that... but it was always a discount, not an elimination of the fee. The tuition discount has remained the same.

SDC affiliation used to provide a cornerstone waiver so you didn't have to take the 1 credit TES-100 cornerstone course, but that was eliminated last summer.

In any case, if you feel that TESU is the right choice for your son, then you should probably put together a rough course plan and have your son take at least two courses at Study.com (the monthly college accelerator plan includes 2 exams per month, so taking at least two courses is recommended) and have them, along with the transcripts for his associates and CLEP credits, sent to TESU for evaluation and application purposes to you can get the ball rolling.

That said, as zzzz24 mentioned, there are other (cheaper) options aside from TESU. We used to recommend them to everyone, but with the recent changes, they are less cost-effective now. Personally, I recommend WGU first (for people looking for IT, business, or education degrees), then COSC, then TESU and Excelsior. So you should also take a look at COSC. If they have a degree that your son likes, you could save a bit of money going with them.

Additionally, COSC accepts Shmoop courses, which TESU does not. This may be particularly useful for an English degree as Shmoop offers a greater variety of relevant courses.