The Open University - Liberal Arts degree (only £6,192 GBP! fully online)

[monchevy]

It’s a neat option and may be a good fit for some people. That said, this way of working an Open degree means you are still earning 1/3 of a degree directly from the degree-granting university in a traditional, albeit online way.  

Most US bachelor’s degrees are 120-128 semester hours. There are plenty of universities in the US that will let you transfer in 80 hours (or more) and complete the last 40 (or less) with them.

I also suspect many American employers might look down on an applicant with a foreign, online degree from something called “the Open University”, never mind the quality of instruction.

Open University has been around forever, is highly respected, and is the largest university in the UK. It's also regionally accredited in the US. 

And not for nothing, but it sounds a whole lot better than "University of the People" on one's résumé. Might as well just say you graduated from The School of Hard Knocks.

1. Open University admitted its first student in 1971. Not exactly “forever”. 

2. The University of Phoenix was for many years (and may still be) the largest university, by enrollment, in the United States. Size does not automatically mean quality. 

3. If you actually read my post, you would see that I said “never mind  the quality of instruction”. Open is a fine school.  Please don’t say that someone it being critical when they are not. 

4. My post was about perception.  A quick web search will reveal hundreds of articles about the perceptions and biases of hiring managers. Most are familiar elite universities and a surprisingly small number of universities in their geographical area. It is probably safe to assume that most hiring managers in the United States will have heard of Oxford and Cambridge, perhaps universities like St Andrews and some of the more prominent institutions in (or formerly in) the University of London, like Imperial, LSE, or UCL.  Realistically, they will not know the difference between Manchester and Westminster.  “Open” education in the United States basically means community college. I would not want to have that perception associated with my degree. And I didn’t say that you should go to the University of the People rather than Open. Again, please don’t put words into people’s mouths.  Which will play better with a hiring manager, assuming they know nothing about the schools (and don’t have the time or interest to educate themselves), a degree from a branch campus of a state’s flagship university (like UMPI), a regional state university/public college (like TESU or COSC), or a foreign university that the hiring manager will likely think is a glorified community college?

I think 50 years is a fair amount of time to exist. And just because you assume hiring managers only know elite institutions doesn't mean it's true. In my personal opinion, hiring managers would think Charter Oak State College is a glorified community college and Thomas Edison State University is on par with University of Phoenix. I'd also think no one who doesn't read this board has even heard of TESU or COSC. I could be wrong. Which is why I don't present my opinion as fact, or say it's "safe to assume" everyone shares my perception. It's just that... my perception.

Anyway, I've spent enough time defending a long-respected university against baseless assumptions. There are more and better higher education institutions in the world than those popular on this board. And I don't mean the ones that give out Groupons.