PSA State Community Colleges -- MD, RI, TN, CA, OR, NY

[monchevy]

That is a program open to a relatively few number of people, with dozens of stipulations. Which is very, very different from "no tuition and fees are ridiculously cheap." Our community colleges in NY have expensive tuition and expensive fees, as well as a lot of red tape to enroll. I've ended up taking classes at CCs in Kansas, Illinois and Arizona for less than half of what my state community colleges would cost. So just saying that post was really misleading about NY. Community college costs the proverbial arm and leg here, with a few vital organs thrown in.

True. But I can see how someone would see that and think that getting tuition-free credits in NY would be "easy".

Yeah, college here is anything but affordable. Otherwise I would have had a degree a long time ago. APUS is actually cheaper than any college here. $306-ish per credit all in. No laundry list of fees or even textbook expenses. And the Brightspace LMS is fantastic. Not sure why people lump it in with UoPhoenix, Ashford, etc. It may be a for-profit, but it doesn't charge predatory tuition and fees, it's properly accredited, and the quality of learning is excellent. I've done certificate programs at NYU and CUNY schools, and APUS is on par, if not better in many ways. Plus, most of the faculty have a PhD, and are thoroughly engaged. I took a 16-week class at a Kansas CC over the summer and the instructor was AWOL the whole time. Our only clue that she existed was that every 4 weeks, grades would appear.