90 CommCollege credits - help!

[rachel83az]

Questions: 
I am assuming RA credits are credits taken from a regionally accredited college? please confirm or clarify. 

Yes. Your CC credits are RA.

In the case of the big three, is there a place I can look at upper level requirements?  residency reqs?  I think I saw that Excelsior only reqs 7 units. 

Not exactly. You can see some info on the wiki at https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/ but a significant portion of it is "well... it depends". I.E., it depends on what you already have to see what is the best.

Some basic information:

• Excelsior: Requires 30 UL credits. If you bring in enough credits (and, at 90, I think you have enough), I think at least 6 of the 7 required credits can be considered UL. The remaining 24 credits could come from anywhere: Study.com, Coopersmith, Davar, Saylor, etc. Unfortunately, it's only possible to get a couple of degrees at Excelsior (IIRC, History and BS Liberal Studies are the easiest and a Business degree is theoretically possible, but you must take more EC courses than just the 7 credits).
  
• COSC: Requires 30 UL credits. Also requires a science-with-a-lab and at least 24 RA credits (which you have). Only easy/cheap degree is a BALS (General Studies) degree. 
  
• TESU: Requires 15 (18 counting the capstone) UL credits. Requires 24 RA credits (again, you have this). They do have a Communications degree, but you can't get the required UL credit for it alternatively. The closest you could get would be English: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Sa...ts_Roadmap
  
• UMPI: Competency based. Requires 30 credits of residency (this can actually work out to be nearly as cheap as alternate credit). Requires science-with-a-lab and a foreign language. Most courses are passed with an essay or a project of some kind (since you want Communications, I presume that this wouldn't be a burden to you). Also requires a foreign language. This one is probably the cheapest and easiest for you to complete and you can get the Communications degree you want: https://online.umpi.edu/programs/ba-prof...alism.aspx
  

Honestly, I would recommend UMPI. I would have to match your courses to the GEC requirements to be certain, but you're probably good to apply to UMPI right now if you just get Spanish I from InstantCert. Most students who visit these forums are able to complete a UMPI degree in 2-3 sessions (4-6 months) after enrollment. That's faster than you'd be awarded a degree at any other school. 

If you're comfortable with essays and you just want to be done with your degree ASAP, then UMPI is probably the school for you.

Does that mean that the remaining 23 credits ( in the case of Excelsior) could be taken through alternate sources (sophia or straighterline, etc?) 

Yes. But, as outlined above, in the case of EC or COSC all of the remainder of your credits would need to be UL. 

I do have ACE credits from a marketing program certification program about 10 years ago that are put forward as CEUs. They are recommended for 9 LL- credits. I've worked in communications for about 25 years (15 years at a director level), so I am open to PLA, but don't have any "documentation" of outside training, since I'm usually the one LEADING the training. 

If it's not on an ACE (now Credly) transcript, it won't count. But they're LL credits anyway, so not really worth pursuing at this point in time.