Degree/Planning Advice: Retired LEO Seeking BA and MA after life-altering injury

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Your Location: California, United States.
Your Age: Late 40’s
What kind of degree do you want?: I’m open to suggestions. I want to maximally apply my existing education, certifications, and professional experience towards obtaining any regionally accredited online Bachelor’s degree (so probably Criminal Justice??) and then towards a Master’s Degree (preferably something other than CJ).

I'm very grateful for all the information this forum has to offer as well as the community of knowledgeable and passionate folks here who take the time to read and respond to posts like this. It truly makes a positive impact on people's lives. I book marked the Wiki and see that there are existing roadmaps/degree plans. I’ll continue to review but I will need help from people who know more about this than me. I need help with selecting a school, choosing a degree path, creating a degree plan specific to my education and experience (Hire College Hacked or ??). Any suggestions/advice is highly appreciated.

I’ve identified these 4 schools. I’m leaning towards UMPI based on what I’ve learned so far.

UMPI: Has a BACJ and an MAOL that are CBE, “YourPace”. Self-paced CBE sounds well suited to my situation. I like that it’s a State school. They state that “previous college credit, certifications, and work—as well as life experiences—are considered and help you graduate faster” but I’m not sure what that would mean specifically for my situation. Would they give additional credit beyond my 90 transfer units to apply towards the CJ requirements and electives based on my certifications and work experience?

LUO: Offers a 25% tuition discount for First Responders and “Personalized service throughout your college experience from a team of knowledgeable academic advisors”. LUO has a wide variety of degrees to choose from including Masters and Doctorate Degrees but it doesn’t appear to have an equivalent to the CBE self-paced curriculum.

Excelsior: Accepts Credit for Professional and Workplace Training and accepts up to 113 transfer credits for a BSCJ degree. This doesn’t appear to be Self-paced CBE. I don’t see myself attending this school if I need to take more than 7 classes and I’m unsure if I could handle 7 classes in this format.

Purdue: Offers an Accelerated Masters in Psychology while obtaining BA in Criminal Justice. They offer up to 25 Credits for POST training and credit for work experience.  They have an “ExcelTrack” that purports to give you to “the same degree faster and for less money.” This school has a for-profit feel to it and they require 180 credits for a degree, not 120. A Master’s in Psychology is far more interesting to me than an MAOL but either will work for me.

Current Regional Accredited Credits: A.S. Degree in Administration of Justice from a California Junior College. 90.5 units total. 3.89 GPA

Course Code, Course Name, Grade, Units
AJ 079, Law Enforcement Career Prep, CR, 0.5
AJ 094, Police Academy Orientation, CR, 1
AJ 100, Intro to Law Enforcement, A, 3
AJ 110, Criminal Law, A, 3
AJ 059A, Basic Police Academy, A, 26
AJ 059B, Basic Police Academy, A, 26
AJ 135, Weaponless Defense, A,  1
ESC 130, Intro to Oceanography, A, 3
HIST 127, Survey of American History, B, 3
NUTR 127, Nutrition Today, A, 3
POSC 100, American Government, B, 3
SOC 101, Intro to Sociology, A, 3
SPCH 105, Interpersonal Communication, A, 3
READ 142, College RDG: Logical Anal/Eval, B, 3
BUS 111, Business Communication, A, 3
PHIL 100, Intro to Philosophy, A, 3
ART 110, Intro to Art, A, 3

Current ACE, CLEP, or NCCRS Credits: None, but I’m open to suggestions for testing out of classes or for receiving credit for my existing knowledge and experience. If I remember correctly, I was not required to take a math class for my AS Degree because of the score I received on my placement test over 20 years ago when I entered college and there were several pre-requisites that I didn’t need to take as well.

Any certifications or military experience? I have a Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced California Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Certificates with 1,257 hours of CA POST Certified Training.

I have 54 hours, 5.4 CEUs of WMD and Incident Management Training with the Department of Homeland Security.

I have 64 hours of various Law Enforcement certifications related to Narcotics investigations, Trademark, Counterfeiting, and Piracy Investigations, Search and Seizure and Interrogation Law & Tactics, and operating Emergency Vehicles.

I have an additional certificate for Advanced Patrol Operations. I’m waiting to hear back on the number of hours associated with that training but I believe it is at least 80 hours.

I have over a decade of Law Enforcement experience documented with performance evaluations. I’ve worked in custody, patrol, as a detective, and in specialized units. I understand some schools provide credit for work experience.


Budget: I have $15K saved up.  I'd like to go the cheapest route possible, but will consider spending more for easy, fast, and a program I can work at my own pace/schedule with a decent UI.

Commitments: I’ve been out of school for over 15 years. I have health issues that require me to work harder, longer, and at a higher cost for error. I’m permanently disabled from a spinal cord injury (and other body parts) I sustained in the line of duty and am honorably retired. I live a very healthy and regimented lifestyle by necessity. Managing my health is a full time commitment and it will decrease my productivity and ability to focus on school work. I’m in constant pain. I do not take any pain medications out of a need to maintain cognitive function and also to maintain my remaining kidney and liver function. My sleep is heavily disrupted from pain, bladder and bowel dysfunction. Disrupted sleep further reduces my cognitive function. I’ve also had several surgeries on my arms and hands which makes typing painful and difficult. I have additional tendonopathies and partially torn tendons in my upper extremities that are made worse from computer work and I expect I’ll need more surgeries for that at some point. I need to be take frequent breaks, be efficient, and not do any unnecessary work like taking unnecessary classes or doing assignments that I don’t need to do. 

I will also be unavailable for periods of up to 2 weeks, 2-3 times per year. I have a good friend who is kind enough to take me with her on international vacations since I am unable to do things like this on my own. I am at the mercy of her spontaneous travel plans but I usually have at least 8 weeks advance notice before departure. As you can imagine, this friendship and these trips are of high importance to me.

Dedicated time to study: I estimate a minimum of 4 hours per day, 28 hours weekly every day of the year (except for doctors’ appointments and when traveling with my friend), with periodic breaks during study sessions. I will need a 100% online program that I can work on at my own pace from home with minimal to no deadlines, etc. I’m not good at math beyond pre-algebra or with foreign languages. I work hard but my ability to do so is significantly reduced due to my injury. It now takes me a lot longer to grasp concepts, learn, and produce work product like reports, papers, spreadsheets, power points. I’ll need some one on one assistance from school staff at first as I acclimate to the program and then periodically when I get stuck or behind. I can provide the school with whatever documentation they require for ADA accommodations.

Timeline: Finishing the courses required for the Bachelor’s degree as fast as possible within a year would be ideal if I can handle that. My timeline is more flexible for the Masters. Working around my health condition and the 2-3 international trips per year are my primary limiting factors of productivity.

Tuition assistance/reimbursement: I will be funding out of pocket without loans.