Thread: seeking Guidance

Hey all, im fairly new here and im hoping some of you seasoned self educators could help me out. currently i am in the air force with 2 1/2 years left, i would perfer to seperate with a BA in whatever's quickiest (most likely business/management) because a 4-year degree is a qualification of another government job i want.

right now i have

24 CCAF credits
30 Clep credits
25 traditional college credits from 2 different schools (6 from 4 year, 19 from cc)

in the pefect world i would like to find a regional online/DL college that would accept:

ALEKS & Skillsoft credits from IT-E Learning from the AF portal(both ACE transcribed) and 30+ CLEP credits.

i would like to do this with little or no use of a proctor, if thats possible.

i would use the ALEKS for math/business and skillsoft for business/management credit

Please if you know of a way, can you point me in the right direction? or if this route is not possible, let me know and fill me in on an alternative

Thanks!!!

I'm pretty sure that most of us on here would suggest that you shoul look at one of the "Big 3" schools, Thomas Edison State College (TESC), Excelsior College (EC), or Charter Oak State College (COSC) as all 3 of them are extremely liberal with the amount and type of transfer credits they will accept, which will allow you to complete as much of your degree via testing or other distance learning methods as you wish. They all also offer online classes to meet any other requirements you may have, though all 3 are fairly pricey for their own online classes, and there are plenty of cheaper alternatives. EC requires a capstone class to be taken via their school, and COSC requires a capstone and cornerstone class, but aside from that all the rest of the credits can be earned anywhere. TESC has no residency requirement, though it is a bit more expensive to matriculate there, so it ends up working out.

As for earning additional credit, there are numerous online classes which don't require a proctored exam, but you'll have to dig around depending on what subjects you're looking for. Non-proctored exams usually mean more written work though, so if you're good at writing that may be a good way to go. However, IMO the best and fastest means is to test through as much as you can. Given you're in the military, many of the tests are (or were) free if you take them on base, and even if they aren't now, they are still very cheap (under $80 per test, which is 3-6 credits usually.) You are obviously familiar with CLEP, but all of those schools also accept DSST (DANTES) tests, as well as ECE and TECEP (the Excelsior and Thomas Edison equivalents of CLEP) as well as Straighterline and most ACE credits as well.

Once you figure out which school you want to go to and have your credits reviewed to see how the school interprets and applies the credits, you should know what else you need to meet the graduation requirements in whatever subject you wish to pursue. After that you can focus on what classes or tests you need to take.

Good luck.

I would strongly recommend that you concentrate on your CCAF for the moment because that'll be the easiest step to knock out. I'm assuming that all you'd be missing for that would be a speech, math, and if you haven't gone to ALS yet, two management classes (check with your ed center to make sure on that). Reason I say go for that first (aside it being damn near legally required for NCOs to say) is because if all else falls through and you can't make your education goals while you're still in, at least you have something to make you more marketable to employers. Your EPR will be that much easier to write for your supervisor too.

As soon as you wrap that up I would say ask your nearest education office about the universities that are part of the “Air University Associate-to-Baccalaureate Program.” (AU-ABC or just ABC; more information here Air Force Establishes Baccalaureate Degree Program for Enlisted Personnel ) They'll treat your CCAF with some respect and get you pretty far along in the BA/BS route.

I know a lot of people on these forums would advise you to go with Excelsior and a lot of your peers will recommend AMU, and those would be the easiest route. But before you jump at the quickest option, remember you've got a lot more time than you think with 2.5 years (between classes and Dantes, I've been able to wrap up around 45 semester hours in the past 7 months). I would strongly advise you to look into a school with an actual brick and mortar location with regional accreditation. I know Penn State has fully online programs, limited acceptance of CLEP and DSST, but they're a little more per hour than your TA will cover. St. Leo is a popular option that has a good reputation for working with the military for tuition and testing out of classes. Troy University also has some great programs that are fully online, they accept a healthy number of DSST and CLEP tests, and they'll adjust tuition for active duty members to 250 a semester hour. Having a degree is great, but a degree from a school your employers will recognize as a sound educational institution is better.

As far as staying away from proctored exams, that may be tricky, but your ed center is most likely going to be an approved site for remote proctoring. If you're stationed at a small base without an ed center, go to any other installation and use theirs.

So, to sum up: Get your CCAF, stay on top of your education; pick a school with a football team or at the very least not a school that has commercials on late-night TV; and best of luck to you.

nraichle nailed it. Definitely finish CCAF first, it is the easiest to knock out. And on AU-ABC, they don't just give CCAF "some respect"! Here is one of the criteria for a school to join the AU-ABC program:

Require no more that 60 semester hours after the AAS degree for a bachelor’s degree

I challenge you to find any other (non-AU-ABC-participating) school that will transfer in an AAS degree in full. They don't, because they are "technical" degrees not "academic" degrees like a more general AA or AS degree is.