Can that be right? Excelsior College MPA

[KittenMittens]

Oh, sure. I just have my capstone left. I wasn't trying to enroll myself immediately - just investigating options . You don't need a degree to take the CDSE courses, is all.

I see about 21 credits or so that could work. Risk management, challenges in analyzing managing risk, effective communication, leadership, research methods, HRM, and budgeting. Out of these 7, I feel like they will probably/try to exclude much of it just because; but in the off-chance they accepted all these, that's 15 credits or 5 course that would need to be completed more or less through Excelsior. So 15credits * $620/credit = $9,300.

. Are there any other institutions where one could get cheap graduate level credit for?

[Leherself]

Off the top of my head, AMU has a graduate tuition rate of $325 per credit. Online RA graduate credit for much less than that seems like a pretty rare beast. People might have some luck going through their local in-state schools?

For military, Excelsior's graduate tuition rate is only $275. I didn't realize how much more it was for everyone else though. I wonder if any other partnerships get a grad rate discount? Or is that just for undergrad? POAG folks, do you know?

Excelsior also still has that $4500 scholarship on the table it looks like, for the first 20 people in the MPA program. That's a pretty good offset if anyone is in the position to take advantage of it in a hurry.

[cardiacclep]

Arkansas State University online MPA tuition is $260 an hour. It is NASPAA accredited which may mean something for some types of jobs in the public sector. Solid program and most affordable online MPA program I have researched. Here is my review of it in another thread.

http://www.degreeforum.net/general-educa...eview.html

[KittenMittens]

Arkansas State University online MPA tuition is $260 an hour. It is NASPAA accredited which may mean something for some types of jobs in the public sector. Solid program and most affordable online MPA program I have researched. Here is my review of it in another thread.

http://www.degreeforum.net/general-educa...eview.html

Send you some questions on the other thread, but very quickly, what is NASPAA's significance? Is it the "highest" level of accreditation possible?

[Leherself]

Well, I got my response from Excelsior, and it's not exciting, but it's not really surprising either. The CDSE ACE evaluated courses that they're willing to accept at this time are:

1) Human Resource Management for DoD Security for MPA 603.
2) Writing and Communication Skills for Security Professionals OR Effective Communication in Department of Defense Security for MPA 660 (elective).
3) Research Methods, Data Analysis, and Reporting to Support DoD Security Programs for MPA 625.

So, not super exciting for *me*. But there may be other people with large quantities of graduate transfer credit that might want to take advantage of Excelsior's program.

And as for the CDSE classes - the certificates I can earn from completing their classes for free are valuable in and of themselves. I'll just have to do more investigating to see where I might be able to maximize the transfer credit value of them. I've also been investigating a few of AMU/APU's degree programs, and then Angelo State has a Masters in Security Studies that's interesting. But it looks like I'm back to being able to expect 9-15 credits as the max likely to transfer anywhere.

It's been interesting to investigate, at the very least.

[KittenMittens]

Well, I got my response from Excelsior, and it's not exciting, but it's not really surprising either. The CDSE ACE evaluated courses that they're willing to accept at this time are:

1) Human Resource Management for DoD Security for MPA 603.
2) Writing and Communication Skills for Security Professionals OR Effective Communication in Department of Defense Security for MPA 660 (elective).
3) Research Methods, Data Analysis, and Reporting to Support DoD Security Programs for MPA 625.

So, not super exciting for *me*. But there may be other people with large quantities of graduate transfer credit that might want to take advantage of Excelsior's program.

And as for the CDSE classes - the certificates I can earn from completing their classes for free are valuable in and of themselves. I'll just have to do more investigating to see where I might be able to maximize the transfer credit value of them. I've also been investigating a few of AMU/APU's degree programs, and then Angelo State has a Masters in Security Studies that's interesting. But it looks like I'm back to being able to expect 9-15 credits as the max likely to transfer anywhere.

It's been interesting to investigate, at the very least.

No surprise there - I think even if all your courses could transfer into Excelsior, there would be a lack of incentive for them to bring them all in to make more money. I think it's more of a gimmick in that you could possibly bring in 33 credits, but realistically, where is someone going to get 33 credits in graduate level work, in the very exact courses they require, and in a program that would let you take that many credits.

The one thing I didn't like about AMU/APU is that it seems to have a bad reputation, no idea how that means/matters for government work either for state, federal, or military.

I think I'm going to go for the Arkansas State MPA program - I would suggest looking to see if those credits can be transferred in at Arkansas State. Not only does it have the top accreditation, it's only $9,400 (only $260/credit hour TOTAL including fees) without any scholarship, seems to have good faculty/professors, and is well regarded by a lot of students from what I've seen. I am genuinely impressed with the program for what it has to offer from my own personal research. It's also well regarded in industry and ranked pretty high: A-State Master of Public Administration Online Program Ranks High Among Nation .

[defscarlett]

The one thing I didn't like about AMU/APU is that it seems to have a bad reputation, no idea how that means/matters for government work either for state, federal, or military.

That's not correct, APUS is highly regarded, especially in the government sector. However, I don't think these credits would transfer to APUS anyway. APUS only accepts 15 credit hours to be transferred in and at the most they would only allow 9 credit hours of nontraditional credit, they will not accept pass/fail credits at all for graduate programs. They're tuition is also going up to $350/cr on June 1st, 2015 unless you're military, then it's staying at $325

[Leherself]

That's not correct, APUS is highly regarded, especially in the government sector. However, I don't think these credits would transfer to APUS anyway. APUS only accepts 15 credit hours to be transferred in and at the most they would only allow 9 credit hours of nontraditional credit, they will not accept pass/fail credits at all for graduate programs. They're tuition is also going up to $350/cr on June 1st, 2015 unless you're military, then it's staying at $325

I haven't been terribly impressed with APUS in my experience with them, personally. Not because they're not legitimate, but because their customer service is haphazard and the course & instructor quality is very inconsistent. AMU is the only online school I've ever been to where a paper took 3+ weeks to be graded (in an 8 week course). **Shrug** But they offer a wide selection of degree programs at a very reasonable price, and so I won't completely discount them without at least investigating.

CDSE credits may or may not be considered "non-traditional". I think each receiving school would have different definitions. CDSE is an accredited education provider, for whatever that's worth, though they're accredited for occupational education rather than college per se. The classes themselves are *not* pass/fail. They're graded. The grading structure is just like almost any other online course I've seen - a portion of the grade is based on forum participation, and the rest is for assignments. I have a 12-15 page research paper due at the end of the course, worth 25%. There are several other graded papers, but they're all shorter. They have all the usual bells and whistles - grading rubrics, etc. They prefer the Chicago Manual of Style for formatting.

They're courses that are designed to be exactly like other online college courses. It's not anything like, say, FEMA, or Saylor, etc.

That's no guarantee that they'll transfer anywhere, of course. There's never a guarantee that any credits will transfer unless you get confirmation from the target school itself, and things become significantly more challenging at the graduate level. Doesn't hurt anything to ask though.

[rebel100]

AMU/APU is making a big run on becoming the "go to provide" for the military.... I would say it's working. There is a huge alumni network being built and they are in every way legitimate. I often think of them as a model of how well for profit education can be executed.

And there are hit and miss instructors in every single school in the country....AMU has no lock on intermittent mediocrity. The ivies and big state schools have it too.

[defscarlett]

I haven't been terribly impressed with APUS in my experience with them, personally. Not because they're not legitimate, but because their customer service is haphazard and the course & instructor quality is very inconsistent. AMU is the only online school I've ever been to where a paper took 3+ weeks to be graded (in an 8 week course). **Shrug** But they offer a wide selection of degree programs at a very reasonable price, and so I won't completely discount them without at least investigating.

CDSE credits may or may not be considered "non-traditional". I think each receiving school would have different definitions. CDSE is an accredited education provider, for whatever that's worth, though they're accredited for occupational education rather than college per se. The classes themselves are *not* pass/fail. They're graded. The grading structure is just like almost any other online course I've seen - a portion of the grade is based on forum participation, and the rest is for assignments. I have a 12-15 page research paper due at the end of the course, worth 25%. There are several other graded papers, but they're all shorter. They have all the usual bells and whistles - grading rubrics, etc. They prefer the Chicago Manual of Style for formatting.

They're courses that are designed to be exactly like other online college courses. It's not anything like, say, FEMA, or Saylor, etc.

That's no guarantee that they'll transfer anywhere, of course. There's never a guarantee that any credits will transfer unless you get confirmation from the target school itself, and things become significantly more challenging at the graduate level. Doesn't hurt anything to ask though.

APUS considers anything not taken at a college/university nontraditional credit, CDSE courses would be transcribed as ACE credits, they would absolutely be "non-traditional".

You're experiences don't sound anything like the experiences I've had with the organization, I've always had things graded very quickly and any issues I had were immediately taken care of. They're actually provided the best customer service I've ever had at a college or university.