Cheapest RA for Canadian

[ARhead]

The responses you have gotten have highlighted the absolute cheapest options (free or almost), depending on what your son's time is worth they may not be the best options. Everyone says they want the cheapest degree, but they may not mean pinching pennies to a fault. Given your all in cost will be somewhere around $10000 CAD at TESU, the cost of the extra courses (besides Sophia) you need to fill out your transcript is negligible. I would personally do the TEEX Death Investigation as that will come in upper level, and maybe Basic Property. Do the CSM course for math ($35) and fill out the rest with with Study.com, Straighterline and Coopersmith (Upper Level).

[BBryant165]

WGU is only open to Canadians in very limited circumstances, so it’s really not an option. We’re not opposed to the idea of a capstone/cornerstone, it’s just that plus 7 or 8 UL science from excelsior at $1500us a pop just wasn’t reasonable. I’ll look again at the competency-based options. Last time I looked, it seemed they were business and IT heavy.

Not to throw a wrench in things but depending on whether you go with TESU or Excelsior will influence what UL providers will make the most sense. TESU has less UL requirements and accepts both the SDC and Coopersmith exams as UL so may be easier and cheaper in the long run. My experience with Excelsior was that I had issues getting my advisor to approve SDC at the UL. Either choice you make you won't have to take 7/8 UL with the school at $1500/per, if you go with Excelsior you could easily do all the UL through Coopersmith at around $150-200 US and dedicate much less time than the 8 week institutional courses. The UL requirements are a combination of General Education and Area of Study so you could take Coopersmith Psych courses as part of the UL Arts and Sciences requirements.

[rennick00]

We're continuing to work on a degree plan, and my son has started digging into the TEEX courses. One hiccup we may have run into is the need for graded credits. One mandatory element of the degree is that he needs a minimum of 15 graded credits. The capstone and cornerstones (at either TESU or Excelsior) will count for 6, but we still need to make sure another 9 (at a minimum) have grades. I think I read here, though I may have misunderstood, that TESU doesn't bring in any grades on credits transferred in. Is that true, and if so, is that regardless of the original source? We've currently got courses planned from TEL Learning to help with the grades, along with the capstone & cornerstone requirements, but I want to be sure we have enough other graded credits to meet our requirement.

Current planned credit sources are: Sophia, TEEX, SDC, and TEL Learning.

Thanks!

(I wanted to mention that we are still looking at CBE alternatives, but so far, we're leaning towards transferring max credits in to either TESU or Excelsior)

[rachel83az]

If it's from an RA source (TEL Learning, ASU EA, community college, etc.), TESU should bring in the course(s) with a grade. Those grades won't count towards the "institution GPA" but that shouldn't matter.

[rennick00]

If it's from an RA source (TEL Learning, ASU EA, community college, etc.), TESU should bring in the course(s) with a grade. Those grades won't count towards the "institution GPA" but that shouldn't matter.

Thanks. You're right, we don't care about an overall GPA, just need enough graded credits. Appreciate it.

[bjcheung77]

Basically - Max transfer is 113 for Excelsior and 114 for TESU. Having said that, it depends if you want to spend more on gradable credits and also hit their enrolment or residency waiver requirements. It all depends what that balance is, for some, they would spend the extra for the graded credits and also either hit the enrolment requirements at Excelsior (12 credits) or hit the residency requirements (16 credits) at TESU. Since you need 15 graded credits, either one of these two options may be valid.

Get your calculator out and do a calculation of which would be better... If it was TESU, I would recommend the 16-18 credits instead of getting them elsewhere. I put in a few threads with different options to, either get 12 graduate credits at the price of undergraduate using the Bachelors to Masters option, that will transfer to many universities and save on the Masters level that way, or get 16 credits at the flat tuition rate.

[rachel83az]

The problem with Excelsior is that they've been downgrading a lot of UL credits lately and that could make it difficult to get a degree through them unless you took ALL your ULs with EC. But that'd definitely cost a lot more.

[ss20ts]

The problem with Excelsior is that they've been downgrading a lot of UL credits lately and that could make it difficult to get a degree through them unless you took ALL your ULs with EC. But that'd definitely cost a lot more.

I personally did not find this process easy with EC when I applied earlier in the year. I took courses at 4 year colleges and they still gave me lower LL credit. They are picky about courses as well. They seem to REALLY want you to pay an arm and a leg to take their classes. Their classes are expensive especially when you take on all of the fees. I see why TESU and WGU are far more appealing to many. COSC is even easier from what I understand, but you need those RA credits now.

[zzzz24]

Haven't been on here in a year - but I am Canadian, did a BALS last year at TESU.  Lot's of good advice on here and it wasn't that bad. 
Majority of my credits were transfer credits though.