Community College Associates Degree

[madison12345]

Hi all!! I have been silently lurking on this forum for a while now. I am looking for some advice/help planning my degree. I am still not convinced it is crucial for my future to traditionally further my education. I just recently graduated high school and have decided not to go away to school for 4 more years. Mainly because of money, but now after doing extensive research I'm not even sure if I should get a degree. However, my parents are strongly pushing the idea. I'm currently working full-time at a local real estate brokerage and just got a license myself as well. I'm working as an assistant to one of the partners at the brokerage currently, but am hoping to break off on my own as soon as I get more experience under my belt. I don't want to have regrets about not ever getting a college degree so I am posting here to ask for everyone's advice. Right now I have 18 credits from my local community college

PSYC-101 - General Psychology (3)
BUSI-101-V20 - Introduction to Business (3)
ENGL-101-V28 - English Composition I (3)
BIOL-103 - Environmental Science (3)
BUSI-209-V04 - Legal Environment of Business (3)
ECON-201 - Principles I Macro Economics (3)
I attached the AS Community College requirements. 
I checked with the Community College I attend and they do accept almost all ACE credits, so I could most likely complete my associate's degree quickly. Is it worth my time and effort to get an associate's degree when I plan to go into real estate? Or would it be more beneficial to go all in and get my bachelor's degree? I already made myself a degree plan to attend Thomas Edison State University and major in Business Administration. I was given a 7,000 scholarship to apply to whatever school I would like. Which would make TESU free. I genuinely do not know what to do? I feel that I should just use my time educating myself in real estate and working with my current boss, but many people have told me I NEED a degree. Please chime in and let me know your thoughts! 

[allvia]

You may be interested in going the Pierpont BOG AAS (Business AOS) route, later if you wish to continue for a bachelor through UMPI https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Pi...egree_Plan

If the scholarship you mentioned is actually a Pell Grant, that could (most likely) apply to UMPI as well. Real Estate is a business, having a degree could only help your career in it.

[CatsDomino]

I second what allvia said. The Pierpont degree sounds like it would be a good fit for you and you could work on your ACE credits in your downtime rather than be chained to a traditional college's schedule. I'm sure your parents mean well and want you to have the best possible future, however, not everyone wants or needs a bachelor's degree. Vocational training and community and technical colleges have a lot to offer and are often overlooked. If you want to pursue real estate, by all means go for it but the Pierpont AAS with a business focus sounds like it's right up your alley.

[rachel83az]

Pierpont isn't going to work if you've "recently" graduated HS. You need to have graduated 2 or more years previously.

That said, it's definitely worth it to get a cheap degree to go into real estate. Either you'll be working for yourself, in which case a business degree will have foundational knowledge that could be useful to running a successful business. A Business degree with a focus in Marketing could be important to being a profitable real estate agent. If you're not going to be working for yourself, you'll possibly be working in an office where having a (Bachelor's) degree could mean the difference between getting a promotion or not getting a promotion.

[Jonathan Whatley]

Other business concentrations that could also, like Marketing, be closely relevant to real estate: Finance (e.g., to mortgage lending and to commercial real estate), Project Management (e.g., to construction and renovation).

[bjcheung77]

Depending on your age and recent years after high school graduation, you can go for the Pierpont BOG AAS en route to your local Associates degree or skip it.  Your first option of finishing your Associates at the local college is what I recommend, from reading their transfer options, you can only test out of "30 credits" and transfer a max of 45.  

If you've already completed 18 credits, you can transfer the rest through other options such as CLEP (30 credits max) and other ACE courses (if they don't treat these as exams), you want to make sure that's possible, then investigate laddering up to a Bachelors: https://www.hacc.edu/Students/Transferri...uation.cfm

If you're able to get the Pierpont BOG AAS, I suggest laddering up to the UMPI Bachelors of your choice, be it a BABA or BA/BAS/BLS depends on the courses you bring in and what interests you.  Essentially, with the scholarship you've been provided, it will possibly cover your undergrad entirely.

If you're not of age or out of high school for two years, then again, skip the Pierpont/UMPI and do the local college/COSC, Excelsior, or TESU combo.  Same thing pretty much in regards to obtaining credit, but different courses to make up the entire degree.  I don't remember the age requirement for WGU, that may be an option as well, the deal is to get 90+ credits ready for transfer to any Bachelors.

TLDR: Find your associates, bachelors you would like to complete and the school you want to complete from due to eligibility requirements.  Transfer the max amount to the degree options of choice.  With your scholarship, your undergrad should be paid for.

[ss20ts]

Many folks in real estate have business degrees. Quite often they own their own business and need to know how to run one well. They need to things like management, finance, marketing, project management, contracts, negotiations, human resources, accounting, understand employment laws and contracts, income tax, sales tax, ethics, and economics.

[dfrecore]

Many doctors spend roughly 5 seconds learning how to run a business. I just left my endocrinologist, who I really liked, because his office ran like complete crap. It was truly terrible. I actually made an appointment and spoke to him about it - and told him I was leaving, not because of him, but because his staff was bad, and the office was run horribly. He was extremely thankful, and told me he appreciated me talking to him. I said I'm sure that people don't tell you they're unhappy, they just leave and you don't know why. Well, now you know.

All of that to say that just because you might be an excellent - whatever - does not mean you will be successful in that w/o having at least SOME knowledge of how to run your business. Yes, you can hire people to do things. But you really do need to have a handle on things, no matter what you decide to do.

So my advice (and I give it to a lot of people) is to at least take a few business classes. Things like accounting, finance, and marketing are all things that can benefit just about everyone. But you don't have to get a business degree to run a business well - you just have to know a little bit of everything, and be willing to take a good look at things if they're going wrong, and fix them.

[utility]

I was a real estate agent for many years. Most real estate agents don't last forever. It can be a lucrative career but the majority of people don't stay in it, even successful agents. You may not need the degree now but it's good to have in case you need a backup plan. If you're working do things at your pace, do as much ACE credits as you can for the general education part, it's cheap and you can take a few years doing them, no big rush. That will give you a ton of credits before you decide one way or the other.

My son is towards the end of his high school career he'll give the community college a shot, worst case scenario we can fall back on ACE credits, transfer in any credits he earns somewhere else and get him a degree sooner or later.

For doing things slow and at your pace TESU is one of the best spots. You only need 2 classes from them the rest you can transfer in.