Help with cheap bachelor degree please

[CrayCat]

Hi everyone,

I'm a foreign citizen not living in the US so would be considered an international student. A bit of background: I started an AS degree around 2018 at a community college online but due to an illness in the family ended up failing a full semester load in 2019 and acquire some student debt due to it which I've yet to pay off so I will have to do that this year before I can even think of any bigger expenditure than maybe Sofia courses or an exam here and there.
I would like to put a degree plan together that I can follow and study for in the meantime so that I can go back to college end of this year or beginning of next year and finish up a Bachelors degree asap. I've been working in IT for the past couple of years as a data center technician and I prefer IT/science related subjects but technically speaking any bachelors degree will do that's cheap to complete.

Your Location: Tokyo, Japan (I don't speak Japanese, I do speak Hungarian and German but both a little rusty)
Your Age: 35
What kind of degree do you want?: Any, cost is the biggest factor but all else being equal would prefer something mostly science/IT based since those subjects are generally easier for me


Any certifications or military experience? Not yet but wouldn't mind getting some in IT if it helps, no military experience

The courses I took so far:

CLEP
-Eng comp I 
-Intro to psychology 

Illinois Central College
-Eng comp II (B)

New Mexico Jr College
-Public speaking (A-)
-Gen biology I with lab (A)
-Gen chemistry I with lab ©
-History of civilizations (B)
-Microecon (B)

Washtenaw Community College
-Precalc (A)
-Intro to programming in C++ (A)
-Data structures C++ ( A)
-Art appreciation ©

EICC Clinton Community College
-Calc based physics I with lab (A)

Saylor.org
-Statistics ( Ma121)
-Macroecon (Econ 102)
-Intro to sociology (SOC 101)

I haven't taken Calculus yet but could do it any time if a degree requires it

Any help in picking a school and degree plan would be greatly appreciated, if you need more info please feel free to ask as well. 

EDITED AS PER SUGGESTION

[bjcheung77]

Welcome to the board!  Interesting, you've provided some basic info but it may be better to have a bigger/clearer picture.  Some may want to know where you're currently located or which country you're from, and may suggest to you a language exam as it may grant you extra credits to use for your free electives. Please update your post with the info here in the template and the addendum on the last post.  If you can provide a course number, grade, and college name you took these courses, that would help. Link: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...Area-works

[CrayCat]

Welcome to the board!  Interesting, you've provided some basic info but it may be better to have a bigger/clearer picture.  Some may want to know where you're currently located or which country you're from, and may suggest to you a language exam as it may grant you extra credits to use for your free electives. Please update your post with the info here in the template and the addendum on the last post.  If you can provide a course number, grade, and college name you took these courses, that would help. Link: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...Area-works

Hey thank you for the input, I updated my post based on the template hope it helps ^^ 
Are there any alt credit science/IT courses I could use for free electives? I was looking at Sophia Environmental science or maybe some study.com courses? I'm afraid I'd fail a language exam even in my native language 

[rachel83az]

For foreign languages, ACTFL is only looking for approximately A2 level for the student to be considered "Upper Intermediate". (In contrast, most language learners and foreign institutions consider B2 level to be Upper Intermediate.) If you can hold a conversation of any kind in any language that is not English, you should be able to obtain at least 3 foreign language credits - and possibly even more than that. From what I can tell, ACTFL's expectations for getting at least some credits are generally quite low, though you might not get "proficient" if your language skills are as rusty as you say.

Some relatively cheap IT-type credits can be obtained through Coursera. https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Coursera Many of these can be completed in a month or less, despite what the page on Coursera says, granting up to 12 credits for under $50.

If you're okay with writing essays, a BLS in Management Information Systems from UMPI could be a good option: https://online.umpi.edu/degrees/undergra...ems-minor/ However, it's not a purely IT/STEM degree.

TESU is probably the cheapest tech/STEM degree for foreigners, but even that is a bit iffy right now. There are rumors of changes at TESU starting next month that could make is difficult to obtain a Comp Sci degree as cheaply as one can obtain it now. Also at TESU, you could technically do a BALS with a concentration in Natural Sciences and Mathematics, but I don't know if that's a degree that interests you. You could at least potentially add more sci/tech electives than you could at UMPI, but TESU costs more than UMPI does.

[CrayCat]

For foreign languages, ACTFL is only looking for approximately A2 level for the student to be considered "Upper Intermediate". (In contrast, most language learners and foreign institutions consider B2 level to be Upper Intermediate.) If you can hold a conversation of any kind in any language that is not English, you should be able to obtain at least 3 foreign language credits - and possibly even more than that. From what I can tell, ACTFL's expectations for getting at least some credits are generally quite low, though you might not get "proficient" if your language skills are as rusty as you say.

Some relatively cheap IT-type credits can be obtained through Coursera. https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Coursera Many of these can be completed in a month or less, despite what the page on Coursera says, granting up to 12 credits for under $50.

If you're okay with writing essays, a BLS in Management Information Systems from UMPI could be a good option: https://online.umpi.edu/degrees/undergra...ems-minor/ However, it's not a purely IT/STEM degree.

TESU is probably the cheapest tech/STEM degree for foreigners, but even that is a bit iffy right now. There are rumors of changes at TESU starting next month that could make is difficult to obtain a Comp Sci degree as cheaply as one can obtain it now. Also at TESU, you could technically do a BALS with a concentration in Natural Sciences and Mathematics, but I don't know if that's a degree that interests you. You could at least potentially add more sci/tech electives than you could at UMPI, but TESU costs more than UMPI does.

Thanks for the reply, are Coursera courses transferrable to any RA school? 

UMPI is an option I'm considering for sure but I'll have to look into how they work a little more as I'm not sure I understand the process and fee structure o.0 
TESU is unfortunately out of my range financially even if I only had to do the capstone and cornerstone there :

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[dfrecore]

If cost is your biggest factor, then UMPI is your best bet. You have almost the entire GE portion done already.

For the forgeign language, consider ACTFL's German Reading or Listening exam for $50 - those are the easiest options; if you speak it, you can take the OPIc for $100 and shoot for more credits, and they'll fill your electives area.

For American Gov, use ICC for $35.

For Ethics, use Sophia for a month, and squeeze in another couple of courses if you can.

Grab some cheap IT credits (Sophia has some, so does Saylor) and then enroll and you're ready to rock.

[CrayCat]

If cost is your biggest factor, then UMPI is your best bet.  You have almost the entire GE portion done already.

For the forgeign language, consider ACTFL's German Reading or Listening exam for $50 - those are the easiest options; if you speak it, you can take the OPIc for $100 and shoot for more credits, and they'll fill your electives area.

For American Gov, use ICC for $35.

For Ethics, use Sophia for a month, and squeeze in another couple of courses if you can.

Grab some cheap IT credits (Sophia has some, so does Saylor) and then enroll and you're ready to rock.

Thank you for the suggestions, will look into those options.
How does UMPI work exactly though? The writing essays part has me worried I don't have a good track record with writing decent ones and don't have a lot of free time to devote to it either. How long is the review process for each? Is it possible to do the full 30 credits required by UMPI in one session? Are all their online degrees the same price?

[rachel83az]

Thanks for the reply, are Coursera courses transferrable to any RA school? 

UMPI is an option I'm considering for sure but I'll have to look into how they work a little more as I'm not sure I understand the process and fee structure o.0 
TESU is unfortunately out of my range financially even if I only had to do the capstone and cornerstone there :

The Coursera courses are only transferrable to schools that accept ACE credit. And it's only the specific courses listed on that wiki page, not just any Coursera courses you feel like taking. UMPI, TESU, and Excelsior are more or less guaranteed to accept all the courses offered for credit on Coursera, though the number of credits and exact equivalencies can vary, as you can see by referencing the tables on that page.

It's actually way more expensive at TESU to take only the capstone & cornerstone (approx $6500) vs. a single flat-rate 16-credit term (approx. $4500). Crazy!

Thank you for the suggestions, will look into those options.
How does UMPI work exactly though? The writing essays part has me worried I don't have a good track record with writing decent ones and don't have a lot of free time to devote to it either. How long is the review process for each? Is it possible to do the full 30 credits required by UMPI in one session? Are all their online degrees the same price?

Most people who write quickly are able to finish UMPI classes in 3-7 days. Some people are able to finish as many as 12-15 classes in a single 2-month session. If essays aren't your strength, you might need 2 or 3 sessions ($2800-$3200). This could still wind up being cheaper than Excelsior.

All of UMPI's online CBE undergrad degrees are the same price. Their tuition structure is simple: $1400 every 2 months no matter how many classes you complete that session. Finish 2 classes? $1400. Finish 10? $1400. Don't use umpi.edu because that's for in-person classes and fees. You'll wind up seeing prices for per-credit tuition, and that's not what you want here. You want online.umpi.edu to see what degrees are available.

Bear in mind that the tuition for all schools can be slightly higher because the tuition is only calculated for the school itself. It doesn't count the cost of courses from places like Sophia, Study.com, ACTFL, etc. For UMPI, you'd need an ACTFL exam and possibly 1-2 months of Sophia to round out your gen eds. Possibly $50-100 for 1 or 2 Coursera courses for your electives.

For Excelsior, you'd need to calculate the cost of tuition at the school, additional Sophia credits, and credits from places like Study.com, Davar, or Coopersmith. Saylor can also be an option, but I'm not sure that they have sufficient UL credits for them to be a sole source of credit (maybe?).

[dfrecore]

If you wanted to go crazy and shoot for the BA in CompSci at TESU, knowing that they might pull the plug on some CompSci courses on July 1, you could do that as well. It's probably a more useful degree than the BLS in the long-term.

You would need to do a month at Study.com, and take ALL of these courses in a month:
COMPSCI 105: Intro to Operating Systems
COMPSCI 306: Computer Architecture
BUS 303: Management Info Systems
COMPSCI 302: Systems Analysis & Design
COMPSCI 303: Database Management

You would also have to apply at TESU now, and send a Study.com transcripts to TESU as soon as you were done with everything so they all got on an eval. Then, you would send the rest of your transcripts. The reason to do a single SDC transcript first is that you would want to get all of those courses locked in, and the only way to make sure that happens is to see them on an eval (and you're limited to 2 evals until you're enrolled).

It's all very complicated, but it's still not a bad option.

If you took a single 16cr term at the end, for $4600, you could do:
Cornerstone
Capstone
1 UL CompSci course
ART-100: A World of Art (easy course)
CIS-107: Computer Concepts and Applications e-Pack (test-out option)
PLA-100: Intro to Prior Learning Assessment (easy 1cr course)

You'd still need Calculus, Discrete Math, Ethics and Am Govt, but those are easy to find. Then, electives, again, easy to find.

[bjcheung77]

@OP, you missed the addendum, could you update the info below with your details?

Update: In addition to the basic template above... It may be a good idea to expand the information you provide us to include the following, this will provide some insight into your particular situation.  We can either recommend the alternative test-out options COSC, EC (soon to be EU), TESU or competency based education providers such as PUG, UMG (UMASS Global - formerly Brandman), UMPI, WGU or another institution.

Budget: I have a max of $10K saved up.  I'd like to go the cheapest route possible, but will consider spending more for easy and fast.  
Commitments: Honestly, just kids/spouse and my pets. I currently work full time and can work on my studies part time or in the evenings/weekends.
Dedicated time to study: I can study as much as is needed during the night or weekends as long as my schedule is free. I estimate at least 3 hours every week night and on the weekends, maybe 6 hours, total would be roughly 15+12=27 hours or slightly more.
Timeline: Finishing the courses required for the degree as fast as possible would be ideal.  I would like to finish within 1-1.5 years (12-18 months)
Tuition assistance/reimbursement: Yes, my workplace partners with ABC XYZ university, I get free tuition for undergrad and half off for grad studies!

Please provide any relevant details you may have that may help us determine a option or path for you to investigate, such as your preference towards either test-out (you're a great test taker) or competency based education (because you like assessments, assignments and have test anxiety).  What other details you provide us can help determine your course of action suited for your educational journey...