Using Pell Grant for Graduate Courses while Undergrad

[SophiaPrincess]

As a result of earning almost 100 hours through Sophia, I anticipate graduating with my bachelors in business administration with three years of unused Pell Grant. Rather than graduate quickly, I was wondering if I could take graduate level business courses as an undergrad and transfer them to a MBA program after completing my bachelors. Is this possible? Will most universities allow it? Will the majority of universities allow you to exceed 120/128 credit hours? Can the Pell grant pay for this as long as I have not completed my bachelor's degree? Which AACSB MBA programs accept the most transfer credit?

Thank you for your suggestions.

[Duneranger]

As a result of earning almost 100 hours through Sophia, I anticipate graduating with my bachelors in business administration with three years of unused Pell Grant. Rather than graduate quickly, I was wondering if I could take graduate level business courses as an undergrad and transfer them to a MBA program after completing my bachelors. Is this possible? Will most universities allow it? Will the majority of universities allow you to exceed 120/128 credit hours? Can the Pell grant pay for this as long as I have not completed my bachelor's degree? Which AACSB MBA programs accept the most transfer credit?

Thank you for your suggestions.

As far as I know you can't use Pell grant money for graduate-level flagged courses (500+). Also, grad schools are WAY more picky with transfer credits since grad programs are usually under 50 credits total.

In short, not likely.

I think an issue with people accelerating through a BS/BA is that they don't understand how different grad schools operate. Its not just an extension of undergrad. But schools like SNHU and UMPI do accept some credits from their UG programs. Most MBA  (esp top programs) programs do not.

[bjcheung77]

@SophiaPrincess, AACSB programs - as mentioned, not likely, especially the competitive established top programs... Having said that, there are workarounds for everything! If you're going for ACBSP or those with IACBE, or just RA, then you have options... Many institutions have the option for Bachelors to Masters to shave up to a year off your grad school experience (50% of the required credits), most though would only allow 25% or somewhere from 9-12 credits, and many more would NOT allow any transfers.

For those that allow transfers, they'll see if the courses are applied to a previous degree, if so, they may not allow it to be reused in the new degree. To circumvent from this restriction, I tell people to take all their requirements from alternative credits and 'not graduate', but add the Bachelors to Masters courses as 'others'. Here's an example from TESU, BSBA Bachelors to Masters, you complete the requirements of the degree, with the AOS remaining, apply to the Bachelor to Masters option.

You need to first complete the remaining AOS with alternative credits, then complete the courses for the Bachelors to Masters. You will use the Bachelors to Masters option to pay undergrad rate for up to 12 credits of graduate classes and can use that for transfer into another Masters program (preference to ACBSP institutions as TESU has ACBSP or you can go for schools that do not have it).