Patten vs Straighterline

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Check out Northern Arizona University's Personalized Learning degree programs.

Competency Based
$2500/6 months
4 Programs BA Liberal Arts, BA Small Business Admin, BA CIT, BS CIT (The Three BAs require 16 competency units of Spanish this might be good or bad, depending on the individual)
It's a not-for-profit State School
Accepts CLEP, DSST, ACE (Your mileage may vary though as to how much they'll accept)
They give letter grades, so you end up with a GPA upon completion if you are looking to head to grad school eventually.

And, in my experience, babies are a bunch of work, but one of the most wonderful, magical things that can happen to a family. It's hard NOT to devote all your waking moments to them.

I had a look at NAU before, it does look very interesting. The Spanish does put me off, to be honest it is not something I would choose, mi espanol es muy mal and I live in Asia.

I have been looking at competency based options, and they all look great, but I keep coming back to the fact that TESC can be completed very cheaply, no rush, no ties, and with different sources of credits to choose from. I feel like I would need to rush more with a competency based school, otherwise the costs would soon start adding up, a year and a half at NAU is $7500. I think for me it would be better spent on completing credits and TECEPs and having money left for further down the road.

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I had some good feedback from Patten, the student advisor was very helpful and replied to my emails.

There is no limit on the amount of courses in a term, as soon as one course is finished you are enrolled in the next.
You cannot start a new course in the last three weeks of a term.
On average students take 3-5 weeks per course working 10-15hrs per week. An AA usually takes 1.5-2 years to complete. (thanks laughter for the info)

International students need 12 ACE credits to waive the high school diploma requirement, and a TOEFL/IELTS score over 6.5.

The system is the same as New Charter University, if anyone wants to take a look at how the courses work you can test it out here: https://new.edu/sign_up

I think Patten gets the thumbs up, it seems like a great deal. The only problems are the potential wasted time at the end of a term, and the lack of course choices. It is a more expensive option than the big 3, an AA is going to cost over $6000.

They could also be used to finish up a degree, they accept up to 45 CBE credits for an AA, and up to 90 for a bachelors.
If someone had 90 credits to transfer in they could probably finish up a bachelors in 6 months for just over $2k
6 credits can be transferred in for a masters but they cannot be CBE.

For the moment I will start at Straighterline and see how things change over the next six months.

[TMW2010]

One thing that you should be aware of that a member of a different forum found out is that it can take up to 7 days for the final exam/project/talent show to be graded to allow you to move on to the next course. They're in the grad program, so that might play out differently, but if it is the same for undergrad, you're looking at an extra week of time before you can officially start your next course (you can still gain access and do the coursework, but you can't turn it in for credit until you officially start.) They're the one chronicling their experience in the MBA program on their blog here that Koenigtv was nice enough to share.

[TMW2010]

I had a look at NAU before, it does look very interesting. The Spanish does put me off, to be honest it is not something I would choose, mi espanol es muy mal and I live in Asia.

I have been looking at competency based options, and they all look great, but I keep coming back to the fact that TESC can be completed very cheaply, no rush, no ties, and with different sources of credits to choose from. I feel like I would need to rush more with a competency based school, otherwise the costs would soon start adding up, a year and a half at NAU is $7500. I think for me it would be better spent on completing credits and TECEPs and having money left for further down the road.

I agree, the per credit option at TESC is a definite win for them with students. I'm actually playing around with the idea of getting a BSBA through them for giggles. Still waffling on it though.

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I decided to go with the Straighterline option. Patten was very tempting but I couldn't get around the feeling it was going to take a long time to earn credits. I can always use the SL credits at Patten anyway if I ever decided to go with them in the future.

I signed up for the Freshman bundle at SL and saved a decent chunk of money:

One Year Subscription $1188
English Composition I = $69
English Composition II = $69
Introduction to Communication $74
C++ Programming = $99
Biology, Chemistry, Environ Science, Cultural Anthropology, Religion, Philosophy = $294
Total = $1793

Freshman bundle with discount code = $1250
31 credits = $40 a credit