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TESU - BA LS (41 Credits Remaining)
#1
TESU provided me with an academic evaluation for a BA in Liberal Studies-Humanities (BA.LSHUM). My goal is to just have an accredited BA, not required for work currently but may be helpful in a few years. 

I have 71 RA credit hours (RA from California community college) applied to my BA degree plan and now only have 49 credit hours remaining. I'm currently taking the Natural Sciences course with Modern States, I am open to using more CLEP, Sophia, Study.com, etc. 

Looking for advice on planning for remaining credits. I also qualify for a Pell Grant for $9,742.00 (August 2021 $3,248.00; November 2021; $3,247.00; February 2022 $3,247.00) 

Here's what I am trying to figure out. Is it possible to CLEP/Transfer in the electives for cheaper than TESU prices?

I know there is a 90 RA unit limit - does this mean we cannot combine CLEP/Study.com/Sophia with RA credit beyond the 90? Ideally, I would like to get as close to the credit transfer limit. 

But if the limit is 90 units... I could transfer up to ~19 more 

I am out-of-state and flat rate is $4,639 for me for up to 15 units. I can afford the out-of-pocket cost for the difference between the Pell and Flat Rate fees, but wouldn't it make more sense to CLEP up to the 90 unit limit or higher? Most of the credits I need are for electives (24) or liberal studies general reqs (10). 

I could just do 45 units over three terms with TESU and it would be $13,917 (4,639*3) less the $
9,742.00 Pell Grant would only be $4,175.00 to finish credits I need. But I think I should try to reduce the cost. I took nearly all of my RA credits online and I hated all the "busy work" but got good grades without much stress. 

Here's what my evaluation looks like with my RA credit applied. My missing pieces. highlighted in Red. 

Program Requirements:


BA General Education (33 of 45 completed)


A: INTEL & PRACT SKILLS 
Written Communication 3SH (Complete - ENGL0001A) 
Written Communication 3SH (Complete - ENGL0001B)
Oral Communication 3SH (Complete - COMM0001)
Quantitative Literacy 3SH (Not started) (TESU REC: MAT-105 OR modern states CLEP) 
Information Literacy 3SH (INSTITUTIONAL REQUIREMENT) (Not started)


B: CIV & GLOBAL LDRSHP
Diversity Intercultural Literacy 3SH (Complete - POLS302)
Ethical Leadership 3SH (Not started TESU REC: ETH-230, PHI-286 or Sophia,org intro Ethics? )
Civic Engagement and Awareness 3SH (Complete - POLS301)


C: KNOWLDG HUMAN CULTRS 
Social Sciences 3SH (Complete - SSCI0010)
History 3SH (Complete - HIST0004B)
Humanities 3SH (Complete - ENGL0035)
Social Sciences, History and/or Humanities 6SH (Complete - PHIL-0006, Phil-333)

D: SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE
Natural Sciences and Computer Science 6SH (3-Biol-350) Need 3SH; TESU Rec: EAS-101, BIO-208 or Clep Natural Science) 


Liberal Studies-Humanities (18SH) (Complete)
3 Each (ENGL0030B, ENGL0027, ENGL0011, ENGL0032, ENGL0030A, PHIL368) 


 Liberal Studies General Coursework (24SH Required) 
**At least 18 semester hours (SH) within the entire Area of Study (including the Capstone)
must be at the upper (300/400) level and a maximum of 6 semester hours can be at the 100 level.**

14 Completed (3SH, SOC310, Marriage & the Family; 3SH, ANTH330, Magic Witchcraft Religion; 3SH, POLS-322, Political Ideologies; 5SH, SPAN0001, Elementary Spanish) 

10 Remaining

5: Liberal Arts Capstone (3SH) (Not started)
LIB-495 Liberal Arts Capstone Course


Electives (30SH Required)
SH Earned: 6
HED0002 Health Ed
CIS0054 Managing a Virtual Office
Remaining: 24 Elective SH
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#2
Hey, that's a pretty good plan! <puts up tent> I'm gonna grab some popcorn, it's gonna be an interesting read... Just going to see what advice you'll get from this before I jump in... be patient, read a bit, here's a link you may want to review, read everything including the links of other threads I have posted: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...Term-Limit

Now, it would be better to know a bit more details about you such as age, have commitments such as kids, marriage, work? You may want to copy/paste or even create a PDF file and attach the information on you academic evaluation and paste it here as a reply. What's your end goal, a Masters or go teaching abroad? Do you have any certs? What type of work experience do you have?
In Progress: Walden MBA | TESU BA Biology & Computer Science
Graduate Certificate: Global Management & Entrepreneurship, ASU (Freebie)

Completed: TESU ASNSM Biology, BSBA (ACBSP Accredited 2017)
Universidad Isabel I: ENEB MBA, Big Data & BI, Digital Marketing & E-Commerce
Certs: 6Sigma/Lean/Scrum, ITIL | Cisco/CompTIA/MTA | Coursera/Edx/Udacity

The Basic Approach | Plans | DegreeForum Community Supported Wiki
~Note~ Read/Review forum posts & Wiki Links to Sample Degree Plans
Degree Planning Advice | New To DegreeForum? How This Area Works

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[-] The following 1 user Likes bjcheung77's post:
  • lancelotandrewes
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#3
For starters, for quantitative literacy, if you are reasonably fluent in math, taking the CLEP is a great solution, and totally free if you sign up for the (free) Modern States prep course... they will actually pay for the CLEP exam and the proctoring cost. If you aren't particularly fluent in math or are rusty, I highly recommend the CSMLearn.com quantitative literacy course. You can literally complete the whole thing in a weekend, it's pretty painless, and it costs like $40. TESU accepts it as your quantitative literacy.

Anything you can do a CLEP for, you can't beat free through Modern States.

It sounds like you are almost complete with your upper-level requirement for the liberal studies degree, which means you have a million options that are free or cheap. If cost is a factor, onlinedegree.com is totally free., as is any CLEP through ModernStates. I personally like study.com, where, if you bust ass, you can earn up to 15 credits in a month for about $410 (or 6 credits for $200). You can signup for study.com's $60 a month plan to access courses and quizzes, study a bunch of stuff, and then sign up for the $200/month option to take your exams. Sophia is even cheaper ($79/month).

Unless you really want to, there isn't much reason to take the courses at TESU other than the required ones. Even with the generous Pell grant, you won't be able to use the full amount each semester unless you take 12 credits, which will be about $6700. After the Pell, it's still $3400. If you take the 6 required classes, that's going to be about $1400 after Pell money.

You also have to decide whether to take 16 credits at TESU ($8944 before Pell) or as few as possible (6 are required) and then pay the nonresident fee of $3200. If you do the math, it is usually as cheap or cheaper to pay the nonresident fee and earn your credits through alternative providers. It really depends on what you are after.
[-] The following 1 user Likes studyingfortests's post:
  • lancelotandrewes
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#4
First off, the limit for transfer credit is 114, not 90. The 90-credit limit is for all alternate sources. Because you already have 71 RA hours to apply to your degree, you don't have to worry about this. At most, you might have to transfer in 60 alternate credits (CLEP, Sophia, Study.com, etc.) and you don't have to worry about limits.

IMO, you might as well fill out as much as possible with Sophia credits. See https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Sa...ts_Roadmap for course suggestions. The CLEP exams might not cost money but a.) they cost much more time than most Sophia courses and b.) you need to pay for at least one month of Sophia anyway in order to get that Ethics course; it's not something you can CLEP. Sophia's Algebra is extremely easy for an Algebra course, or you could go with CSM Learn as already suggested.

Quantitative Literacy: Algebra @ Sophia
Ethics: Intro to Ethics @ Sophia
Scientific Knowledge: Intro to IT, Human Biology, or Environmental Science @ Sophia
Fill out the rest of your LL electives with courses that don't have Touchstones (see https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/So...lency_List ) and you'll be good to go.

For the UL electives, check out https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Sa...centration It looks like you've already got 9 UL credits. That's great! You're halfway there. SDC courses are only about $100 each but it is a subscription fee and, for UL courses, it can wind up taking longer than a month to finish them. All UL courses have at least one paper or other similar assignments that need to be completed. The extra time, obviously, drives the cost up when you're dealing with subscriptions. If you're worried about being able to finish everything quickly, I would suggest Coopersmith or ONU courses.

With Coopersmith, it's a single exam and you're done. Similar to CLEP. Each Coopersmith course/exam costs $150.

ONU courses can be a significant amount of work but you don't have to pay anything until you've completed the course. Courses are $50/credit, which works out to be $150/course.

There are also UExcels but those wind up costing more than the ONU or Coopersmith courses.
In progress:
TESU - BA Computer Science; BSBA CIS; ASNSM Math & CS; ASBA

Completed:
Pierpont - AAS BOG
Sophia (so many), The Institutes (old), Study.com (5 courses)
ASU: Human Origins, Astronomy, Intro Health & Wellness, Western Civilization, Computer Appls & Info Technology, Intro Programming
Strayer: CIS175, CIS111, WRK100, MAT210
[-] The following 3 users Like rachel83az's post:
  • FastTrackDegree, jch, lancelotandrewes
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#5
With that Pell Grant amount you may be better off looking at UMPI.  With TESU unless you take the 16 credits with them (which you most certainly could do) you will have the residency waiver to pay out of pocket.
Amberton University
- MS Human Relations and Business - 2022
Thomas Edison State University (TESU)
- BSBA General Management - 2018
- ASNSM Computer Science -2018

[-] The following 1 user Likes allvia's post:
  • ss20ts
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#6
(07-27-2021, 11:00 PM)bjcheung77 Wrote: Hey, that's a pretty good plan!  <puts up tent> I'm gonna grab some popcorn, it's gonna be an interesting read... Just going to see what advice you'll get from this before I jump in... be patient, read a bit, here's a link you may want to review, read everything including the links of other threads I have posted: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...Term-Limit

Now, it would be better to know a bit more details about you such as age, have commitments such as kids, marriage, work?  You may want to copy/paste or even create a PDF file and attach the information on you academic evaluation and paste it here as a reply.  What's your end goal, a Masters or go teaching abroad?  Do you have any certs? What type of work experience do you have?

Thanks for link with notes on outside credit! Very encouraging!

I'm Married with 4 kids. I've led a successful private elementary school for several years as principal. Previously worked in various nonprofit/government management roles where a BA/BS was traditionally required, but I was able to get through by self-teaching, building relationships, and demonstrating ability in related projects. I've also done some unaccredited graduate-level work related to "religious credentials" that helped me get my current position. (Mostly lectures with reading and then writing 20-30 page papers.)  

My long-term goals are to grow the school to middle and high school grades, writing on education, and generally build on what we have. 

I want to finish up the degree so that I don't have "I'm a college dropout" lingering over my future in education (What if our parents find out I don't have a degree?). I also would like to prove to the kids I teach (and their parents) they don't need to waste hundreds of thousands to get a liberal arts degree.
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#7
(07-28-2021, 10:09 AM)lancelotandrewes Wrote: Thanks for link with notes on outside credit! Very encouraging!

I'm Married with 4 kids. I've led a successful private elementary school for several years as principal. Previously worked in various nonprofit/government management roles where a BA/BS was traditionally required, but I was able to get through by self-teaching, building relationships, and demonstrating ability in related projects. I've also done some unaccredited graduate-level work related to "religious credentials" that helped me get my current position. (Mostly lectures with reading and then writing 20-30 page papers.)  

My long-term goals are to grow the school to middle and high school grades, writing on education, and generally build on what we have. 

I want to finish up the degree so that I don't have "I'm a college dropout" lingering over my future in education (What if our parents find out I don't have a degree?). I also would like to prove to the kids I teach (and their parents) they don't need to waste hundreds of thousands to get a liberal arts degree.

You might want to look at UMPI's BLS with Educational Studies minor.

https://online.umpi.edu/programs/bls-edu...minor.aspx
[-] The following 2 users Like ss20ts's post:
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#8
(07-28-2021, 12:55 AM)studyingfortests Wrote: For starters, for quantitative literacy, if you are reasonably fluent in math, taking the CLEP is a great solution, and totally free if you sign up for the (free) Modern States prep course... they will actually pay for the CLEP exam and the proctoring cost.  If you aren't particularly fluent in math or are rusty, I highly recommend the CSMLearn.com quantitative literacy course.  You can literally complete the whole thing in a weekend, it's pretty painless, and it costs like $40. TESU accepts it as your quantitative literacy.

Anything you can do a CLEP for, you can't beat free through Modern States.

It sounds like you are almost complete with your upper-level requirement for the liberal studies degree, which means you have a million options that are free or cheap. If cost is a factor, onlinedegree.com is totally free., as is any CLEP through ModernStates.  I personally like study.com, where, if you bust ass, you can earn up to 15 credits in a month for about $410 (or 6 credits for $200).  You can signup for study.com's $60 a month plan to access courses and quizzes, study a bunch of stuff, and then sign up for the $200/month option to take your exams.  Sophia is even cheaper ($79/month).

Unless you really want to, there isn't much reason to take the courses at TESU other than the required ones. Even with the generous Pell grant, you won't be able to use the full amount each semester unless you take 12 credits, which will be about $6700. After the Pell, it's still $3400. If you take the 6 required classes, that's going to be about $1400 after Pell money.  

You also have to decide whether to take 16 credits at TESU ($8944 before Pell) or as few as possible (6 are required) and then pay the nonresident fee of $3200. If you do the math, it is usually as cheap or cheaper to pay the nonresident fee and earn your credits through alternative providers.  It really depends on what you are after.

Thank you! I hadn't even considered the nonresident option, since I didn't understand that I could combine RA + CLEP/ACE Credit. I think you're right and it makes sense to CLEP the Math and Natural Science Requirements. 

I'm planning to use Sophia for "Intro to Ethics" course, so it would likely make sense to do some of my electives there too. Any transferable course could count, right?

From what I've read in other places on this forum, Study.com has options for the required "Upper" level - Is there a list on study.com where I can tell which 300/400 courses would be accepted for the degree requirement. This is what I could find on TESU for "liberal studies courses." 

EDIT: Thanks to rachel83az for this link answering my questions on course selections! https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Sa...centration

Quote:FROM TESU website: Students complete a total of 30 credits of Liberal Studies courses that include at least 15 credits at the 300/400 level and no more than 6 credits at the 100 level.
30
B. Students select an 18-credit concentration from the list below and complete an additional 12 credits of Liberal Studies courses.
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#9
If you want to stick with TESU, then it's easy to do via CLEP, Sophia, Study.com, etc. TESU now includes History as a Humanities course, so those are open as well.

The A&I Lit CLEP is an easy win for 6cr in the AoS (LL). Then I'd do Study.com for your remaining UL's, they have the most at the best price. You can also kill 2 birds with 1 stone in a few ways (both Vietnam courses, both Civil War courses, etc).

-----------

UMPI is also a great option, I'd do that with either Education, Management, or both (both seem to be things that would come in handy for your line of work).
TESU BSBA/HR 2018 - WVNCC BOG AAS 2017 - GGU Cert in Mgmt 2000
EXAMS: TECEP Tech Wrtg, Comp II, LA Math, PR, Computers  DSST Computers, Pers Fin  CLEP Mgmt, Mktg
COURSES: TESU Capstone  Study.com Pers Fin, Microecon, Stats  Ed4Credit Acct 2  PF Fin Mgmt  ALEKS Int & Coll Alg  Sophia Proj Mgmt The Institutes - Ins Ethics  Kaplan PLA
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#10
Regarding CLEP credits - I've completed the Natural Science Course with Modern States and have the CLEP scheduled. On the TESU site Natural Sciences shows as 6 credits with (NAS-101 Natural Sciences I, NAS-102 Natural Sciences II) as course equivalencies. Since I've already filled in 3/6 science credits, Will they drop the second course into an elective slot? Similar thing for College Mathematics CLEP? Do we get MAT102 & 103?
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