TESU Evaluation of Outside Credits Term Limit

[bjcheung77]

I was only talking about terms in which a student might qualify for the Flat-Fee Commission and not paying for credits individually. I was genuinely curious if you'd take 120 credits at TESU if the only cost would be one Flat-Fee or not. It wasn't rhetorical to make any points.

Ah, yes, I see. You do not want to take 120 credits at TESU or any university for that matter. Many, if not all, students transfer from cheaper, easier, faster course alternatives (community college for example) into the degree of their choice. They take the minimum requirements at the institution to save tuition and fees, etc. Anyways, in the case of TESU, if you want to pay the one flat fee rate, it would be for each term. If you need another term to take extra courses towards your credits, you need to pay another flat fee term...

Sadly, you missed out on the Comprehensive Tuition they had, which meant, you could take up to 32 credits for the entire year split into 4 terms, for one flat rate of roughly $9-$9.5 grand for out of state students, it was much cheaper at $6.5-$7 grand for in state students. For those who wanted a double degree, this was an inexpensive option to take courses not available elsewhere for cheap or those courses that can't be transferred in such as the Associates Capstone, two Bachelors Capstones, and some upper level courses or e-packs.

[schristian10]

I was only talking about terms in which a student might qualify for the Flat-Fee Commission and not paying for credits individually. I was genuinely curious if you'd take 120 credits at TESU if the only cost would be one Flat-Fee or not. It wasn't rhetorical to make any points.

Ah, yes, I see.  You do not want to take 120 credits at TESU or any university for that matter.  Many, if not all, students transfer from cheaper, easier, faster course alternatives (community college for example) into the degree of their choice.  They take the minimum requirements at the institution to save tuition and fees, etc.  Anyways, in the case of TESU, if you want to pay the one flat fee rate, it would be for each term.  If you need another term to take extra courses towards your credits, you need to pay another flat fee term...  

Sadly, you missed out on the Comprehensive Tuition they had, which meant, you could take up to 32 credits for the entire year split into 4 terms, for one flat rate of roughly $9-$9.5 grand for out of state students, it was much cheaper at $6.5-$7 grand for in state students.  For those who wanted a double degree, this was an inexpensive option to take courses not available elsewhere for cheap or those courses that can't be transferred in such as the Associates Capstone, two Bachelors Capstones, and some upper level courses or e-packs.

Do you know how many upper level courses are required for a TESU BSBA, or where I could check and how they might apply to gen. ed.'s, the core curriculum, and electives? Gen ed's might be universally LL courses, but I have no idea! Thanks!

[schristian10]

I was only talking about terms in which a student might qualify for the Flat-Fee Commission and not paying for credits individually. I was genuinely curious if you'd take 120 credits at TESU if the only cost would be one Flat-Fee or not. It wasn't rhetorical to make any points.

Ah, yes, I see.  You do not want to take 120 credits at TESU or any university for that matter.  Many, if not all, students transfer from cheaper, easier, faster course alternatives (community college for example) into the degree of their choice.  They take the minimum requirements at the institution to save tuition and fees, etc.  Anyways, in the case of TESU, if you want to pay the one flat fee rate, it would be for each term.  If you need another term to take extra courses towards your credits, you need to pay another flat fee term...  

Sadly, you missed out on the Comprehensive Tuition they had, which meant, you could take up to 32 credits for the entire year split into 4 terms, for one flat rate of roughly $9-$9.5 grand for out of state students, it was much cheaper at $6.5-$7 grand for in state students.  For those who wanted a double degree, this was an inexpensive option to take courses not available elsewhere for cheap or those courses that can't be transferred in such as the Associates Capstone, two Bachelors Capstones, and some upper level courses or e-packs.

Do you know how many upper level courses are required for a TESU BSBA, or where I could check and how they might apply to gen. ed.'s, the core curriculum, and electives? Gen ed's might be universally LL courses, but I have no idea! Thanks!

I just checked the wiki page which said there were 12 UL credits required for the core curriculum. Does the capstone count towards this requirement?

[schristian10]

The TESU advisors, unfortunately, often don't know what they are talking about. Either that or they do a very poor job of explaining how things work.

It is possible that they are planning on introducing such a limit in the future but I do not think so. A new term starts at TESU every single month, though, so you'd still be able to transfer in 200+ credits over the span of a year.

TESU currently:

• Has NO monthly/yearly enrollment fees - beyond paying for the medical terminology TECEP (and that's not required, it's simply the cheapest way) once a year to remain an active enrolled student
  
• Allows up to 90 alternate credits (Sophia, Study.com, Davar, etc.) per degree
  
• Allows a further 24 credits from RA sources
  
• Does NOT charge additional fees (either per credit or per class) for transferring in credits from outside sources
  
• REQUIRES SOS-110 + the capstone (LIB-495 for a BA or BUS-421 for a BSBA) to get a Bachelor's degree
  

• If you do not take at least 16 credits with TESU itself, pay about $3k for a residency waiver.
  

If you take 1 year to get a degree and you only take the bare minimum classes at TESU, your approximate costs for an "average" degree would be:

• Tuition: $519 x 6 credits = $3114
  
• Application fee: $50
  
• Medical Terminology TECEP (to become fully enrolled): $50
  
• Residency waiver fee: $3192
  
• Graduation fee: $298
  

Total: $6704

Additional costs include:

• 24 RA credits @ approx $50/credit (TEL/ONU/TECEP): $1200
  
• Sophia, 3 months (approx 70-80 credits): $237
  
• Study.com, 24 credits - 8 courses (some degrees require more, some degrees require less): $800
  

Additional costs total: $2237

Total cost for an "average" TESU degree: approximately $9k. But this will vary heavily depending on personal circumstances and the degree(s) being sought.

Do you know why Sophia is approx 70-80 credits? Also, why Study.com may or may not require more or less courses and credits, or require any at all?

[rachel83az]

Let's run through a couple of scenarios as an example.

You must take 6 credits at TESU. 114 credits to go.
You bring in 24 credits from TECEPs/TEL/ONU/ASU/etc. for your RA credit. 90 credits left.

This is where things start to diverge. First a BALS degree with no concentration:
TEEX Death investigation for 3 UL credits. 87 left to go.
ACTFL exams for all 24 credits (12 UL/12 LL): 63 credits left to go.
InstantCert for American Government; 3 credits. 60 credits left to go.
All UL credit requirements have been met for a BALS degree. Fill in the remainder with 60 credits at Sophia.

Now a BSBA General Management, starting off with the 90 alt credits left to go:
Study.com for 12 UL credits. 78 credits left to go.
Study.com for 12 LL credits to fill business core requirements. 66 credits left to go.
Study.com 6 LL credits for AOS electives. 60 credits left to go.
InstantCert for American Government. 57 credits left to go.
OnlineDegree.com for Intro to Marketing, 3 credits. 54 credits left to go.
Complete degree with 54 credits from Sophia.

These are very VERY broad and general ideas to get you started. You might choose to get American Government from TEL or Study.com instead of InstantCert. For business degrees, you can use Davar for (some) UL credits instead of Study.com. It all depends on what your goals are and what your budget is.

[bjcheung77]

Yes, a broad idea is to get 15 RA credits from a community college which you have already. You transfer in 90+ credits through alternative means such as CLEP/MS or Sophia.org, Coopersmith/Davar. Complete 16 credits at TESU to remove the residency waiver fee, this will also put you past the 30 RA requirements. The final touches of the degree would be deciding what those 16 credits are, essentially the cornerstone/capstone takes 6, you can take another capstone and you would get another Bachelors if you wanted. The rest can be anything...

[schristian10]

Let's run through a couple of scenarios as an example.

You must take 6 credits at TESU. 114 credits to go.
You bring in 24 credits from TECEPs/TEL/ONU/ASU/etc. for your RA credit. 90 credits left.

This is where things start to diverge. First a BALS degree with no concentration:
TEEX Death investigation for 3 UL credits. 87 left to go.
ACTFL exams for all 24 credits (12 UL/12 LL): 63 credits left to go.
InstantCert for American Government; 3 credits. 60 credits left to go.
All UL credit requirements have been met for a BALS degree. Fill in the remainder with 60 credits at Sophia.

Now a BSBA General Management, starting off with the 90 alt credits left to go:
Study.com for 12 UL credits. 78 credits left to go.
Study.com for 12 LL credits to fill business core requirements. 66 credits left to go.
Study.com 6 LL credits for AOS electives. 60 credits left to go.
InstantCert for American Government. 57 credits left to go.
OnlineDegree.com for Intro to Marketing, 3 credits. 54 credits left to go.
Complete degree with 54 credits from Sophia.

These are very VERY broad and general ideas to get you started. You might choose to get American Government from TEL or Study.com instead of InstantCert. For business degrees, you can use Davar for (some) UL credits instead of Study.com. It all depends on what your goals are and what your budget is.

This would be where I am at now, mapping out alt credits. Thank you for sharing what you know.

Does Sophia offer UL courses, or are Study.com and Davar just better options?

I assume Am Gov from InstantCert and Intro to Marketing from OnlineDegree are just particularly low cost options?

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Yes, a broad idea is to get 15 RA credits from a community college which you have already. You transfer in 90+ credits through alternative means such as CLEP/MS or Sophia.org, Coopersmith/Davar. Complete 16 credits at TESU to remove the residency waiver fee, this will also put you past the 30 RA requirements.  The final touches of the degree would be deciding what those 16 credits are, essentially the cornerstone/capstone takes 6, you can take another capstone and you would get another Bachelors if you wanted.  The rest can be anything...

If I obtain the BSBA is there a short or long list from there of potential additional Bachelors that are simple to get as well, like you said by taking another Capstone, etc?

[rachel83az]

Sophia does not offer UL courses. Depending on what degree you're wanting, only Study.com, Davar, or Coopersmith have UL credits. Davar is almost exclusively business credits. Coopersmith is a bit of a mix but mostly humanities and social sciences. Study.com has courses for all of the degrees that you can get via alternate credit.

For a BSBA, you can check out course suggestions here: https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Sa...ts_Roadmap