Need a fast and cheap degree?

[Jenniferinfl]

Just found this site, its amazing! I need a fast and cheap degree to satisfy a future promotion at work, any will do. What are my options? Thank you guys so much!

So, you can see my progress in my signature. What I would do, is go to ModernStates and use their study materials so that you can get free CLEP vouchers. Of course, first check to make sure that CLEP testing is available near you and speak with someone from the testing center to verify any times or limits. When I was taking CLEP, the local college let me take 3 in one day, but, then it turned out that they weren't allowed to do that and then I was limited to just 2 CLEP's per day and I could only get there once a week. Some of those testing services have very limited hours- so that's good to know going in. The benefit is that you can get practice studying and testing for free. 

I was telling people to just skip CLEP and go right to WGU- BUT, I no longer think that's a good idea simply because you have no idea of knowing how quickly you can really learn until your actually doing it. I had a friend I sent to WGU and she didn't successfully complete a single class. lol So, yeah, don't waste your money until you get some good practice with CLEP. You don't want to pay $3500 and then realize you aren't in the right headspace now. 

You would definitely want to test out of as many gen eds as possible before enrolling in WGU. The general business degrees still have around 30 credits of gen ed. I managed to do 100+ credits in 10 months while working full time. But, it was a lot. For me it ended up pretty inexpensive going that route because I qualified for the Pell grant and then the subsidized loan for the remainder. It was cheaper going that route than any other route, BUT, only if you finish in one term. If you are cutting it down to the wire, you can get a capstone extension of 4 weeks so long as it is your last class and it is moved into your current term before the 15th of your last month. 

You can see the CLEP's I took in my signature. WGU accepted most of those, the only ones they didn't take were the ones that overlapped with the gen ed credits I already had from my first college stint. CLEP transcripts take forever to show up and delayed my start time by a month. In other words, as soon as you think you are done with CLEP, have the transcript sent to WGU even if you haven't applied yet or done any of your financial aid. Fill out your FAFSA ahead of time, all that fun stuff.

Dang! That was a hell of an answer Jennifer! Thank you so much! Yeah I think I’m going to end up pursuing the Business Management or Marketing Management degrees. So you essentially did most of your degree directly through WGU? Would you recommend testing out of the maximum amount of transferable credits before enrolling? Did you have any experience with Straighterline, Saylor, or Study.com? I appreciate all the advice, thank you again!

I did a few Straighterline as well and I used Study.com. For Study.com, I didn't get credits, I went with the less expensive access to everything without credits just to use it for review materials. I wouldn't bother with that again if I had it to do over. I completed every single Study.com accounting class before I started at WGU and they only really covered the materials in Principles of Accounting. If you qualify for a Pell grant and are capable of accelerating- I would skip Study.com just because the credits aren't that inexpensive. My thought would be to CLEP and Straighterline to clear the gen eds. For best use of your time, you will likely want to clear as many of the classes as you can that require a written assignment. The reason you would do that is you may get a mentor who isn't super awesome. My mentor would often move just one class at a time into my plan, and then I would test on a Friday night and have to wait until Monday or Tuesday for him to move another class in. With the papers, I usually got them back graded in about 48 hours. Not bad, but, that's 48 hours where you can't access your next class and can't get another moved into your term. I lost so many weekends waiting for classes to unlock. You might get lucky and get a mentor who moves more into your term at a time, towards the end, my mentor was finally moving a few at a time. If I was going it over, I would do everything I could do as CLEP then fill in the rest with any of the cheaper straighterline- some of them are really a good deal and include the textbook and everything. I had almost half the degree done before I started at WGU and still took it right to the wire to finish in one term.. lol Most people need to retake Cost and Managerial Accounting. If I would have needed to do that instead of squeaking by, I would have needed a second term. That's how close I cut it. Now, the business management and marketing majors have less of those ridiculous classes and it's easier to accomplish those in less time. My thought would be to try to go into it with 60 credits completed through CLEP and straighterline. 
Take the 5 business CLEP's, Take macroeconomics, microeconomics, sociology and so on. If you look at the required courses, you'll see that there's a lot of CLEP that lines up. Anything that you can't get with CLEP, get with straighterline until you've reached at least 60 credits. If you manage to do your first 60 credits in 6 months or less, you can likely do your last 60 credits in 6 months too. A lot of people get stuck in classes like statistics and algebra, micro and macro. Those are good classes to clear ahead of time for sure.