Nations University call

[jb111]

The irony of lying to get a Divinity degree is pretty funny.

The point of the tuition leniency in the undeveloped nations is to provide opportunities for people who otherwise couldn't afford it. Not for you to game the system with your second residency or international forwarding address. 

But I'm not the divinity student, so I don't know... maybe the church doesn't look down ob lying

BJ may have big ministry in the future  I won't judge.  Note: They allow you to do $80 payments over the year.  For an accredited degree, this is about as painless as it gets.

[Ideas]

I'm pretty sure I will enroll in MTS at Nations U I don't plan to go on to an MDiv.

I will aim to complete it in 1 year. I believe if you go over 1 year by a little, you pay for the entire second year. It's still cheap at 2 years, but I can try. Normal speed seems to be 2 years full-time, and I'm used to working fast. My only worry is some of the material being slower to read or if exams require much too much rote memorization (versus understanding/application).

I would rather wait 6-12+ months before starting this, but I don't want to miss the lower pricing.

[jb111]

I'm pretty sure I will enroll in MTS at Nations U I don't plan to go on to an MDiv.

I will aim to complete it in 1 year. I believe if you go over 1 year by a little, you pay for the entire second year. It's still cheap at 2 years, but I can try. Normal speed seems to be 2 years full-time, and I'm used to working fast. My only worry is some of the material being slower to read or if exams require much too much rote memorization (versus understanding/application).

I would rather wait 6-12+ months before starting this, but I don't want to miss the lower pricing.

Same here on the pricing. If paying monthly, you may get a refund on the portion of the $960 not used.
I seem to recall them being very reasonable. Good luck. I'm hoping we can do a progress thread on the board.
JB

[rlw74]

Ideas - if you aren't completely married to one particular master's degree path at a particular school and you start it and change your mind you lose thousands at another school. If you start the MTS and change your mind it is only $960. That is less than one credit at some schools. And worse case scenario you might be able to transfer whatever you have. A lot of seminaries are not accredited and will take credit from other religious degrees. I personally wouldn't go that route but its not unheard of. It depends on what you plan to do with the degree.

I also see a lot of utility in that it is more non-denominational - even though the Church of Christ started it. Unfortunately if you plan to pastor what you might run into in a denomination is that if you want to be in a Southern Baptist church they will want a degree from a Southern Baptist seminary; Methodist will want a Methodist seminary, etc. At least with a non-denominational degree you might be able to move around a bit more. Many of the professors are from different denominations and the textbooks are used in multiple seminaries so you can always pitch that aspect.

I personally wasn't planning to start a master's degree anyway for a while so this isn't cutting into time that I would have spent on something else. I'm going to try for a year too. I don't know if that is possible but we'll see.

[sanantone]

From what I've seen, it's quite common for people to complete MDiv programs outside of their denomination. The problem that someone might come across is that they won't be ordained by their denomination or church without ATS accreditation. I know one group stopped endorsing Liberty graduates as chaplains, and I believe some people have had issues with becoming ordained.

The Church of Christ is not a true denomination; it's an association of independent churches that share basic beliefs. So, it shouldn't be hard to find an independent Church of Christ to ordain you since you don't have to go through a board with all these strict rules.

[Ideas]

Ideas - if you aren't completely married to one particular master's degree path at a particular school and you start it and change your mind you lose thousands at another school. If you start the MTS and change your mind it is only $960. That is less than one credit at some schools. And worse case scenario you might be able to transfer whatever you have. A lot of seminaries are not accredited and will take credit from other religious degrees. I personally wouldn't go that route but its not unheard of. It depends on what you plan to do with the degree.

I also see a lot of utility in that it is more non-denominational - even though the Church of Christ started it. Unfortunately if you plan to pastor what you might run into in a denomination is that if you want to be in a Southern Baptist church they will want a degree from a Southern Baptist seminary; Methodist will want a Methodist seminary, etc. At least with a non-denominational degree you might be able to move around a bit more. Many of the professors are from different denominations and the textbooks are used in multiple seminaries so you can always pitch that aspect.

I personally wasn't planning to start a master's degree anyway for a while so this isn't cutting into time that I would have spent on something else. I'm going to try for a year too. I don't know if that is possible but we'll see.

Yeah. I think they let you drop out and pay less, like dropping out around 6 months would be $500. It's not completely prorated by month, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't make someone pay the other $480 or so. ($25 fee in the beginning.)

I have plenty of other stuff already scheduled for Dec-May  I wanted to do at least one or two classes during most of June 2018 -Dec 2018. But MTS is only 12 courses, so it should be easy to get a rough estimate of whether 1 per month is reasonable on top of whatever else we're doing.

Does anyone know if we're allowed to skip the non-credit "Orientation to Research and Writing" course? If not, it's 13 courses. It is much shorter than the others?

Yeah, I also want non-denominational which isn't so common!

[sanantone]

I wrote about this on another thread or post last year, but don't recall...
Has anyone tried using their "international address" on their application?
I've got another address, a second residency and its not within the 25 nations.
If I use that address, does that allow me to take the courses tuition free?

Nations University is a non-profit organization that depends on donations and its low tuition to fund operations. If we encourage large numbers of people in developed nations to game the system, then this could lead to financial problems for Nations. Accreditors also pay attention to the financial health of schools and will place a school on probation and eventually pull accreditation if the school's financial house is not in order.

[jb111]

Does anyone know if we're allowed to skip the non-credit "Orientation to Research and Writing" course? If not, it's 13 courses. It is much shorter than the others?

Hi!  I asked and the orientation course does not track progress.  Rather it's more of a click around on whatever area you need refreshing in.  There is no block from advancing.  If one of you finishes the MTS degree in one year that would be amazing!  I certainly will try my best since money is time
JB

[Ideas]

If one of you finishes the MTS degree in one year that would be amazing!  I certainly will try my best since money is time
JB

Are you pretty sure you'll continue onto an MDiv afterwards? I originally thought I would, but now I don't. That means MTS would be my only/highest degree in the field. I'm feeling a little worried about it being NA. I'm feeling like I would rather pay more to get RA, but not a lot more. I don't think it's possible to find one in the price range I'm thinking, except for at a foreign school.

If you or anyone have thoughts about Nations U versus a foreign school, I would be interested. I only looked at a few so far, but UNISA would be one of the only ones I'd seriously consider. I want to know more about UNISA's MTh programs, but it seems like I would have to apply to get more info. Based on a post from a couple years ago, I guess it might be around $2500 if completed in 2 years.

[sanantone]

South African Theological Seminary is cheap and probably much less of a hassle than UNISA.

https://www.sats.edu.za/

In the U.S., ATS accreditation is considered the "gold standard" for seminaries. I checked out some of the schools on this list. The top ones have some of the cheaper online programs out there.

http://collegeandseminary.com/seminary/t...s-in-2015/