Earn Your Degree

Choosing A College

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We've already discussed the importance of accreditation elsewhere so going forward we are only referring to regionally accredited institutions.

Most colleges in the U.S. accept credit equivalency examinations as demonstration of your knowledge in a particular subject and grant credit accordingly. The big drawback is that they put a limit on how many classes you can test out of. If you are like me the first thing that comes to mind is. Why? Why will my local college accept any CLEP as a substitute for a traditional class but will only let me use them for a maximum of 30 credits? They have already acknowledge that they feel you have the equivalent knowledge of the class they offer by giving you equal credit. Why then would they feel that 30 credits is the most you could possibly already know?

In my opinion the bottom line is the bottom line. Colleges and universities, at most, make the $20 - $25 proctoring fee if you take the exam at their testing center. Otherwise you are cutting into tuition. Some would argue that you would not be receiving that University's brand of education if you tested out of everything. That very well may be true. But for folks like you and me, who just want an accredited college degree, it really puts up a roadblock.

Fortunately for us there are a few accredited colleges that don't put a cap on how many credits you can test out of. If you are going to test out of your college degree entirely or even if you are a few credits shy of earning a degree I strongly suggest you consider one of the following institutions from here on referred to as the "Big Three".

Tuition, registration and fees for these colleges will only run you around $1500!    (This does not include your exams and study resources, which should only cost $5000 - $7000 for an entire four year bachelor degree).

Excelsior College -  Private college in Albany, New York that specializes in meeting the needs of adult learners. Click here to learn more.

Thomas Edison State College- Public College  in Trenton , New Jersey that specializes in Distance Education.  Click here to learn more.

Charter Oak State College -   Public college located in New Britain, Connecticut .  Click here to learn more.

You don't have to enroll in a college before you start testing. In fact I suggest you don't. Take a few exams, get your feet wet and then think about whether you want to major in a particular subject or go for a general/liberal studies degree. 

If you are planning on taking a GRE subject exam I highly recommend that you wait for your results before choosing between Excelsior or Charter Oak. Excelsior gives you up to 30 credits for a score in the 80th percentile on a GRE subject exam. The lower the score, the lower the credits. However, Charter Oak gives a flat 18 credits if you earn in the 40th percentile. If you don't score that well you may end up doing better at Charter Oak.

Once you get a few credits under your belt and make a decision on major it would be a good time to go ahead and enroll. Why? Because you then have access to the counselors that can confirm that you are taking the right exams to fulfill your degree requirements at the proper level. You also don't want to guess wrong on which exams to take when it comes to duplicate credit. For example at Excelsior you can take the Dantes Ethics in America for lower credit and ECE Ethics: Theory and Practice for upper credit. These do not duplicate. But if you were take the CLEP Human Growth and Development and the ECE Life-span Developmental Psychology you would have duplicate credits.  It never hurts to get it from the horses mouth. For this reason i recommend your first few exams be from the same provider (all CLEP or DSST). This way you can be assured that you are not duplicating credits.

What is Upper and Lower level credit?

When completing a four year degree most colleges require a certain amount credits that go beyond intro or survey courses, which is referred to as lower level. Excelsior generally accepts a maximum of 90 lower level credits which means you need to find at least 30 credits worth of upper level exams. That equates to about 10 tests (unless you pull a great score on the GRE).  It's not that difficult to do. The most important aspect is to make sure that you take these exams in the mandated proportion of Arts and Sciences, Electives and Major.