So I have a friend who is partway into a degree at a (US) university that they do not wish to complete for reasons beyond the scope of this question. Their intelligence and ability are quite good. No, this friend is not me.
There is some interest in helping the friend get a quick and dirty Associate’s Degree either for an instant career boost or as a stepping stone to a four year university. They could probably get one by transferring to the local community college and taking one or two semesters of courses to meet the requirements of a degree. In a practical sense, this would require the friend to quit their job and go back to school full time, which is not an ideal situation.
Are there any quicker paths?
There is discussion both here on the Dope and elsewhere about whether or not there is a bachelor’s degree equivalency test. Suffice it to say there does not appear to be one in the US, at least not one that is considered fully legitimate and acceptable for graduate study at major universities. I got to wondering if there might be one at the Associate’s level, which often represents the first two years of a bachelor’s degree.
Are there any regionally accredited (which is the accreditation type that is most widely recognized) Associate’s degrees that can be obtained primarily or exclusively by taking exams for credit or that allow you to follow an accelerated schedule at your own pace, without floundering in basic classes on a full time basis for several semesters?
Has anyone done an AS or AA program at a school like Excelsior? Can you knock most or all of the requirements out by exam or thesis and take one or two regular-length courses to wrap up requirements where there is no test-out opportunity, or is it more or less the distance-ed equivalent to spending a year at a community college doing essay after essay?
One big advantage of getting an associate’s degree is that many four year universities will waive all or almost all general education (“GenEd”) requirements for transfer candidates who already have an associate’s degree.
You can buy AAs from barely accredited institutions by getting them to chalk up “life experience” as credit. (You can do so up to the Ph.D. level, but I doubt the value of any from the bachelor’s level up.) A bought AA might pass with most employers, though, as most are issued by community colleges and the like anyway.
There is, or was, a “university” in Southern California that awarded, for the least imaginable effort, upper degrees including doctorates. They were on that just-barely-accredited level accepted by, among other agencies, the California Department of Ed. For a few thousand dollars and a few weekends there and a few months of correspondence classes, you could tack on a Masters or doctorate. It was good for exactly one thing: kicking you onto the next salary tier in most school districts. I knew of many high-school teachers who had such degrees and thus took home 20-50% more pay, but they never, ever put them on the wall or listed them on open resumes.
So yes, paper degrees can be had and can be useful, just like toilet paper.
(I did have one instructor in a community college who styled herself “Dr. Soandso” and insisted on being addressed that way. The first time I visited her office and saw the tissue-paper degree on the wall, I dropped the class. I was always amused by her habit of referring to our “repertory” of acquired language skills…)
I have tried in the past to untangle this knot, but never succeeded. The real problem for me is trying to understand the sccreditation systems, and which degrees are actually recognized by other institutions (including hiring companies.)
It can also be surprisingly difficult to find out how and by whom even the most well-known colleges and Universties are accedited. One would think that would be a subject line of every “About” page, but no.
But wait I’m hijacking, let me go start a thread. . .
The community college here has many online classes, I assume one could do that in this case? The university I went to said we could test out of classes, pay the fee and get the credit. This was if we, say, we bilingual or something.
Accredited universies and colleges, meaning universities and colleges accredited by legitimate accreditation bodies, won’t sell you a degree. Those universities and colleges will grant you credit up to a certain number of credit hours towards a degree provided you can provide proof of knowledge or experience to earn such credit. One way to prove knowledge is the testing which desertmonk mentioned. Another way to provide proof of experience is to show one’s DD214 which lists Service schools and qualifications.
Any outfit that promises you a “quick and dirty” degree or simply sells you a degree is worthless.
Are you trying to come up with the quickest way that a person can become self-sufficient, or are you more concerned about making sure that the door is open for a four year degree later?
If it’s the former, some sort of certification or license in a trade might be quicker and more valuable than a two year degree, especially a generic associates in English of History (which isn’t worth much) but the specifics would depend more on the person. If it’s the later, I think there really isn’t that much urgency and it’s probably better to just plug away at those core courses at a rate of 3 or 6 hours a semester while working.
What I am trying to say is that the junior college programs that make you immediately employable and the ones that replace the first two years of a 4-year degree do not always overlap that much. Which is the priority?
The second is most important. There is quite a bit of family pressure to “go back to school”, regardless of their current financial situation, which is good.
I know that. I’m not looking for a program where a check for $39.95 will get you a sheepskin. I’m looking for programs where one can use their existing knowledge and follow an accelerated plan and not dilly-dally in Freshman Composition and US History 135 for a whole semester. One could just write a few essays and take a few multiple choice exams proving their competency and be done with it.
The GED lets you take a test (actually a battery of a few smaller tests) in a single day that supposedly counts as equivalent to four years of high school. The first two years of college have a greater emphasis on memorizing a bunch of stuff and regurgitating it on a test in a similar way to high school, albeit with more complex material. The later parts of a four year degree require you to concentrate more on your thinking and reasoning ability and do things that aren’t easy to verify on a quick test.
Also, you mentioned using the AA to meet the GE requirements of a bachelor’s degree. That is by no means automatic and if it happenes, it is usually within one state or more specifically in an area from a state so for example UCLA may (note the “may”) accept my AA from a Los Angeles community college but Berkeley would not nor any out of state school. I highly doubt an AA from a school like you are looking at would count as transferring 2 years of credit. At best the occassional class may transfer.
Then you already knew the actual answer to the OP.
Glad to hear it.
Please check my earlier response again. You’ll note that I mentioned “up to a certain amount”. That means that there’s usually a limit to how limit to how many credits a particular accredited university or college will accept in transfer/testing-out/recognized experience.
Hopefully this doesn’t come across as snarky: University is not high school.
That was not my experience in university. Note that I began my schooling at a university and after retirement from the military I continued my studies at a community college to get an A.A. and transfered to a university to get an A.B. My classes didn’t have any emphasis on memorizing and regurgitating stuff, as you put it. But, who knows? Maybe I got lucky and my state-run tertiary schools in two states were just flukes.
By the way, St Cad’s post about transferability of a California community college degree is kind of close to the system California has. A CA community college assosciate’s degree is transferable to a CSU or UC campus provided that the transfer requirements (basically, extra courses not actually required for the associate’s degree itself) are met.
It is not necessary to quit your job to go back to school full time. I have been working 40 hours per week and have been enrolled in school full time (which in FL, is 12 credit hrs per semester). I decided to go back to school to get away from my current career path and discovered quitting is not an option financially. If his employer is a bit flexible with scheduling, he should be able to fit his classes around a work schedule that is acceptable and get an actual AA.
As an added thought, my employer currently provides tuition reimbursement for full time employees going to college. His employer may have a similar benefit. If not, he’ll still need to pay for classes somehow (don’t get me started on financial aid :mad: ).
AFAIK, anyone can take AP exams. You certainly don’t have to be enrolled in an AP class. She could contact a local high school about signing up to come in this spring and take them. They cost about $100 each you are paying totally out of pocket. The vast majority of junior colleges will take any AP score of a 3 or higher for 3-6 hours credit. There are AP exams in 20 or more subjects, included all your major sciences, social studies, English, and math. I’ve personally had students start college with over 60 hours of credit from AP exams, so I don’t see why she couldn’t, in theory, pick up the vast bulk of an associates degree this way. The school would probably want her to take some number of hours through them, but that could be done through distance learning, and if it’s a matter of just accumulating hours, she could take easy stuff.
That said, unless she’s remarkably intelligent, I think she’ll find it a challenge to prepare for these tests on her own. They aren’t easy: you can’t bullshit your way through them. As Monty said above, university is not college.
That would also depend on the classes’ schedule: one of the things that had the Spanish contingent completely confused during my grad school stint in Scotland is that the class hours were incompatible with any day-time jobs which weren’t “just get the job done”.
Also check with the school from which you wish to obtain your degree. They may (as in: most likely) have a limit on the number of credits earned that way which you can apply towards the degree.
I’m teaching at a “Technical College” in the states. It varies by school, and by department, but some classes can be totally “tested out of”. In some cases, all it takes is an instructor’s signature stating that “I’ve tested Robert’s friend Biffer McNutley, and he shows sufficient aptitude in Final Cut Pro or Design Fundamentals.” (See? Sometimes it’s familiarity with software, sometimes concepts)
BUT, that would usually because you used those skills on the job. If a high schooler emailed me out of the blue I’d probably just reply “Nope.” But if they said “I’ve been an Art Director at an Ad Agency for five years, can I show you my portfolio and test out of Design Project Management?” I’d say “Okay, if you buy the coffee.”
What I’m saying is, the individual instructors have a lot of leeway. I can also let someone audit a class. I had a woman just stop in whenever we were covering something she didn’t know (or I’d email her: “Doing cool stuff Wed, if you can drop in!”). Didn’t cost a cent, and might fulfill parental expectations of “going to school”.
And I can do a combination: “Okay, you’ve got these skills (“X”), but you don’t know Y and you’re rusty at Z. So come to the middle third of class when we cover those, do the two projects that use those skills, and I’ll pass you for that class.”
ALL of these options have an important pre-requisite: Being A Nice Person. I turned down a cocky Bro, but bent over backwards to help a humble Dude (who not only wanted a degree, but also wanted to Learn Stuff.
