How to Reduce the Cost of College Degree in US if You Can Self-study?

If you want to go to college, you need to have a great SAT score, a promising profile, and you should be able to fund your degree. US Education System provides a lot of flexibility to achieve this. There are scholarships, part-time working opportunities in college, loans, teaching assistantship, alternate ways of getting college credit and so on.

In this blog we will cover the last option in the list

Alternate ways of getting college credits and their impact on cost

In US a degree is granted once you accumulate certain number of credits

• 60 credits are needed for an Associate,
• around 45 credits can be accepted in the degree course by studying outside the college.
• A bachelor’s degree is around 120 credits hence 45 credits can reduce the tution cost by atleast 20%. A $80000 degree will cost $64000 if 45 credits are taken from outside college

The American Council on Education (ACE) has evaluated a pool of courses offered by various online providers that Miami Dade College will accept towards your degree (up to 45 credits). The online classes are designed to help students to finish what they started — a two- or four-year degree, or a post-secondary certificate.

So if you are studying in an expensive college(private non-funded) you can source some of your credits by either directly giving your exams at authorized testing centers like Testing and Assessment - Miami Dade College (mdc.edu), or studying from online course providers like https://study.com

Various ways of getting college credit are:

• PLA - Prior Learning Assessment

• Credit-By-Exam - A college credit which is awarded by appearing for an exam

  • AP : Advanced Placement

  • CLEP: College Level Examination Program

• Credit for Online Classes - A college credit which is awarded by studying online instead of in college

How to understand the monetary value of college credits?

To make college costs comparable it is important to estimate cost of each credit. One way to understand how expensive a college is, is via credit hour. A definition is given below:

• Credit hour - The amount of work per week for a college credit. 1 credit hour is one hour lecture and two hours of self study. You need to think in terms of credit hours if you are studying part-time. It is in the range of $100+ per hour for two year colleges and $500+ per hour for 4 year colleges. Check references for more details on these numbers

Want to know more about how testing experiences in these centers look like? Talk to our proctors here

Want to share your own college cost saving experience. Talk to us @monitorexam on twitter

References:

College Cost Per Credit Hour | BestColleges

Portfolio Assessment | Miami Dade College (mdc.edu)

College Credits Made Easy [2022 Ultimate Guide] (mydegreeguide.com)