<p>Free</a> online course providers pair up with credit-bearing exams | Inside Higher Ed</p>
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Free online courses dont lead to college credit, at least not directly. But students can use free course content from providers like the Saylor Foundation and Education Portal to study for challenge exams, which may be the fastest and most inexpensive way to earn credits.
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<p>Warning to all students: make sure these courses will do something for you. Even at no cost, they take TIME.</p>
<p>Beliavsky…not sure what your reasons are for posting thread after thread about either non-traditional college programs, or some kind of dissatisfaction with traditional college programs.</p>
<p>Are you looking for options for yourself or your children?</p>
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<p>For my children – I have three of them. They are young now but are already using online courses from EPGY. I start threads like these because I think college is overpriced and oversold and want to promote alternatives.</p>
<p>Just gonna say, I think exams are one of the worst ways of demonstrating mastery of material. I can’t even count how many friends wound just cram the night before a test, pass, and then forget everything by the next week. How much are you actually learning if it’s only going into short term memory?</p>
<p>CLEP has been around for a while. Be aware that there is limited acceptance for CLEP, and the same can go for On line courses. Not that that they do not have their usefulness, but do not expect to get college credit from any college for them. Go into this for a reason that these courses are likely to fulfill and not with unrealistic expectations.</p>
<p>Colleges are getting more stringent about accepting credits from other places than their own programs. It used to be one could get through a college maybe a semester or even a year sooner by a year at a local college, or a term and applying those credits to the school of choice. Many schools forbid this specifically now. My son’s state school will only take summer courses for credit at other places and they have to be pre approved. You can’t take a fall semester off, stay at home, work and take some inexpensive courses that term and apply them to there. SOme schools won’t even take summer courses without thorough vetting BEFORE you take the course and will flat out even refuse to consider giving credit if a student does not go through the process of requesting and getting official permission.</p>
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<p>I wish people would focus on the time aspect when it comes to kids taking 4 years out of their lives to earn degrees for which there is no payback.</p>
<p>Regarding the value of Bel’s link, from the article:
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It was last December, and the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay’s holiday break had begun. But Alex Stenner, a sophomore and human biology major there, spent his two weeks off earning three credits from the university. And he did it without attending a single class – at a total cost of $90.
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Stenner spent two weeks studying with Educational Portal’s Psychology 101 course before taking the corresponding CLEP test. He had heard about CLEP when he was in high school and found Educational Portal with an Internet search.
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The course wasn’t easy, said Stenner, and he had to be disciplined to power through the material in two weeks. Students can take substantially longer to master the material. But Stenner wanted to finish before the end of the holidays. He passed the CLEP test on January 2.</p>
<p>Stenner said he has no regrets about not taking the intro psychology class at his university. He values personal connections with professors and his fellow students. But this course would have been taught in a big lecture hall, so according to his cost-benefit analysis, Education Portal was a better investment. </p>
<p>“To me it just doesn’t make sense to pay so much for entry-level courses,” he said.
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<p>So the point of this would be to knock off a bunch of GenEds at a substantial savings and lower the overall cost of education. </p>
<p>It would be similar to an AP process.</p>
<p>Fine, if you are at a school that takes CLEP. Do look at the list of schools that do, and especially check if your school does. Also if you are looking into going into a health care field, for example, the bio course may not count towards it. AP BIo has some such limitations too, by the way. Med school wants you at the school taking a course and the corresponding lab when it comes to the Natural Sciences in particular. </p>
<p>Also if you are looking at such a course as part of ones foundation as a prereq course, be careful. A two week bio course with a CLEP exam may not preparing you for the next level of bio that assumes a solid foundation of intro concepts </p>
<p>These courses do a have their uses, but make sure you know their limitations too.</p>
<p>Beliavsky- and then there are the kids for whom college is neither overpriced nor oversold. You may end up with one or two of those as well.</p>
<p>Thank you for answering my question. </p>
<p>We have two kids who went to traditional four year colleges. Personally I think it was the best money I have ever spent. They were both studying in fields with extensive “lab” requirements. Not only did they learn the material, but they also formed mentorships with faculty that has helped them post college.</p>
<p>Beliavsky, I appreciate this post. This kind of information is very relevant for the adult or non-traditional learner, in particular. I am in my 60’s and have many academic skills, but never finished. (In the late 1960’s, I did poverty work instead.) CLEP exams have saved me time and money better spent on my kids’ educations. I enjoyed a Coursera poetry class last fall: though I did not pursue a certificate, I could have.</p>
<p>More importantly, I know a number of young people whose parents tell them, at 18, “you are not my responsibility anymore.” These parents are not on CC. it is a cold hard world out there for some. These kids are working fast food jobs and are stuck because they cannot even afford community college, yet the schools still count their parents’ income (not a penny of which the kids are getting). Two of these kids who I know well are doing Coursera classes and trying to get certificates for later credit. I will pass this info on to them.</p>
<p>Free classes plus $77 CLEP’s are about all these kids can do until they turn 23 and financial aid will then be based on their own incomes.</p>
<p>I have found that many schools will take up to 75 or even 90 credits from who knows how many schools. They put the transcripts together and then the student needs to finish up at that final school, including, sometimes, 8-12 classes in a major. There are low residency programs, as well as online and blended programs, taht are geared to working people. I disagree with Cpt. on this point, though highly selective schools are different, no doubt.</p>
<p>In terms of quality, I am very critical, and have found some online classes to be better than on campus ones in terms of depth of work and discussion. Some are disappointing. </p>
<p>What I find really disappointing is the quality of higher education overall, except in top schools. But even there, getting a degree seems to be a matter of figuring out what work to skip, how to get good grades in spite of the fact that you are never really on top of things. The whole process lacks depth, and is geared to grades rather than learning.</p>
<p>One out of 3 of my kids is a true intellectual. She loves her classes and does all the reading, plus some. She is at a top college that is good with financial aid. I wish some of the kids I know who are working at Pizza Hut could go there.</p>
<p>As for me, I am currently in an online class at a reputable school that has pitiful discussion and the quality of the work I see posted is actually shocking. I do my own work at the level I want to do it, which is high. Who cares about the rest…I realize I haven’t played by the rules, but at this point, I will finish a degree in whatever way I can, since my spouse had a stroke.</p>
<p>Folks on CC need to understand that there are all kinds of situations out there. The majority of college students are not residing or even attending on campus, and the majority don’t graduate either.</p>
<p>The whole system needs to change. Online classes will be more and more a part of higher education, as long as a degree is needed in order to get work in so many jobs for which it is truly irrelevant.</p>
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<p>It is a colder and harder world for them because many colleges jack up the price for the so-called privileged to subsidize those deemed underprivileged and because federal need-based aid has inflated college prices. If college prices were lower across the board and flatter (as a function of family income), fewer young people would be at the mercy of their parents.</p>
<p>I wonder what fraction of parents refuse on principle to help their children at all with college costs. I have complained a lot about college costs, but my wife and I won’t do that.</p>
<p>I don’t know any parents who refuse on principle. The ones I know who can’t help simply can’t. Job loss, parent supporting an elderly relative with medical/nursing costs, a divorce with catastrophic financial results (it happens. Not everyone is financially savvy either during the divorce or during the years leading up to it.)</p>
<p>Mastery of course content can, in many cases, be accomplished in a variety of environments, depending on the student’s learning style. That said, I don’t think there is a substitute for a rich live class that engages students with their instructor and their peers. I say this as someone who has taught at a cc for the last 20+ years and who has 10 years on online teaching experience. I have also had the chance to observe the growth of my own children from experiencing a quality educational experience at a selective admissions school. Like thumper1, I think it was money well spent. </p>
<p>It’s going to be an interesting decade ahead as the variety of educational experiences expands, but it won’t be without some bumps in the road.</p>
<p>2VU0609
Your argument assumes that the 4 year brick and mortar unis offer ‘a rich live class that engages the student.’ This is just not always the case. Too often my kids have had to sit and listen to a teacher promote their particular political agenda (often pro-socialism) instead of actually teach the course material. </p>
<p>Or they have taken classes taught by a teacher that was very hard to understand due to the fact that English was not that person’s first language and they had a very strong accent. You can’t have much class discussion when you can hardly understand the teacher. </p>
<p>So in the real world, credit by examination classes or online classes may be the better option. Maybe not always, but certainly sometimes.</p>
<p>How many parents refuse to support their kids in any college venture (even signing forms)? At our school it’s probably 5 +/- per year (graduating class of roughly 300, but not all are college bound capable). It’s definitely sad when it happens.</p>
<p>Clep and similar programs are good for the student (of any age) who simply wants “a” degree to check a box - often needed for advancement or to get some jobs that don’t actually use the degree, but require one anyway. Coupled with lower level colleges that accept these credits, they are a viable option for some students.</p>
<p>Know your student and their future goal before deciding if these are good options, and if so, how many.</p>
<p>Bookreader and 2VU remind us that School A is not equal to School B. It is good to do ones homework checking out colleges (and classes) before applying to them. All can be “right” for the right student (right fit). Many can be not worth a dime to the “wrong” student.</p>
<p>bookreader,
Your points are well taken. Higher education is not one size fits all. Some content that is straightforward, such as a class in medical terminology may be best dealt with via online instruction or a test. Other classes, such as an ethics class, would be best taught in the live classroom with an engaged student population. Each situation depends on the content, the student population, and the instructor, so you are correct that a live class would be inhibited by an instructor with language issues. </p>
<p>Most public institutions are finding themselves more reliant on tuition revenue as state funding drops. This can lead to an aggressive move by administrators to expand the student population through more and more online classes taught by adjuncts who don’t have the experience to guide online instruction. I think it will be interesting to see if MOOCs taught by long term faculty who are considered experts in their field will lead to a new online model with improved content delivery and support from teaching assistants as compared to the “any warm body” model that is widely used now to staff classes and ensure maximum enrollment.</p>
<p>S took Clep chemistry over break and passed after three weeks of very intense studying including watching many on line lectures. He was getting worried about fitting it in his schedule at school and was looking at taking it over the summer. His thought was even if he didn’t pass he would gain knowledge that would make it easier to pass the regular class later on. Well, he did pass, now he doesn’ have to worry about taking it. He did check with his school first and they are giving him 10 credit hours. Not bad for $100 and three weeks of work.</p>
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<p>I don’t know why you don’t think that folks on CC know this. It may not be what they want for their kids, that’s all.</p>
<p>I mean, I don’t “need to understand” that most families don’t vacation in Europe either for me to decide that I’d like to have my family go there. What the masses of people do or don’t do just isn’t all that relevant to me in my decision-making one way or the other.</p>
<p>My comments were related to the original post, which included information on a non-traditional path for college credit. As you say, discussion of this type of education is not relevant to your own decision-making, but may be helpful to others.</p>
<p>Wanted to add that some schools take up to 45 credits in CLEP’s. And CLEP’s are accepted by 2,900 colleges and universities. They are a great way to get through some distribution requirements at low cost.</p>