I recently received my transfer credit report and trying to figure out how many years I will be at Columbia. I’m a vet using my Post 9/11 G.I Bill, so I’m trying to budget and plan to see what my costs will be out-of-pocket. I am interested in taking Summer courses to speed up my progress. If I manage to balance between 15-18 credits a semester, I can graduate in three years. Does anyone have any recommendations as far as perhaps taking on more coursework, summer classes, etc to speed up my process so I can be done in around two years? Keep in mind that I plan on interning while studying; I just want to mitigate running out of G.I benefits before I can finish my degree.
Honestly, transfer credits are stringent.
I had 36 credits coming in, and only 21 were accepted. This is because they believe in the core cirriculum at Columbia. With that being said, classes that Columbia has already evaluated and determined to be sufficent, are usually accepted in the electives spots and there are forms one may provide to Columbia in order to challenge why a class you took deserves credit for core cirriculum. This is very difficult and hardly is accepted.
You want to take 124 credits over a course of 2 years? That’s 20.6 credits per semester (including summer) and the G.I. Bill + Yellow Ribbon + Pell Grant will nearly cover 12 credits per semester (not counting summer.)
Columbia has a good financial cost analysis to explain the # of credits taken and the cost to a Veteran out of pocket. I believe at 15 credits per semester you are paying $3-5,000 a year in tuition. Once again, the price increases as course workload increases. You would be looking at over $55,000 a year when taking over 17 credits a semester. Approximately $41,500 of which would be covered without further financial aid. Leaving you to pay out of pocket for summer semester plus another $12,500 a year.