Heard of CollegePlus?

[Liberty]

Has anyone heard of "CollegePlus!"? My mother is thinking about using it with my brother, but to me it sounds like a bit of a scam.

http://www.collegeplus.org/

Supposedly the average student who uses this program graduates with a BA in two years for $15,000. Sounds sketchy...

[General Zod]

I can't find anything about their accreditation on their website. That's a bit of a red flag.

[Enigma]

Link to their accreditation.

It does smell fishy but who knows?

[General Zod]

Link to their accreditation.

It does smell fishy but who knows?

Read the page more carefully. It doesn't actually say who they're accredited with.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Has anyone heard of "CollegePlus!"? My mother is thinking about using it with my brother, but to me it sounds like a bit of a scam.

http://www.collegeplus.org/

Supposedly the average student who uses this program graduates with a BA in two years for $15,000. Sounds sketchy...

Given that it's aimed directly at the sort of Christian who believes that "secular" is a dirty word, it ought to be setting off the sorts of alarm bells commonly reserved for things like "the nuclear reactor is melting down" or "the field strength of the antimatter containment vessel looks a bit off." At least for secular, rational folks.

Turning off those alarms for a moment: The program cuts off two years through the simple expedient of having the student test out of the "core" curriculum stuff that makes up the first half of most liberal arts BA degrees. They do this through CLEP testing and DSST Which is fine if someone enrolling in this program is going for a liberal arts BA or business degree, and one manages to enroll in a school which will accept the pile of tests for college credit. For students seeking to pursue more strenuous degrees, it's about the same as going to community college first . . . again, subject to the caveat that the actual college that the student ends up attending will accept test results in lieu of completion of actual coursework.

Turning the alarms back on: The schools that this program feed into are the sorts of online-learning places who do accept test results in lieu of coursework. To the point of absurdity. These are the places whose accreditation you must examine. Which one can do here. That is the accreditation for the school this program links to.

[Liberty]

Given that it's aimed directly at the sort of Christian who believes that "secular" is a dirty word, it ought to be setting off the sorts of alarm bells commonly reserved for things like "the nuclear reactor is melting down" or "the field strength of the antimatter containment vessel looks a bit off." At least for secular, rational folks.

Yes. But it's confusing me, because even as it uses Christian words and includes some religious courses, it actually looks credible besides this, but something is telling me it can't be.

Basically, if you go through the program, you will, via CLEP tests, online courses, and a few actual college courses (depending on your program), actually graduate with a real four year degree from Thomas Edison State College in New Jersey, which is apparently a real state college with real accreditation, that happens to specialize in online education (and possibly also has an actual campus - I'm unsure). And they claim this takes the average student two years to do, and that it will cost $15,000 total.

So is it, in spite of the Christian language, legitimate (at least as online degrees go? or possibly more so?)?

One concern I have is the price. The state school I attended for my BA only cost like $6000 a year for in state tuition, for up to 18 credit hours, so why not just take whatever CLEP or AP tests you can take and then go somewhere like that for, say, three years to get a real degree? I suppose maybe the reason is living expenses, whereas CollegePlus you can do from home. Still, the price feels iffy to me.

My mom asked me for my advice on it. She's really swayed by the fact that Patrick Henry College, Vision Forum, and Bob Jones University all really recommend it highly. These are all ultra fundy institutions, in case there was any question. However, I can't tell her that their advice here is not actually a recommendation, but should instead make someone run from this program, because she trusts them completely.

I told my mom that I would recommend her having my brother take AP tests, etc, to test out of a bunch of the general credits, and then actually send him to college when he's 18, where he'll have a leg up and either be able to graduate early or double major. But I wish I could tell her more, because it still seems like this must be a gimmick and I'm looking for the catch. Not really finding it yet, though.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The problem is that they aren't a college, Liberty. They're an organization which exists to give CLEP tests and then direct you to a real college which accepts CLEP tests as being the equivalent of having completed the classes in question. In short, they charge you thousands of dollars to administer tests which you can take yourself at a university for hundreds, presumably after studying for them on a glorified crib sheet which you could do just as easily on your own. Then they pocket the profit from that and enroll you in an out of state school which butchers you for two years of out-of-state public tuition and you graduate with a GPA only reflecting your last two years of classes.

[Hawkwings]

Tell her that getting a degree doesn't mean you've learned anything. Learning is the most important thing you do in school, not getting a piece of paper.

Not to mention that a degree from (insert any other school here) would be worth more. Go for a good state flagship, if nothing else.

Besides, do you really want to go to a school where low price is one of their selling points? I mean, shouldn't quality education be a major selling point?

[Mayabird]

Tell her that getting a degree doesn't mean you've learned anything. Learning is the most important thing you do in school, not getting a piece of paper.

Not to mention that a degree from (insert any other school here) would be worth more. Go for a good state flagship, if nothing else.

Besides, do you really want to go to a school where low price is one of their selling points? I mean, shouldn't quality education be a major selling point?

You have to remember though: her parents are super-serious fundies and they may very well not let any of Liberty's sisters go to college since she went off to school and then deconverted (and they don't even know about the atheist part - they think she went Catholic and that fear may be enough to forbid college for the rest)! They don't want learning that would contradict any of their beliefs.

So, this plan looks like a scheme for them to try to keep the boys out of the evil corrupting colleges as much as possible to protect their souls while still getting a college degree so they can get jobs, as far as I can tell. And anyway, how would this be cheaper than just sending them to some local Bible college or one of the fundie universities? Not the best solution, I know, but there is still the possibility of being exposed to interpretations/analyses of the Bible that differ from their own and meeting people of (slightly) differing beliefs.