College at Home

Basic Info | After High School

There are two basic ways to obtain a college degree at home: 1) enroll in an external degree program that allows life experience and testing to count towards a degree, or 2) take courses through an online degree program. The first two sections below offer information and guidance on both these methods. The last section lists some college and home-related companies where HEAV members receive a discount.

EXTERNAL DEGREE
If you're not in college because you can't afford it, or if you're there but struggling with finances, or you could borrow the money but don't want to graduate with a college loan the size of the national debt, despair no more. You can actually earn a Bachelor's degree, from scratch, for less than $1000, and even do it while working full-time. The learning will still take a lot of hard work, but time and money are no longer your obstacles.

In the 1970's, a few people recognized a problem in the field of education and decided to act. They saw that there were many adults who had acquired the same knowledge as college graduates, through their jobs and self-study, but had no credentials to prove it.

Back then, the only way to prove you had the knowledge of a college graduate was to spend the time and money to take the classes and earn a degree the conventional way. And you had to take these classes, even if you knew more about the subjects than the person teaching them! Unfortunately, many of these adults, most with families, simply could not afford the tuition, even with financial aid. And some who could afford the tuition couldn't afford the time away from work and family.

Many valiant people have struggled through to finish their degrees just one class at a time, while their families suffered with them. But if they already knew the material, they shouldn't have had to! Well, some visionaries in the position to do something about it became committed to the idea that it shouldn't matter where or how students acquire their knowledge. If their knowledge is the same as that of college graduates, then they should be entitled to the same recognition, the college degree, without having to waste years of time and tens of thousands of dollars attending classes they didn't need. Now, even teenagers can take advantage of these programs.

Efficient and economical college degree programs, with full regional accreditation, are now in full operation. These programs, which have made accredited degrees available to everyone, are the "external" degree programs currently offered by two different colleges. A few other schools have adopted some of their policies, but not completely. The factor which can make these programs so incredibly inexpensive is their acceptance of nationally standardized test scores in lieu of conventional classroom credit.

Excelsior College in New York and Charter Oak State College in Connecticut are the schools that have come to the rescue of American higher education. Don't be concerned if you don't live in those States, because you can complete their degrees without ever going there (Excelsior, although it is part of the University of the State of New York, doesn't even have a campus). Indeed, you can even complete them while living overseas. But these are definitely NOT correspondence courses. And you will have to learn as much as you would if you did take classes at a conventional college program.

Certify Knowledge Using Standardized Testing
The name "external" means that you gain your knowledge without their help. A school with an external program confers degrees on students it has not taught directly. You learn, and certify your knowledge, and Excelsior or Charter Oak State College will then evaluate your record. If you need more credits, they will tell you exactly which ones you still need. When you have enough, they will award you the degree you have earned.

How do you certify your knowledge? It depends on how you acquired it, but this is the area of the big, money-saving breakthrough. If you've earned some credit at a regionally accredited college or university, all you have to do is have them forward a transcript. But if you've learned on your own, you can certify your knowledge by taking a nationally standardized test such as a GRE, CLEP, ACT/PEP, or AP in that subject. Of course, each school has minimum scores you must make on these exams before they will grant credit for them. But there are now over 100 subjects in which there are standardized tests available.

Backgrounds of Excelsior and Charter Oak State Colleges
Excelsior College was founded in 1970 by the New York State Board of Regents, who govern the entire state's educational system, as part of the University of the State of New York (USNY). In addition to its degree program, it has created nationally standardized tests in numerous subjects.

Charter Oak State College was established in 1973 by the Connecticut Legislature and put under the control of Connecticut's Board for State Academic Awards.

Though these schools had small beginnings and grew slowly at first, they have now conferred over 50,000 degrees, and are growing more rapidly. In 2002, Charter Oak State College had an enrollment of about 1,500 students, while Excelsior had around 15,000 students. People from every state in the union and from many foreign countries have earned their degrees from these institutions. As these colleges become better known, and tuition at the conventional schools continue to rise, their enrollment is certain to continue its climb.

The list of available majors rivals the selection at many universities. At Charter Oak State College and Excelsior College, you can currently earn an Associate or Bachelor degree from a selection of more than thirty concentrations. You may also develop a specialized concentration, if none of the standard programs fit your goals.

Not all of these degrees can be completed entirely through standardized exams, but many can. In those that cannot be completed entirely by exams, you can still earn most of the necessary hours that way. These schools can change their programs at any time of course, so get their latest catalogs and read them carefully.

Another college, Thomas Edison State College, also has an external degree program, but they do not award credit for the GRE exams, which are the most economical.

Resources

Colleges
Excelsior College Request a catalog, either Liberal Arts, Business, Nursing, or Technology. 1-518-464-8500.
Charter Oak State College 55 Paul J. Manafort Drive, New Britain, CT 06053-2150. 860-832-3855. www.charteroak.edu

Standardized Examination Programs
GRE (15 Subjects) Graduate Record Examinations: Ask for the free Information and Registration Bulletin. Call 1-609-771-7670, M-F 8:30 a.m.-9:45 p.m., EST.

CLEP (29 Subjects; 5 General Exams) College-Level Examination Program 1-800-323-7155 and 1-717-348-9288. Ask for Making Learning Pay with CLEP. Also, buy The Official Handbook for the CLEP Examinations ($18).

ACT-PEP (42 Subjects, known as Regents Exams in New York State). American College Testing Proficiency Examination Program 1-319-337-1000. Ask for Preparing to Do Your Best on the ACT-PEP Examinations and Candidate Registration Guide.

AP (28 Subjects) Advanced Placement Program. Contact local high-school counselors.

ONLINE DEGREE
Colleges across the nation offer online degree programs. Much like a typical college program, these programs require completion of a certain number of courses in order to obtain a degree. But unlike a typical college program, all courses in online programs can be done from the home via the Internet.

To find out more information or research possible degree plans, try searching the Internet for “Online Degree Programs.” You should find numerous listings of programs offered.

HEAV MEMBER DISCOUNTS
HEAV members receive discounts on the following college at home resources:

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