I’ve recently been in touch with an admissions director at AIU Online. In order to go for my bachelors through them, I need to have already completed my associates because their school year starts on the junior level, not the freshmen level that I was previously assuming. The problem is, she only could really crunch the numbers for me – I want to talk to someone in the visual communications department and really learn some more about the actual course itself.
It’s going to cost me about $32,000 to get my bachelors through them, that counts for the entire course and includes books, software and other things. She claims it’d be smart to stick with them when it comes to the associates degree because it’s only going to take me about 10-15 weeks tops. The issue I have with that is, how am I going to come up with the $19,500 to take the Associates and then another $32,000 to take the bachelors all within maybe 5 months of each other. It’s also 90 credits in 15 weeks that makes no real sense to me, that’s borderline killing myself just to get the damn degree.
I could just go to Penn Foster and get that taken care of for $4,000 but I also have to factor in that at the end of each semester I need to take a proctored exam and I don’t know ANYONE down here that has the minimum of an associates degree that could help me out in that regard. So when it comes to that alone – AIU is looking much better.
Either way I’m going to be completing the degree through AIU, I need to get my ID’s taken care of to reposition me down here because any scholarship, grant or financial aid that I file for needs to be sent down here and I don’t have any current proof of residence other than my WAMU account being sent down here and my casino mailers coming here as well. If I spent $50 to register to live in the complex, I’m sure that’ll count for something as well. Either way I consider myself screwed just when things were starting to go well for me.
Don’t you hate when that happens? I’m currently looking into attending two different universities for this upcoming September. By then I will be moved, so I have more options as far as school goes. I try and weigh the pros and cons the best I can but I’m still undecided.
As far as proctoring goes, can’t you just get a local teacher or professor to do that for you? That’s what I did, but we have a ‘department’ so to to speak that helps you find one if you don’t know anyone.
Good luck with getting the money–I’m sure theres lots of scholarships and loans available to you. After you get your degree you’ll have a lot more opportunities.