Life Experience Degree Programs... Real or Hoax? (bachelor's, computer science, skills)

[SashaBlue]

My husband recently received information regarding an online life experience degree from Ashford University. Has anyone heard of this? Is it a real Bachelor's degree or a hoax? The deal is that based on his work experience, he could earn a degree in his field. The website says it is a legitimate degree. The cost is around $600. Just curious, does anyone have one of these degrees?

[Travel'r]

Read this:

My Ashford University Experience : Why a Life Credit Degree Can Ruin You: Exposing a Mill

[GracieJJ]

Simple advice.

If its not ACCREDITED!! walk away..

[MissShona]

Originally Posted by SashaBlue

My husband recently received information regarding an online life experience degree from Ashford University. Has anyone heard of this? Is it a real Bachelor's degree or a hoax? The deal is that based on his work experience, he could earn a degree in his field. The website says it is a legitimate degree. The cost is around $600. Just curious, does anyone have one of these degrees?

I looked up the university (wikipedia article is Ashford University - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ). The school is accredited -- although the "history" is a little bit "jumbled" (schools that merged, being brought out by a for-profit corporation) I would check to see if the individual programs themselves have any professional accreditation. Many bona-fide schools (online and brick-and-mortar) will offer credit for life/work experiences. However, they will ask for a portfolio and/or defense of the knowledge you know and have your skills evaluated that way.

The price sounds really, really low. Are you sure that isn't the cost per credit hour?

[jessiegirl_98]

Originally Posted by SashaBlue

My husband recently received information regarding an online life experience degree from Ashford University. Has anyone heard of this? Is it a real Bachelor's degree or a hoax? The deal is that based on his work experience, he could earn a degree in his field. The website says it is a legitimate degree. The cost is around $600. Just curious, does anyone have one of these degrees?

$600 for a degree? That would be a degree mill which is not legitimate. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

[GreenMachine]

I really hate it when colleges give degrees to people based on "life experience." I don't understand why they do this or why people even accept those sort of degrees.

[ggjacobsen]

Originally Posted by GracieJJ

Simple advice.

If its not ACCREDITED!! walk away..

Ashford's business degrees are not accredited by AACSB. That is the only accreditation that matters (North Central not enough).

[MissShona]

Originally Posted by GreenMachine

I really hate it when colleges give degrees to people based on "life experience." I don't understand why they do this or why people even accept those sort of degrees.

I don't see why this bothers you so much. Steve Jobs (one of the founders of Apple and current CEO) was a college drop-out. Surely, what he knows and what he has done is equivalent to any undergraduate computer science/engineering or business program. The point of giving credit on the basis of life experience is not to waive requirements or make it easier to get a degree. The point is to fully recognize that value knowledge and skills may be acquired outside of a classroom via a variety of methods. In all cases, this knowledge or skill set must be equivalent to college-level work.

I am enrolled in a program that accepts life experience for credit, but I don't think I will take advantage of it. It's actually hard work; you have to find a course (or courses) that would be the equivalent of what you know and then compile a portfolio of your licenses, work or documentation that you actually know what you do. Then you need to submit that to the department chair of whatever area (or areas) the experience falls in...and then defend as necessary. For example, if you are a licensed police officer, you could probably try for credits in sociology, criminal science or even political science classes.

[recycled]

When I first enrolled at San Francisco State University in the early 1970s, I was able to take several CLEP (college level examination program) tests to be awarded college credits equal to about a semester's worth of freshman year undergraduate classes like english, math and history. I also got 6 units of Spanish language credit because I speak Spanish and took a challenge exam for foreign language credit. This allowed me to skip several of the freshman required classes and move on to more interesting subjects sooner than I would have otherwise.

I think many colleges and universities still allow or accept challenge exams for credit towards undergrad required classes. It's a good idea so freshman undergrads who are more advanced don't have to spend their college tuition to take a bunch of required freshman year classes that they really don't need.

However, the whole idea of having a non-accredited diploma mill look at a person's work history and simply try to turn career experience into a complete college degree strikes a nerve with me. It is simply too arbitrary and subjective. It negates one of the main objectives of a college education, which is for a person to demonstrate that they can attend classes and successfully learn new materials and complete assignments and projects. A person's GPA is a measurement of their success in that structured learning environment compared to other students taking a similar course of study. That's the whole purpose of attending an accredited university that follows widely recognized academic standards.

[collegeblogger]

Many reputable colleges and universities allow you to earn credit for life experience... but no reputable college or university is going to give you an entire degree based solely on life experience.

Many well-known schools, for example the University of Massachusetts and the University of Wisconsin, offer some sort of credit for life experience... but there is ALWAYS a cap on the number of "alternative" credit hours you can apply toward your degree.

This is a topic that is frequently talked about on my blog... I also list 10 reputable schools that offer "some" credit for life experience. Sometimes there's so much work involved it's just easier to take the real classes!!

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