Notes

In this lecture, we will discuss the true hidden cost of college that no one ever thinks about.

When you look at universities, chances are you only look at your degree price but what if I told you the degree price is less than 40% of your actual cost no matter how expensive the degree is?
If you spend 4-6 years in school, that's 4-6 years of work or $160,000-$240,000 that you would be missing out on if you made around $40,000 a year working.
In most places across the country, people live paycheck to paycheck and while you already know this, I must emphasize how hard it really is to get out of debt.
So let's truly cover the real cost of college.
For each year you are in school you are spending loads on your rent and degree and many other things like cars, eating out, and necessities.

This could easily add up to more than $50,000 a year but it will likely be reduced by aid so let's say $33,000.
If you include the fact that for each year in school, you are missing out on working which is around $40,000 that you are throwing away.

Now. If you spend 5 years in college, the true cost would be in the hundreds of thousands. Also remember that resume gaps could be problematic in your career if it's big. This is why our goal is to save you as much time as possible because time is really money. Be aware of what you miss out on by staying an extra year in college. The extra interest is not worth it because the longer you wait to pay back loans, the more impossible it gets.
---------------
Sophia Learning is a unique online course website. By now you probably know that any exam you take with the services we've mentioned will have to be proctored... but Sophia Learning does not have live proctoring so you can take any course anywhere and get college credit.

Their courses are easy and user friendly and for just under $80 monthly, it's no wonder why this is such a great economical choice. There is no limit on how many you can take within the monthly period. If you complete 6 courses within a month at 3 credits each, that would be 18 credit hours for under $80. This equates to around $4.5 per college credit. If the average tuition cost is around $500 per credit hour. That would be a savings of more than 11,000%. Let me repeat. That is a savings of 11,000%. A remarkable difference.

With more than 30 different courses from History to Economics, it's definitely worth giving Sophia a try. Remember that you can complete as many as you want within the month span. Many of our students have completed many courses in a single day.

Sophia courses transfer to countless universities and here's a tip... if you are going to attend multiple universities and one university accepts Sophia and the other one doesn't, transfer it anyways. We can not tell you how many times we have encourages students to transfer something in that was not officially accepted.

In the previous 30 inquiries where we told students about this, 7 of the 30 said they received credit for the course. This equates to around 25%.
We are not telling you to complete a course if you are at just one university and they tell you it will not transfer.
What we are saying is if you have already completed exams and are considering different universities, it never hurts to send the transcript.

Also keep in mind that with universities, their grace period after filling out an application can very. For some it's a few months and others a full year. It truly varies. If you are at one school and considering switching to another school because statistically, more than 1 in 4 students do it, then you want to send schools that you apply to your test scores no matter if they accept it or not.





Their websites are updated by humans and we all know. Humans are prone to error.


We're going to tell you everything you need to know about transferring credit later in the course along with countless other things.
_________

Study.com is like costco of the methods we're going to discuss. They literally have everything.
From college courses, which they have hundreds to choose from, to study materials for virtually any subject, to home school assistance... you name it ... Study.com has it.

College Accelerator, which we'll discuss is Study.com's college credit program where you can take online courses for credit to hundreds of universities.

With more than 200 courses in numerous subjects including upper and lower level, Study.com has a vast database to help you reach your goals.
While not limited to this, Study.com has preparation for the following exams:
DSST
CLEP
Accuplacer
Military
SAT
ACT
GRE
Teacher Certification
SO MUCH MORE....

The fee is $200 monthly and while Study.com says it's flat rate. It's better to clarify like this.
$200 per month only covers two proctored exams free of cost. You can take up to 3 extra proctored exams however it would be an additional $70 per exam.




You can take as many courses as you want, but the number of final exams are limited to 5 each month.

The courses and quizzes are easy to complete as they are based on the lecture. Be careful on your quizzes as too many failed attempts can be permanent.

Once again, the max number of proctored exams you can take is 5 a month with the cost being $410. Doing the math, $82 is still an amazing price per exam.

When you go to the college accelerator section on the study.com website, you will notice that there are partner universities. This means that you can receive discounts if you transfer in study.com courses. We've had a student take one course on study.com, transfer it in, and get a 30% discount on their tuition cost.

Be sure to confirm the course on study.com with your college academic advisor.

Remember: Just because Study.com has a course as 300 level doesn't mean universities will transfer it in as that.

Transcripts can be sent from Study.com or Credly's Acclaim.
___-------

Saylor academy offers FREE courses for college credit along with tons of study materials. In operations since 2008, Saylor academy offers nearly 100 courses in the college and professional sector.

Although you will have to pay small proctoring fees, their study guides are extremely helpful not only for Saylor materials, but for other courses as well. For instance, Saylor Academy has an art course. If you are taking art class at college, you could still sign up for saylor academy free of charge, and get the final exam study guide to help you study for your exam in college since the content is similar.

There are numerous subjects.... from computer science to business law to leadership.

Getting started on Saylor is relatively simple. All you need to do is register and take a course. Make sure your university accepts said course for credit. The URL is saylor.org/credit. Once you finish, study and take the final exam. The final exam must be proctored.

In this part of the lecture, we will discuss exam proctors. So by now you know that you're likely going to take some exams online from your own home. There are many proctoring companies. Two notable examples would be P S I and ProctorU. The fees vary but are generally under 50$ and some course providers subsidize the cost with their course. These proctored exams are done through a proprietary software that you install on your browser. When getting ready for a proctored exam, remove distractions from your room, have your camera and microphone ready, and follow instructions to take the exam. Its easier than you think if you simple pretend you are in a college classroom.
We do encourage you to study well for any exam. If you fail an exam, you must pay proctoring fees for the second attempt.
We do not recommend you ever cheat as cheating with this has major consequences. If you are caught, not only could it fail your exam, it could be reported to universities. The proctoring service will likely prohibit you from taking any more exams which would be detrimental.
--------------
StraighterLine has been around for over a decade and it is unique in that it provides free college level ebooks for it's courses if applicable. The average course is around $59 although prices can be higher or lower.

Their courses are easy and user friendly and in order to take one, it comprises of a membership. You pay $99 monthly for the base fee and you can take as many exams as you please., it's no wonder why this is such a great economical choice. There is no limit on how many you can take within the monthly period. If you complete 6 courses within a month at 3 credits each, that would be 18 credit hours for under $500.

With more than 30 different courses from History to Economics, it's definitely worth giving StraighterLine a try. Remember that you can complete as many as you want within the month span. Many of our students have completed many courses in a single week.

StraighterLine courses transfer to over 1 thousand universities and here's a reminder tip... if you are going to attend multiple universities and one accepts StraighterLine and the other one doesn't, still transfer it. We can not tell you how many times we have encouraged students to transfer something that was not officially accepted.

It never hurts to send the transcript.

So what do you need to do to get started?
Simple. Register and pay the monthly fee and you are now ready to start courses, study and pass the exam.
We've said it countless times. If you have an exam in Biology at your university and you need additional study material, you can use the methods that we used to study from there too. This simply means that you don't use the method to test but to study. Similar to study.com.
_________________________
How should you take the test and recommended speed?

The first thing you must do when taking the test is get to ALL questions. The number one mistake test makers make is not answering all the questions because they focus their time on a few difficult questions. One tip for you: Every exam you take will likely have pre test questions. These questions may be vastly different from the rest with one goal: to see how well students perform on the question as it could likely be used in a future test. These questions are almost always never scored.

So when it comes to recommended speed, always get through every question before you start detailed reviews of them. We recommend 1.2 minutes per question on average but of course you will need to change this to quit your specific exam. If the time allows, distribute more time but always make time for studying.
Here is an example:
70 questions and 100 minutes to complete them.
1 minute per question so 70 minutes in total and 30 minutes for studying.

If a question is difficult, what should you do?
Skip it and come back to it. There are times where a question leads to the answer for another question. If you are not sure of an answer, do not mark it unless you are low on time. This is so you don't have to worry about second guessing.
Our final recommendation is to write on your scratch paper, if you are given one or allowed one, all the notes you've studied. This is helpful because you are creating a mini guide from the knowledge you remember. Not only does this help with your overall score, it is less stressful taking the exam.


__________
By now, you are familiar with the testing and while we still have many more lessons to go, we would like to discuss the process more in detail.

Now not every school accepts every exam we've mentioned but the statistics show, more than 95% accept at least one method we've mentioned but this goes for just testing... we've covered plenty of non testing items as well. Not only this, most schools have their own testing system which we will call department exams. You see, you take a final exam when you're finished with a class but there are countless schools that allow you to take an exam similar to this to exempt a class. If it is not clear on your school website, ask a professor or the dean if there is a university departmental exam in place where you can take exams to exempt courses at your school.

There have been cases where students proficient in subjects have simply been able to take the final exam and be exempted from all other class obligations.

Now since this is unique school by school, it would be impossible to give a price but it is generally less than $100. With all things considered, less than $100 per exam is extremely cheap. That's 80 or so days that you don't have to be in class. Gas money you're saving and so much more.
Always consider departmental exams.



Now this includes this video bundle. We hope you learned a lot of information from it.