Specialized Knowledge or College Education

A young adult (or anyone) should not go to college to find themselves. They should go to college because they know what they want to do and they know they need a college degree to complete that or enhance that objective. A college degree will not necessarily hurt you but if you do not know what you want to do - they are not necessarily going to help you either.
It won't be like you take one calculus class and discover that you love math. You might find that you are good at math but do you want to utilize that knowledge as your life long means of providing an income? Maybe you are good at math but love carpentry. A college educated journeyman carpenter will not be any better or worse than any other journeyman carpenter. The college educated one will be just four to five years older and most likely $50,000 to $70,000 indebt from college expenses.

Keep in mind also that the normal first two years of nearly every undergraduate college now is a repeat of high school anyway. So I encourage all to have your children take CLEP exams as soon as they complete their high school class. An example might be biology. Once your child completes high school biology have then sign up and take the CLEP exam for biology. That way if the college they plan on attending takes CLEP credits (most will take at least 9 some will take up to 70) - they will show college credit for that class and they don't have to take it again (or pay for the class).

So high school biology = college biology 101, CLEP costs $75 roughly to take, college class costs $1000 to take. Wonder why the colleges don't publicize this?

Some colleges will give credit for life experience - if you go on a mission trip for instance to Russia and your child can write a paper and compile a portfolio regarding the experience and the interaction - they could possibly find a class in the college class catalog (something like Russian Culture or similarly) in which their paper/portfolio demonstrates that they mastered the topic and again - they get credit for the class and these normally run in the $100 to $200 range instead of the $1000 range. Most colleges will let you demonstrate life experience out of at least 6 credits some as many as 50.

Add up the CLEP (70) and life experience (50) you have your bachelors in liberal arts complete and you didn't pay any tuition.

From the CLEP and life experience knowledge alone - you might want to contact your local community college and see how many CLEP credits or life experience credits they accept. Because you might be able to finish high school with an associates in liberal arts for nothing more than the cost of the CLEP exams and no extra work.

This alone would be worth investigating locally because again it won't be like you spent two extra years getting this completed and at the same time - it won't be like this would look bad on your resume either. And even if they require you to take a course or two - you apply for early entry at a substantially reduced cost (usually about 1/3rd the normal tuition. Again not a highly advertised program either.

As I stated earlier except for the above example (where you get your associates degree while getting your high school diploma) - you should only attend college if you need to.

And the way you do this is work your way backwards. Start at what the end objective is to be. Let's use a lawyer as an example: a popular profession which does not require that you have a law degree - only that you pass the bar exam - however the law degree does help you pass the bar. Let's say you want to specialize in constitutional law. You find the law schools with the best track record for constitutional law and find out what their requirements for entry are - most require a bachelors degree from an accredited higher learning institution. From this you might have two or three law schools targeted and one fall back school and you will have the budget of expense necessary to complete this.

Seems simple enough, but what is the track record for the undergraduate schools getting you into that particularly law school or that particularly specialization of law? Again similarly you will have two or three targeted schools and a fall back school along with the cost necessary. But you will also be able to research the CLEP and life experience policy of each of those schools and this would greatly influence the cost and the time to complete. Maybe you already have your associates and then you can start right into your core classes.

However the CLEP and life experience credit might bring one school to the fore-front that you did not previously consider. Maybe you can CLEP some more core class credits or life experience them as well. If you can test out of your first two plus years of college - you are now less than two years away from going to law school instead of four years away.

From the undergraduate list you can compile the number of CLEP, SAT, ACT, LSAT, MOUSE, etc that you need to take in high school and begin studying for each of those (I do recommend that you take test/exam courses - they are usually worth the cost - instead of repeating some of the exams). It is best to take the CLEP right after you complete the course while the material is fresh in your mind. The CLEP credits are good for 20 years. So it is a good idea to take the classes even if you are not planning on going to college - just so you can avoid the expense later, should you decide to go to college later in life.

I know of one person who tested and life experienced out of all but two classes for a bachelors in history degree. One story I heard was an 18 year old home-schooler who took CLEP exams and was able to complete his Bachelors in Accounting degree and the CPA by the time he was 21. His younger brother saw that his older brother took those exams (and knew that his older brother was not this brilliant student) and thought if he can do it I can do it. And started taking the CLEP exams at 14. The younger brother was able to complete his bachelors in accounting and take the CPA when he was 17.

In both of the accounting cases - you can literally do the math. Take the 17 year old CPA. Would you rather have your taxes done by a 22 or 23 year old fresh out of college accountant or would you rather have them done by a 22 or 23 year old accountant with 5 years of accounting experiences?

The old "cost" model by brick and mortar institutions is going to be busted soon. The costs are just too high - time and money. Repeating high school classes - nothing more than collecting money for things you already know - they are not teaching you anything new.

Online institutions are the ones that are going to bust the cost & time model. With their lower costs and quicker times to graduation - the B&M schools with stadium and political expenses will have to develop the lower cost options just to compete. In a microwave, I want now society - fives years will not be the preferential choice over two years & less than half the cost and done.