Millionaire greetings from steamy Merida, Yucatan. We’re currently on a five-month adventure in Mexico with plans of traveling to Campeche, Chiapas, and Quintana Roo. (Obviously, this is having a negative effect on my blogging productivity!
Before we hit our FIRE number, we were Travel Rewards Millionaires. Here are the referral links for the credit cards we currently use:
My Experiment Ends On April 4th, 2022, I took and passed my last CLEP exam, the College Composition Modular exam. After completing the exam, I decided to end my credit-acquisition experiment in order to focus on helping my son earn his college degree. Naturally, he intends to earn his degree by using some sort of alternative-degree path.
All in all, I was 19 for 19 on my CLEP exams; I passed them all! Overall, my credit-by-exam batting average is 1,000% (20 for 20) since I also passed a DSST test way back in 2011. Here are the CLEP exams that I took:
My CLEP Transcript: 19 for 19!
Full disclosure: I chickened out on the College Mathematics CLEP exam since I don’t remember anything about math. Bawk, bawk!
My Final Transcript
If you read the first two posts of this series (#1 & #2), you know that I earned years of college in a very short time. How many college credits did I earn? How fast was I able to earn these credits? Allow this table to do the talking:
Doing the Impossible: 5.5 Years of College in 5 Months
Total Costs
Unfortunately, my credit-acquisition experiment was not cost-free; it set me back a whopping $714. In other words, my 5.5 years of college cost about $130 per year of college ($714 / 5.5 years). Here’s a look at the costs for this experiment:
Total Costs for 5.5 Years of College via Alternative Methods
Final Thoughts
Ka-boom! Now, that’s how you hack some college credit! Of course, many of you are probably wondering why a FIREe in his 50’s would waste his time, money, and energy accumulating college credit that he has no plan of ever using.
There are two main reasons I did this. First, I wanted to explore some alt-ed options for my son. I’m happy to report that there are a ton of cost-effective ways to earn college credit. Second, I won’t hide from the fact that I’m tired of watching young adults ruin their financial futures by signing up for student loans. To. Hell. With. That!
I hope my credit-acquisition experiment inspires some of you to develop your own cost-effective alt-ed path. If you like this post, please share it with someone who might benefit from this information. Thanks for reading!
Yours in excessive college credit,
Gerry
Next Post: Back to School #4: If I Wanted Another College Degree…
Useful Resources: Companies and Services that We Actually Use (Lots of affiliate links here!)
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This is good information for our sons. One of them asked – did you get a degree? If so, what was the degree and who did you go through? If not, is it because you are not able to find an accredited university that will honor your work and give you the degree you’ve earned?
Greetings Boy Mom,
For the record, I did not get another degree because at age 59.5 I’m tired of chasing certificates, diplomas, and degrees. However, if I did want to suck it up and go for another degree, I would enroll in Excelsior University and complete the requirements for a Bachelor of Science in Liberal Arts degree. That won’t happen anytime soon because I’m working on a much bigger (and top secret) academic project. Give you sons my regards!
G
I’m curious about the computer science classes. Did they give you a Certicate?
Hi Valerie,
Yes, I did receive certificates for the Cybersecurity courses. They are also worth 13 ACE credits.
GB
This is good information for our sons. One of them asked – did you get a degree? If so, what was the degree and who did you go through? If not, is it because you are not able to find an accredited university that will honor your work and give you the degree you’ve earned?
Greetings Boy Mom,
For the record, I did not get another degree because at age 59.5 I’m tired of chasing certificates, diplomas, and degrees. However, if I did want to suck it up and go for another degree, I would enroll in Excelsior University and complete the requirements for a Bachelor of Science in Liberal Arts degree. That won’t happen anytime soon because I’m working on a much bigger (and top secret) academic project. Give you sons my regards!
G