Another One Shilling for College Minus

[emmiedahl]

allshehastosay.blogspot.com/2012/03/college-girl.html

This time it is Jasmine. Oh, she is not accepting a second-rate education because her mother is bedridden and her father an abusive asshole who is always away. She is doing it because... because... even she does not seem to know why.

[pixydust]

That is just waaay to much tripe to wade through.

ETA: K, I posted that and realized that seemed really bitchy. Sorry, Emmy, that wasn't directed to you....Jasmine wrote a redonkulously long and tripe-y blog entry, she needs to learn to edit herself!

[Markie]

she needs to learn to edit herself!

Perhaps she will, using all the exemplary skills she will gain from her College Minus education!

[chaotic life]

You know what you CAN take away from this endorsement? The fundie royalty are caving to the reality that the world DOES hold them suspect regarding what they are doing to their daughters. If they cannot get their daughters married off and procreating young, they are increasingly having to turn to SOMETHING other than the PhD of homemaking garbage they have touted on why it was okay to educationally ignore and hold hostage their stay at home daughters for the last decade as the movement has increased.

[Elle]

"My coach has never had one of her students turned down for the first graduate school of their choice."

Either very few are trying for grad school and so the few who are are exemplary.

Or they're not aiming for top schools.

Or the coach is lying.

I'll bet it's the third. For-profit schools are known for lying and being sued for misrepresenting the chances of getting into grad schools as well as what kind of pay to expect after school. There's no way the top grad schools in this country will look at some two-big college set up for "graduates" of CollegeMinus and say that they simply MUST have that person.

[emmiedahl]

Almost everybody gets turned down from their first-choice school. I am planning on it. Boston U is a long shot, UW/other highly rated state schools could totally happen, and I have back-up schools.

At least that is how it works on my academic path. Maybe fundies do not set their goals too high. I bet a lot of people who did not want to put their butt in a seat for undergrad have similar feelings about grad school and are choosing less reputable distance ed/for-profit schools.

Jasmine is about to finish a BA in English and this is how she writes. CollegeMinus should make her take her testimony down, she is not a great spokesperson.

[SpeakNow]

Collegeplus Fail right here...no English major should write like this:

If CollegePlus! is your college program of choice, you know that if you've talked to anyone outside of a certain circle of friends, or outside of the people who think that you're really cool for stepping outside of the box and cutting the cost of education dramatically... they've looked at you and gone, "So... that's it? You're not going to a real school?" Especially if, when you were in high school, the expectation was that you had the acumen to do something "better."

That last "sentence" is not a full sentence.

[mirele]

Jasmine is about to finish a BA in English and this is how she writes. CollegeMinus should make her take her testimony down, she is not a great spokesperson.

*blink* She's about to get her BA in English and she writes like that? RUN AWAY!

[doggie]

I'll bet it's the third. For-profit schools are known for lying and being sued for misrepresenting the chances of getting into grad schools as well as what kind of pay to expect after school. There's no way the top grad schools in this country will look at some two-big college set up for "graduates" of CollegeMinus and say that they simply MUST have that person.

well since they deal with fundies I doubt it will happen. the kids will be blamed before the school. well not school that is the wrong term. uncollege?

[Eclipse]

"My coach has never had one of her students turned down for the first graduate school of their choice."

Either very few are trying for grad school and so the few who are are exemplary.

Or they're not aiming for top schools.

Or the coach is lying.

I'll bet it's the third. For-profit schools are known for lying and being sued for misrepresenting the chances of getting into grad schools as well as what kind of pay to expect after school. There's no way the top grad schools in this country will look at some two-big college set up for "graduates" of CollegeMinus and say that they simply MUST have that person.

If the students have all been fundies, i bet none of them have applied to any grad schools.

[socalrules]

I think when you graduate from an unaccredited or barely accredited school, getting into the graduate school of another unaccredited or barely accredited school is not hard. This is the only way her coach can be telling the truth. I highly doubt that these students are applying to Harvard or Yale. When I applied to law school, I applied to my dream schools, my “I would be happy with†schools and my “thank God I got into one†safety schools. I doubt this girl knows that you apply to as many schools as possible because the competition is tough.

Slightly off topic, I wonder what the fundies are writing in their personal statements to graduate schools. You have to up your game with graduate school admissions. What can the fundies talk about? Living their lives under the authority of their parents? By graduate school, you have to show that college has already helped you evolve from where you started. Graduate schools want to know your goals, what you want to do to attain them and what you have already done to set yourself on that path. Can you imagine a fundie girl writing in her personal statement that her goal is to be a subservient wife? I don’t think a school wants to here that she can good for a family of 14 and is good at mopping. Plus, you need to have some type of activities on you application. The fundies don’t really do anything and church related activities are usually not enough.

I wonder if fundies even understand that all schools are not created equal. Do they even know that there are tiers? Maybe they don’t know that there is a difference between Yale and Fundie University besides the obvious wolves and green haired people. I don’t think they understand the difference in the quality of education in general.

What I worry about is the fundies that get degrees through College Minus and unaccredited schools then end up leaving the lifestyle. Many will think that they can easily get a job only find that their degrees are useless in the real world. The quality of education at these schools cannot prepare them for what they hoped to achieve.

[Third]

Looking back two things I wondered

- she read a book written by an openly lesbian living with a woman and their kids.

- she wrote a novel

[Blonde not dumb]

If you read the comments on her blog, someone makes the point about the cost of College Minus versus CLEP tests plus a community college and/or a state college. She replies that College Minus was an affordable option for her. Seriously? If someone really things that college minus makes financial sense, then they either don't understand basic math or they haven't even looked at the cost of anything else. You don't need to pay for a tutor to pass a CLEP test or tell you what classes to take. An advisor at a community college will suggest CLEP courses that would be useful for free!!!

How will these girls ever budget a single salary of an uneducated headship to provide for all their blessings if they think this racket is a good deal????

[pomology]

"And I wasn't too nervous about the GRE, because if there's one thing CollegePlus! has taught me, it's how to take a test. "

lol what?

I'm not too worried about the GREs either because I have always tested well without a need for excessive tutoring but mostly because I'm pretty sure that grad school will care a lot more about my ability to actually do historical research than in my ability to take tests. If all you know how to do is take tests, you're not going to make it in grad school. Hell I wouldn't have made it through my brick and mortar education either because many classes do not have tests, especially in the last two years.

[Rosa]

ooh, the other day, a College Plus plug popped up on a personal finance blog I read, and I had the knowledge to shoot it down because of all of you. I was so proud!

[helloemi]

There is nothing controversial about attending college online. It would be nice if Jasmine clarified that by "online" she means "pays too much money to pass CLEP tests that are offered at most 4 year universities.

I just started an online graduate program from a well respected school in library science because A. I'm busy working full time and B. I don't have the energy to sit in a classroom for 6 hours a week on top of what I'm already doing. Maybe I don't fully understand CollegePlus11!!!!!!!11!!!! but you can't CLEP out of everything... most schools only take a certain percentage, if any. I need to research this Thomas Edison State College.... this sounds fishy.

Well I'm glad to read that her mom isn't bed-bound with lupus. True remission is very rare. So I don't care if she is exercising every day, that woman must be TIRED! I have lupus and woke up tired and in pain. I wish I had a Jasmine to take my dog! It was odd how she spoke out against people saying she raises her siblings, then posts about how she potty trained her little brother. That seems like a mom duty...

[helloemi]

Ok... so CollegePlus!!!!:

90 credits from testing out by CLEP

30 credits from online college

= $15,000

My undergrad was about $15,000. It is called ebil socialist community college and scholarships. The degree is technically from whichever online school you school you enroll in, in her case

Thomas Edison. It seems accredited... I went to a hodge podge of colleges amd finished up at an Illinois state school that is intended for working adults (nothing glamorous) and got into my first choice grad school. I also had a resume with years of experiemce in the field and recommendations from people high up at my work... not my dad's friends.

I'm disliking this girl more and more.

Did anyone else notice 90% of the comments were deleted?

[Jezebel]

If you read the comments on her blog, someone makes the point about the cost of College Minus versus CLEP tests plus a community college and/or a state college. She replies that College Minus was an affordable option for her. Seriously? If someone really things that college minus makes financial sense, then they either don't understand basic math or they haven't even looked at the cost of anything else.

She said it was an affordable option for her--which doesn't mean it's going to be affordable for anyone else. Because I suspect Jasmine is getting most, if not all, of her fees waived in exchange for her glowing testimonials, and for promoting CollegeMinus on her blog.

[AudreyE]

Okay, I almost spit my breakfast out at this comment:

I want to teach English to homeschoolers, and my degree opened doors for that.

Oh, my God, that is priceless.

[dairyfreelife]

I should say that I agree with the commenter who says community college/state uni was cheaper. I know my uni only allows so many CLEPs so they wouldn't let someone with CollegeMinus degree go to their graduate program. It's an unaccreditated degree and none of the local graduate colleges would take Jasmine into the program. Sorry, Jasmine, but you're wrong about the grad school. No accreditated graduate program would accept your CollegePlus English degree with huge amounts of CLEP tests.

[chaotic life]

I don't understand why the focus on this College Plus gimmick. It seems to me that in almost every state, you can find at least one state school with generous online schooling options these days. You pay in-state tuition for a fully accredited degree from a state university versus paying a middle man just as much to tell you how to circumvent the educational process.

DH earned both his Bachelor's and Master's online. It was Computer Science and International Management, so degrees that work well online. Back then, there were few non-profit, state school options for online so he went out of state. If you go out of state, then your options for online education are limitless. Plus, lots of online schools, even state schools, no longer have in-state versus out-of-state categories when you are only online, instead of in a classroom. There are more options than University of Phoenix these days.

If the objection is sitting in the classroom, then online should be a viable option. However, the CollegePlus format wants to skip even that. It also wants to focus on "life experience" yet it caters to teenagers and very young adults who have very little life experience in the first place. I think it's a scam. I think someone doing their program is going to have little to no career options after spending the same amount as they would spend for a normal education. Guess that doesn't matter for the girls they want to entrap in the first place. However, surely some of these sons are going to be sorely disappointed when they don't get into law school as they envision with their CollegePlus education.

[Coy Koi]

She talks about how she doesn't see the point of leaving her father's leadership just to travel far away and be under someone else's leadership, like that's the only other option for college. Even if fundies are scared for themselves or their children to go live in a dorm in another state, that has nothing to do with why they'd be against their kids living at home and attending classes at a nearby college a few hours a week. At most normal colleges you can easily take half of your undergraduate classes online, especially for an English degree (as opposed to something that requires a lot of lab science courses, for example). She's either completely ignorant about how these things really work, or she's being dishonest. Or both.

But the fact is, it will probably work out just fine for her; her family has money and connections. It's just too bad she's plugging it to others who could end up wasting a lot of money and time they can't afford.

[pomology]

I agree with everyone here that there are other ways to get a college education while continuing to live with your family. What absolutely drives me crazy about College Minus is, as chaotic life says, it's a way to circumvent actually getting an education.

[justlurking]

I want to know why Jasmine feels she needs College Plus :roll: as some sort of middle man, and why she feels she needs to CLEP out of subjects. If you're gonna be receiving a degree from Thomas Edison State College in the end, why not just enroll in their online program from the beginning? Why do you need to pay College Minus?

[Blonde not dumb]

She said it was an affordable option for her--which doesn't mean it's going to be affordable for anyone else. Because I suspect Jasmine is getting most, if not all, of her fees waived in exchange for her glowing testimonials, and for promoting CollegeMinus on her blog.

Good point, you're probably right. In that case, it seems dishonest for her to talk about the value when there are much cheaper ways to get to the same end for those concerned with finances. Oh well. In reality, if it's that big of a deal to someone, I guess you could argue that they should do the research themselves before jumping into something they read about on a blog or whatever.