College Education

Whether you’re a StraighterLine student or you’re thinking about becoming one, we have some important news to share about a terrific educational opportunity. It’s Excelsior College, one of our top-quality Partner Schools. (If you don’t know about StraighterLine’s Partner Colleges program, learn about this unique opportunity, which allows you to start your college studies without all the traditional headaches of applying.) About Excelsior College Excelsior College is an accredited, nonprofit distance learning institution that focuses on removing obstacles to the educational goals of adult learners. Founded in 1971 and located in Albany, NY, Excelsior is a proven leader in the assessment and validation of student knowledge. ...

Now that September is only days away, it’s time to shop the sales for the gear you need to get the school year off to a good start. Here’s some stuff you might want to stock up on now . . . Get a radical-looking new portable hard drive. You’ve got to back up all your stuff, right? So why not invest $119.99 in a great-looking Radical Skin portable hard drive from Iomega? It looks like something out of Mad Max, but it’s a solid, 500 GB workhorse to store all your coursework, videos, and music with room to spare. Buy a sofa bed for your dorm room. Friends will be dropping by, right?  Target sells a nifty black one we like, and it costs just $99.95. Equip yourself with a new pair of Frye boots. Zappos.com has tons to choo ...

Last week Wal-Mart announced that it will offer 15% tuition assistance to as many as 1.4 million workers. Here are the outlines of the plan: To get the tuition assistance, employees have to work full-time for one year, or part time for three. They need positive job reviews. They need to enroll in American Public University, an online university that offers both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. Wal-Mart and APU will allow some employees to receive college credit for what they have learned on the job. Offering college assistance to employees and their children is not a new idea. But Wal-Mart has taken the idea to a whole new level, by helping more than one million employees go to college. Seen from that perspective, Wa ...

"Some colleges offering 3-year bachelor's degrees" An article just published in USA Today, reports that a small number of American colleges are starting to offer degrees in three years instead of the traditional four. Justin Pope, author of the article, writes: "Not much else seems to be helping keep down college costs, so maybe this will: a three-year college degree." What colleges are offering three-year degrees? One is Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York, According to Pope, Hartwick is the "most high profile school yet" to offer the option of completing a degree in three years. But other colleges have officially entered the fray too. A little online research shows that they include Chatham University, Purdue University the Uni ...

An article entitled "Will You Get Enough Financial Aid?" in U.S. News just reported some troubling news for students who are applying to college. Here's a summary of what the article's author, Kim Clark, has to report: Fewer students are getting financial assistance. "Fewer than 3 percent of all the colleges in the country promise that they will award enough financial aid to meet the full financial needs of admitted students in 2010," Clark reports. Loans are replacing scholarships. Clark writes that ". . . the downturn in the economy has forced a growing number of even the wealthiest schools to increase the amount of loans they plan to ask needy students to take." Colleges are looking at your home's value. According to Clark, so ...