Success Stories

Melissa Molina has taken seven StraighterLine classes, and she plans to take more. Why is she such a committed StraighterLine student? “I added the money up and discovered that they cost me an average of about $50 per class,” Melissa ways with a laugh.  But when you talk to this energetic young New Yorker, you learn that StraighterLine did more than just save her money. Here are notes from a recent conversation. StraighterLine:  What led you to StraighterLine? Melissa Molina:  There I was in my twenties. I had a good job as an office manager in a radiology practice, but I realized that if I wanted to advance my career, I needed to earn a college degree.  So I went online and found StraighterLine. I have to say, I was ...

In September, 2012, a student named Donnie Davis was grappling with the fact that he only needed to complete one three-credit course before he could earn his Bachelor of Business Administration from Strayer University. “I was thinking of CLEPPING it,” he says, meaning that he was about to take one of the CLEP exams to earn the credits he needed to graduate. Then a Dean at Strayer suggested, “Why don’t you think about taking the course you need at StraighterLine?” Up to that point, Davis had not heard of StraighterLine. He was a busy guy, working several jobs, including one as a medical lab technician. How could he find time to complete a course? But he checked out StraighterLine online and enrolled in Western Civilizatio ...

A new video shows how Ebru Eren, a student at Concordia University Irvine, used StraighterLine  to graduate, finish college sooner, save money . . . and more! Ebru Eren Essex, a student at Concordia University in Irvine, Calif., was working hard to finish her undergraduate program at Concordia University Irvine. But when she visited her advisor one day, she hit a snag that put her studies and her finances at risk. “I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown,” she explains in a video that Concordia created and put online. “I was almost done with my bachelor’s program at Concordia, and I found out that I was still shy 13½ units!” Ebru was worried that she wasn’t going to graduate, but then her advisor pointed ...

When the recession made Margaret Robertson shut her business down, she didn’t slow down a bit. She turned to education and StraighterLine to explore new career options and achieve new success. Let’s hear Margaret’s story in this recent conversation with the StraighterLine blog. StraighterLine: Can you tell me a little about yourself - where you live, what you do, and what your career and educational plans are? Margaret Robertson:  My name is Margaret Robertson and I live in a tiny country town in East Texas called Elysian Fields. I am a mother of five, plus one more child that we recently took into our home. I also have one four-month-old granddaughter and another due in August. I have been in the hair business for 23 years, mo ...

Some students take online courses at StraighterLine to get a start on college. Others take courses to complete their Bachelor’s degrees. But there are many other reasons to take StraighterLine courses too, as we learned in a recent conversation with Beverly Williams. After taking only one StraighterLine course, Beverly moved her career in a whole new direction. Let’s find out how. StraighterLine: Did you use StraighterLine courses to finish college? Beverly Williams: Actually, I had already earned a BA from the University of Nevada Las Vegas in 1998, where I majored in French. Then I earned a JD from Concord Law School in 2008.  However, all the jobs I was interested in preferred a business degree. So I started working at Th ...