Washington, DC

Friday, June 01, 2012

Shagging a college degree using a home school approach seems an impossible dream after high school. When home school kids become college eligible they have to enter the institutional environment of so-called traditional colleges to acquire a degree. However, things have changed. Traditional college and even online colleges are no longer the only alternative paths to a college or graduate degree. College bound students and adults reentering college to improve job skills can now pound out a reasonable homeschool approach to their college education. 

Exploding communications technology and the generous contributions from colleges and universities to the reservoir of college courses available to the public for free is making it possible. We are now able to patch together our own college degree programs. We can do it on our own without an academic counselor, institution, or a bureaucrat telling us what we can or cannot do in seeking higher academic pursuits. This 21st century phenomenal opportunity is available to us whether or not we have earned our high school wings through homeschooling or traditional means. 

If we can teach and mentor our kids through home school K-12 curriculum if we choose in all 50 states, why can't we do that for our kids and ourselves when it comes to college? Why can't we acquire credit for our homeschooled self-taught university courses from 100% accredited colleges and be awarded a degree - all for little or no cost? Can we, in fact, promote a college degree and follow up with a graduate degree? Yes, we can. 

One of the best kept secrets among higher education's academicians is that universities and colleges will take and evaluate individual student portfolio assessment of their professional work experience for college credit. It's called a Prior Learning Assessment or PLA. The process mirrors existing college courses through personal written narratives for credit. Under such a program, we do not have to attend classes, take tests, or write random papers. We do have to demonstrate our experience in the field and find a course in a school catalog that substantively demonstrates our experience. Until now we could not complete an entire program like this by bringing in portfolio assessments of other courses we have taken free. 

Practical experience on the job where the methodology of the craft or profession was learned firsthand will do the trick for us. Other countries like France authorize their universities to award degrees based on learned on-the-job knowledge for their citizens who can prove and document it, right through the doctorate diploma. These experienced graduates never step inside a lecture classroom or online course management system. They simply present their work for review and validation. 

In the USA we have to do it one course at a time. Few accredited universities in America will permit a French style total PLA degree. Never the less, this is a bona-fide and acceptable means of acquiring college credit, even if it is one course at a time, among thousands of universities around the globe. Unfortunately, we have to enroll, pay the fees and get a dean or department head to approve the approach. This can be costly. Regardless most universities will require a set number of traditional courses in order to accept personalized portfolio course work to accompany assessed prior learning. 

Would it not be more practical to get the whole thing done on our own and then petition a school to accept all of our independent work for a degree? In other words, fly in under the ominous higher education radar that disdains outside-the-box thinking with a completed program. 

Negotiating a validation fee with accommodating schools, will provide the planned goal -- A degree from an accredited institution. Before undertaking the task, a package should be created to determine all the courses required to be fulfilled for the degree we want. Once completed, we can approach our college of choice for the degree we seek. 

Are there accredited schools in the world that will do this for us? There are 17,000 universities around the globe that are accredited in one official jurisdiction or another. Surely there are more than a few that will accommodate the new paradigm of a home school college degree. 

The self-designed homeschool college program can target fields from Astronomy to Zoology and more. Just by documenting practical experience and writing down what we know, what we do, and how we do it demonstrates what has been learned along the way. 

Taking any one of the thousands of free courses with everything available at no immediate cost opens a treasure chest of opportunity. This combination will stand shoulder to shoulder with any traditional college grad. 

Worried about how to transcribe it all - this is no longer a problem. There are useful written tools that will tell how to present a portfolio of experience for credit and what it should contain. The icing on the cake for building a degree comes from the mounting free courses offered by prestigious universities. They are complete in every way except for providing the college credit because the courses are free. 

Modules come from MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Penn State, Michigan State and dozens of other well-known prestigious schools that offer the courses free to the public. Some of the finest experts in their respective fields of study teach these free programs. 

The free courses, if we choose, assist in rounding out a degree or can be bundled up entirely for a degree path on their own for those without professional experience or current PLA opportunity. Either way, the proposed courses should all be treated and written up like a prior learning experience (PLA). 

There is indeed a university out there that will give college credit for completed work regardless of the source so long as it is officially recognized as legitimate learning. The free college courses are all found within easy access with a brief concentrated search online to identify the sources. How many courses are there? Ready for this - hundreds exist, thousands are on their way! 

Most colleges have guidelines for acquiring college credit by portfolio assessment as well as CLEP challenge exams approved by their respective accrediting agencies. Acquiring the proper protocol information is a key to developing a personalized home school college degree program. 

A comprehensive new eBook is being published by the cyber-based Center for Ethics in Free Enterprise to guide the public precisely on how to do it. The title is How to Home School a College Degree by Dr. Fred DiUlus. It is due to hit the virtual world this month.
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