Something different, my education hack

The education hack that has been around for decades (almost a century): CLEP and DSST

A few years back (okay about 15 years) my friend/coworker was struggling on how to take classes and not spend a lot of money. I mentioned this thing called CLEP and Dantes. I had heard about it as a young person, but I didn’t really pursue it as an option.

A couple days later I ran into the co-worker. Not only was CLEP and Dantes (now called DSST) around, but there were even online communities talking about how to advance these education hacks.

So what is it?

CLEP and DSST are like taking the final for a college level course. You get one shot to pass. One test, the width and breadth of an entire course.

So why do it?

Pass the test and you have one less class to take in a college. Basically, you are getting 3 semester hour (5 quarter credit hours) credits for $150 to $200 dollars.

What’s the downside?

Depends on what or why you are using it.

If you’re in the military – none. You get to take these for free on base (on board ship or even while deployed) and could count towards your promotion points as college credit earned. These two programs were made with the service member or discharged vet in mind.

If you want to join the military – there are two hacks for you

If you have a GED you need 15 semester hour credits (22.5 quarter credit hours) to change that GED into a high school diploma. While there are some MOS’s you can get with just the GED under certain circumstances, the majority of people need this high school diploma or equivalent college credit to join.

Already have a high school diploma and looking to join? You need 24 semester hours of college credit to get an auto bump to E2. 48 semester credits gets you E3 advanced rank enlistment. Check your branch of service and ask your recruiter about how this works (or – Google). Different branches, different rules.

From here on out, we are going to talk about the regular folks.

First, the true stories of how you can think you are going to get your college degree but don’t because you missed some bone head course in the beginning. I have met two people going for their bachelors degree that had to take summer classes because they forgot to take some simple requisite to getting their degree. One had to take two summer classes to get her BSN. At the time I didn’t think about the CLEP and DSST option. But I remember her having to go to school when she thought she was done for 3 months over the summer to make up just a class or two.

The second person, she was luckier. She had advanced through so fast, that she forgot a math credit. I was in the process of taking CLEPS and DSST tests and told her about the option. 2 weeks of study, she took the algebra test and was able to move into her program on time in the fall. Unlike my friend, the second person didn’t have to juggle her summer fun, summer work and classes to meet her requirements.

Now here is the catch – you need to figure out what you want to do before you start testing. This is a true self-service option, no one is there to help you. Most don’t even understand it. You need to know if your college accepts the test, how they grade the test, what it is equivalent too, how it fits in your degree plan and do all this before even applying to the college. Also, you need to figure out how far away your testing site options are.

Transferring credits. WGU and SNHU for example, they have a generous transfer policy. But once you have applied, you can not take any more tests to count towards your degree. Planned on taking 40 credits worth of tests and applied when you had only completed 24, you are stuck with 24. Colleges like the UW in Washington state do not accept any of these credits at the moment that I can find. Other colleges or universities may only allow 15 semester hours. Which is 5 classes worth of credits. That is a big chunk of money.

The price of each test is less than $100. I think both the DSST and the CLEP are $92 at this writing. But the fee for the testing center can be extreme. My friend and I found that the University of Phoenix in Tukwila had a testing fee of $10. She didn’t drive. So we did a buddy system. We would each pick our own test, study for a bit and when we both were comfortable, we would schedule two testing times back to back. Made a morning adventure of it. The UW, that doesn’t accept the credits, was a much closer option, but was also $40 to test as a non-enrolled student.

How do you know what test to take? Its all about the degree planning.

To make it easy, pick two or three colleges you are thinking about getting your degree from. Go to those colleges and pull up the degree plan that fits your interest. Then find on the college’s website the course equivalents.

Let’s say you wanted to get an associate degree in Business from SNHU. (Southern New Hampshire University). Why SNHU – cause that’s where I got my degree from.

In an excel spreadsheet put the degree courses you need.

SNHU needed Cr equivalent CLEP General Humanities HUM 100 3 HUM 100 Humanities CLEP Microeconomics ECO 201 3 ECO 201 Microeconomics CLEP Psychology elective psy any 3 PSY 108 Introductory Psychology

We can see from above I can take these three classes and transfer them into my degree plan. Now let’s look at the cost.

The test is $92. The test site fee $10. Books I would use to study $10. Test prep online group $25 for the month. Podcasts and other additional material I accessed was free online. Roughly $150 per class. My cost when I was going to school – about $850 just for the credits per class, so let’s round up to $1000 a class to include books and such. Let’s do the math, even if I was only able to transfer in and skip 5 classes. 5 x 150 = $750. 5 x 1000 = $5000. Only a savings of $4250 dollars. Even if you are taking these classes in community college, 5 credits at the Community college just around the corner from me is $537 for the tuition, another $100 in fees (universal access fee, lab fee, computer access fee) and books will bring any class to $700. You can pay for 1 community college class or replace 5 classes for the same cost.

If its so cheap and its one test, why doesn’t everyone do it!

Because it is not as easy as it sounds.

You have to study. And when you don’t have a forced timeline, it is hard to make study a priority.

You have no idea what’s on the test. You really have to know a good chunk of material to pass. What I did was go to the website of local colleges and look at the book they were using for that equivalent class and what addition it was. Go on Amazon and put the title of the book and specify 2 to 3 editions back. I could usually get the course material for under $10.

No one is there to help. My friend and I at least had each other to keep up on what we wanted to do. But once I started going into a regular school, my friend has not really done any more testing.

Your classes didn’t transfer as planned. I took a couple tests that didn’t translate into credit for my degree.

You have to figure out your own degree plan and stick with it. Most people I know use an adviser and don’t even know how to figure out what the next course is going to be in a regular brick and mortar school. If you have multiple school options, you are juggling all the course equivalents all the time. Take a long time to complete the CLEP/DSST tests, your degree plans for the colleges could change, or requirements change.

Now the best upsides

If you home school, you can take your kids to test for college credit. I would say that 20% of the people on the CLEP/DSST forums were home schooling parents that were getting information to guide the home study program to include testing. I haven’t tested in 6 to 7 years, but at the time, that was what I noticed.

The biggest benefit is that you learn to learn.

You learn of all the resources you have around you to learn something you don’t know. If I took a class and it was over my head, I had the tools to find resources to learn these things.

You learn to test. I am not sure how well I would have done as well on my insurance license exams if I didn’t have the testing experience of CLEP and DSST. I have always been a good test taker, but I know my skills improved with this.

Conclusion

Nope, no links. You really need to figure this out on your own. If you can’t figure out how to go down the Google rabbit hole all by yourself, you shouldn’t do this option to begin with.