Affordable Online Master's Program?

S

ssmeow

Rookie
Hello all,
I currently have my B.A. in Elementary education and an ESL endorsement. I am looking to get my Master's Degree online. I live in Illinois. I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations?
I am still paying off some hefty loans from my undergrad, so I would prefer a lower cost program.
Thank you.
Sara
 
In October I'll be finishing up my Masters with American College of Education. (www.ace.edu) Each course is $750 including fees. Each course is 5 weeks long, then either one or two weeks off and then the next course begins. You can take off a session up to five (maybe six) times during your program. I didn't take any off so I'm not 100% sure. You take one class at a time unless you request to take two and they approve it. Though I would not recommend two courses at a time other than the summer assuming you don't work in the summer. Next session starts August 22.

They do want you to be currently employed as several of the weekly assignments involve using your classroom so if you're not currently working I am not sure this program would work.

It's a lot of work, you write a paper every week in addition to readings and discussion posts. I'd estimate I spend about 12-18 hours per week on one course. It was definitely tough during the school year to keep up with the course work, especially during my daughter's travel volleyball season. But I have been making it work, and the cost is reasonable and you'll finish in less than 18 months even without doubling up on courses assuming you don't take any sessions off.

If you have any more questions about it, feel free to ask.
 
Good morning,
I know this is an old thread, but can I DM you a few questions about ACE? Thanks!



MsMar said:
In October I'll be finishing up my Masters with American College of Education. (www.ace.edu) Each course is $750 including fees. Each course is 5 weeks long, then either one or two weeks off and then the next course begins. You can take off a session up to five (maybe six) times during your program. I didn't take any off so I'm not 100% sure. You take one class at a time unless you request to take two and they approve it. Though I would not recommend two courses at a time other than the summer assuming you don't work in the summer. Next session starts August 22.

They do want you to be currently employed as several of the weekly assignments involve using your classroom so if you're not currently working I am not sure this program would work.

It's a lot of work, you write a paper every week in addition to readings and discussion posts. I'd estimate I spend about 12-18 hours per week on one course. It was definitely tough during the school year to keep up with the course work, especially during my daughter's travel volleyball season. But I have been making it work, and the cost is reasonable and you'll finish in less than 18 months even without doubling up on courses assuming you don't take any sessions off.

If you have any more questions about it, feel free to ask.
Click to expand...
 
Acamp said:
I think your DM is disabled or I just can’t figure out how to send a DM haha
Click to expand...
I just tried the "start a conversation" function and when I put in your username it says I can't use this function with your username.
 
I don’t know why it’s not working - I made sure my settings allowed for conversations from all members. Sorry for the hassle - hopefully I can figure this out
 
Good afternoon!
Based on your feedback, I am starting ACE during the May term. With that, I was wondering if you would answer a few more questions:

1) For the discussion posts, if you complete all the discussions and the reponses, are you guaranteed full points? Or do they take off a lot of points with your discussion posts?

2) I found a sample syllabus outlining what is due each week but I notice it just gives the topic for the assignment with no guidelines as to what you should write about. Does that information become available once the class is active in that week?

Thanks again!

MsMar said:
In October I'll be finishing up my Masters with American College of Education. (www.ace.edu) Each course is $750 including fees. Each course is 5 weeks long, then either one or two weeks off and then the next course begins. You can take off a session up to five (maybe six) times during your program. I didn't take any off so I'm not 100% sure. You take one class at a time unless you request to take two and they approve it. Though I would not recommend two courses at a time other than the summer assuming you don't work in the summer. Next session starts August 22.

They do want you to be currently employed as several of the weekly assignments involve using your classroom so if you're not currently working I am not sure this program would work.

It's a lot of work, you write a paper every week in addition to readings and discussion posts. I'd estimate I spend about 12-18 hours per week on one course. It was definitely tough during the school year to keep up with the course work, especially during my daughter's travel volleyball season. But I have been making it work, and the cost is reasonable and you'll finish in less than 18 months even without doubling up on courses assuming you don't take any sessions off.

If you have any more questions about it, feel free to ask.
Click to expand...
 
Acamp said:
Good afternoon!
Based on your feedback, I am starting ACE during the May term. With that, I was wondering if you would answer a few more questions:

1) For the discussion posts, if you complete all the discussions and the reponses, are you guaranteed full points? Or do they take off a lot of points with your discussion posts?

2) I found a sample syllabus outlining what is due each week but I notice it just gives the topic for the assignment with no guidelines as to what you should write about. Does that information become available once the class is active in that week?

Thanks again!
Click to expand...
From what I recall, as long as you do the required number of responses on the discussion board you get full credit. I think it was to have your own post with at least two sources and then respond to two other people. I don't recall ever losing points in the discussion part of the grade. With some classes the professor regularly chimed in and with some the professor more or less didn't post on there. If the professor asked me a follow up question I always made sure to respond back because that just seems like the proper thing to do! I suspect even if I hadn't that I would have still gotten full credit. You need to make sure with your post that you use a source that's not part of the required reading. Some weeks I had a tough time finding a source to support the exact point I wanted to make. Some weeks it was easy to find something. The course lectures were often places I would get my source that was allowed to be from the class.

You'll get detailed info about all of the assignments with each class. The weekly papers were definitely the most time consuming part of the class.

Good luck. It's a decent amount of work but I definitely learned from my classes and between that and the pay bump in my salary it was worth the 16 months of a whole lot of work and very little free time. I always looked forward to the one week between sessions when I could just breathe for a moment!
 
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