The eduFire Blog

On Friday I blogged about what went down at Berkeley last week. And it’s not just Berkeley. All around the country (and the world for that matter) millions of students are fed up with their higher education options. They’re taking on way too much debt to earn degrees that often aren’t worth what the students thought they’d be. And with unemployment rates historically high they’re often not making the money they need to service that debt. And the price and debt are often only the start of the problems. There are growing concerns about a whole host of issues ranging from quality to overcrowding.

We’ve spent a lot of time at eduFire thinking and discussing how we can play a role (even if it’s only a small one at this juncture) in making things better. So it’s with a lot of pride that I’m excited to announce today for the first time that we’re launching a series of courses that will allow you to earn college credit at over 2,900 colleges and universities. The best part is that the total cost will be approximately 80-90% lower than what you’d pay at a traditional college or university (or an online university like Phoenix or Kaplan for that matter, they aren’t really any cheaper than most brick and mortar unis). Here’s how it works:

Step #1 – Take any one of our new CLEP Preparatory Courses on eduFire (complete list here and more details below). The CLEP exam is administered by The College Board and is a way for students to earn equivalency credit at colleges and universities that accept CLEP credit (here’s a complete list…it’s extensive). CLEP credits are a way for people to demonstrate their knowledge of a particular subject in lieu of sitting for the relevant course at their school. You can think of CLEP kind of like “AP for adults” or as a means of “testing out” of a subject.

Our CLEP Courses are taught by amazing instructors (bios below), some of whom you may have taken classes from previously on eduFire. In addition to live lectures (which of course are available on-demand) you’ll also have a whole host of supporting materials to learn from. For instance, for the Macroeconomics course that I’m teaching you’ll also be learning from some of the top economists in the country including podcasts and blogs from Ivy League professors and some of the top luminaries in the world of economics. We’ll also be having some fantastic guest lecturers in our live classes!

#2 – Once your course is complete on eduFire then simply sit the CLEP exam. The CLEP exam will run you $72. Let’s stop for a moment and consider the cost of taking a course on eduFire plus the CLEP exam versus another popular option. The Macroeconomics course will run you $20 per session and is five sessions for a total of $100. Add that to CLEP exam fee and you have a total cost of $172 for the three credits you’ll receive.

Now compare that to the cost of three credits of The University of Phoenix. U of P is typically between $400 and $500 per credit (depending on your location). So those same three credits at Phoenix will run you at least $1,200. You’ll save at least 86% by taking the course on eduFire and sitting the CLEP exam. That’s a lot of money and perhaps as importantly, a lot less debt to take on. Not bad…

Here are a few of the courses we’re starting with on eduFire.

CLEP College Mathematics – College Mathematics is taught by Mair Lloyd.  Mair graduated from Oxford (yes, that Oxford!) and has been teaching on eduFire for over a year.  She has a huge list of credentials including a post graduate teaching qualification. And you can even follow here on Twitter here.

CLEP Introductory Psychology – Marco has been on eduFire since the very beginning and is the heart and soul of our community.  He also happens to be an expert in the field of psychology.  He has a BSc. Honours Degree in Psychology from the Open University and is a Graduate Member of the British Psychological Society.

CLEP Spanish Language – There’s no better to teach the Spanish CLEP prep course than Ximena Rojas.  Ximena has a Master of Arts from The University of Tennessee (Go Vols!) and a law degree from the Universidad Mayor de San Andres.  She has been a professor at the Universidad del Valle in La Paz, Bolivia and has decades of teaching experience.

We have several other courses on the schedule already including English Composition (taught by Karen Weil), College Algebra (taught by Kamal Das) and Macroeconomics (taught by yours truly!).  You can find the complete list here.  More to following in the coming months as well!

I’d love to wrap this up by sharing a bit about why we’re doing this. Way back when eduFire was just an idea we blogged about making education more equal and accessible. The launch of our CLEP courses and the ability for people to save thousands of dollars by earning college credit through classes they are taking on eduFire is yet another step in that direction. We think it’s ludicrous that we as a society are asking young adults to take on crushing amounts of debt simply to get an education. We think it’s equally ridiculous that students all around the world shouldn’t have an opportunity to pull together the best educational resources and thread them together into something that gets them significantly closer to a degree.

So that’s what we’ve been done. We’ve been inspired by a lot of other amazing people that are shaking up higher education like the folks at University of the People, Straighterline, Tech University of America, Peer2Peer University, Academic Earth and more. And we’re incredibly excited to join these pioneering institutions and change the game for millions of students around the world. If you want to help in any way just drop us a line. We’d love to have you onboard.

(P.S. A HUGE debt of gratitude to Josh Kaufman at PersonalMBA.com for providing a huge amount of inspiration for this in the form of blog post “Hacking Higher Education, Part 1: How to Obtain an Accredited Undergraduate Degree in 1 Year for $4,000“. We owe you a round Josh!)

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