FrugalDegree.com

At FrugalDegree.com, we neither award any college degree, nor any form of college credits. But what we really do is outline a process that can help reduce your college degree cost by over 60%. We do this by providing you the following resources:

• Our first-hand experience in completing an affordable college degree at one of the accredited and affordable colleges we recommend

• Articles and eBooks to enable you to complete an affordable college degree this way, the frugal way!

• Tools to enable you to track your progress until degree completion

• Ability to share and network with other students and tutors

• Undertake low-cost courses and classes using our platform

So overall, we enable you to begin your college degree at an extremely affordable college, whereby you have all the resources and information to undertake such a college degree successfully.

These “frugal/ flexible” colleges will allow you to use numerous forms of learning to acquire college credits and evaluate them for inclusion in your college transcript. Some learning methods include:

• Previously-completed college courses: via free Credits Transfer

• Exams such as CLEP: via directly assigned college credits

• College courses: via direct credits transfer

• Industry training/ certifications that have ACE credit recommendation: direct credits

• Other trainings/ certifications: via Portfolio assessment

• Work experience: via Portfolio assessment

• All other learning using free online resources and/ tests: via Portfolio assessment

So here's where the cost savings part comes in:

• College tuition cost is greatly reduced. In most cases students would spend about 10% or so on tuition than what they would at other brick-and-mortar, part-time or online colleges

• Since all the college study can be completed anywhere the student lives, the cost of room-and-board is eliminated. Note that these are not distance colleges, their flexibility and openness simply allows you to use many different ways to obtain college-level credits

Newsweek print ad for Excelsior College (Photo credit: eliteventure)

For detailed information on the costs associated with each college, checkout their websites:

• Excelsior college

• Empire State college

• Charter Oak college

• Thomas Edison State college

• Granite State college

• Western Governors University

• Union Institute & University

• SUNY Ulster

Though the costs at these colleges increase over the years, they appear quite inflation-adjusted and increase by a much smaller percentage year-upon-year than most other colleges and universities.

Of course, there are other benefits that are not directly related to cost, such as the fact that students are not rigidly required to complete any specific/ mandatory classes and so on. What a student has to study to complete the degree is only controlled by a broad set of degree topic requirements, other than that its up to the student to choose.

Once cost is not a problem anymore, students can also try out some new courses, before deciding if they want to study more courses on that topic or not. This provides a lot of freedom to choose, and really figure out one's true passions and interests, before embarking on a well-defined degree specialty and career path.

Here are some additional tips to further reduce the cost of college, the enhanced frugal way:

1. Use our cost calculator (for subscribed students) to manage your college costs in an ongoing basis

2. Buy our eBook as it provides details on many great ways to further reduce your college costs at these frugal/ flexible colleges

3. Use all freely available resources such as:

• Public libraries

• Private/ group study rooms at the libraries

• Numerous free courses posted by large universities online other free online study resources

1. Our monthly subscription will provide avenues to network with fellow frugal college students &tutors, take low-cost courses and so on

2. Purchase textbooks ahead of time, preferably used books from sites such as Amazon.com

3. Signup for low-cost online college study resources

4. Checkout the many affordable college specific products that we post throughout our site. These third-party products are hand-picked to maximize your cost advantages and quality of college learning

Throughout the college degree process, its important to stay motivated and confident, as these 2 things will help you to make the right cost and time related decisions for your college degree goals. Remember, the faster you are able to complete college, the more affordable and easy the whole process will be. Here are our general tips for motivation (a key ingredient for any endeavor!):

1. Pick mentors among your tutors and senior students.

2. Think of us at frugaldegree.com as your companion and mentor. We've been there and know what its like to be a cash-strapped college student. If you have any questions for us, just post them in the forums upon subscription.

3. Checkout the cool jokes and famous quotes on our subscription site. Or add some of your own to share with your fellow students.