Excelsior College, Charter Oak State College, and Thomas Edison State
College are the three schools that allow 100% of degree credits to be
transferred in. That is the one nice thing about their
programs. Their courses tend to be expensive and are best
avoided. Excelsior never used to offer any courses and they
probably should have kept it that way. They all charge an
annual fee so it is best to pick up substantially all of the coursework
before enrolling. You are risking not getting credit for courses
by delaying but if you stick with normal course description from
accredited universities you should be okay. In the US regionally
accredited courses are required. Print out the 3 catalogues and
read program requirements, then read them again, and again.
American universities have substantial general education requirements
such as 6 credits of English, 6 credits of humanities, 6 credits of
social sciences, 6 credits of natural sciences, 3 credits of math
etc. They are all slightly different.
The
other beautiful thing is that they accept challenge exams such as CLEP
and DSST and many different certificates for credit. Again read
the catalogue. You could get a degree made up almost completely
of multiple choice exams. Note that CLEP exams are all considered
lower level at Excelsior so you will need some higher level
credit. Some DSST exams are upper level but I'm not sure if
they're available outside the US.
An American degree is 120 to
128 credits which translates into 40 - 43 courses at 3 credits each
giving a 4 year degree. The CLEP general exams are 6 credits
each. No 3 year American degrees. If you take CLEP
exams you should commit to completing the program because it is
unlikely any schools outside the US would grant college credit
for them.
The cheapest regular American universities would charge
about $5,000 per year to people attending in their home state.
Out of state residents typically pay $10,000 to $20,000 per year in
tuition. Prestigious private universities usually charge at least
$30,000 per year.
40 CLEP or DSST exams would cost you about
$4,000 plus about $2,000 in fees at TESC/COSC/Excelsior. To fill
in where necessary Louisiana State University offers courses for about
$240 each and there are some other schools that might even be
cheaper.