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For Excelsior students who are trying to complete requirements in a flexible, budget-conscious way, Study.com can sometimes help — especially for general education, some major prerequisites, and electives (where accepted by Excelsior’s current policies). Below is an overview of how the platform is structured and what might matter when you’re planning around an Excelsior degree plan.
 
Course format & pacing
Study.com’s courses are built around video lessons that break content into small, manageable chunks. You can move at your own pace, which can be useful if you’re trying to finish a few courses before an Excelsior term milestone, evaluation, or graduation deadline.
 
Subscription model & credit strategy
Instead of paying per course, Study.com uses a subscription model. There is a $95/month plan designed so that you can work on multiple courses in a month, with a limit of being actively enrolled in two at once. For someone steadily putting in time each week, this can allow several courses to be completed within a single billing period, depending on how quickly you move through the material and finish the assignments. When you’re planning for Excelsior, that kind of structure can be especially helpful if you’re trying to knock out clusters of general education courses, pick up missing prerequisites before moving on to higher-level work, or add electives to reach the total credits required for graduation.
 
Exams & grading turnaround
Study.com’s final exams are now open book and open note, and they no longer have proctoring. That change can ease some of the usual proctoring hassles such as scheduling, tech setup, and finding a quiet environment. Graded assignments are typically turned around fairly quickly, which helps you keep momentum instead of waiting weeks for scores and makes it easier to estimate whether you can realistically finish a course before a key Excelsior date.
 
Flexibility for working adult students
Excelsior has a lot of working adult learners, and Study.com is structured with that audience in mind as well. The platform includes a mobile app that lets you watch lessons and take quizzes away from your computer, courses that are available on demand rather than tied to specific start dates, and the ability to pause and resume lessons without losing your place. If your schedule is unpredictable or you’re fitting school around family and full-time work, this kind of “whenever you can log in” design can make a noticeable difference.
 
Planning around Excelsior requirements The most important piece is making sure any alternative credit actually fits into your Excelsior degree plan. It’s a good idea to confirm with Excelsior—through an advisor, evaluator, or official resources—before relying on a course to satisfy a particular requirement, especially if it’s a newer course or you’re close to graduating. Because policies and equivalencies can change, it’s worth double-checking things rather than assuming older lists or forum posts are still current.

If anyone here has recent experience using Study.com credits toward an Excelsior degree—whether it went smoothly or you ran into surprises—it would be helpful to hear how the process worked and what you’d recommend others double-check before they start.

1. COMING November 1, 2025: Enroll through Homeschooling for College Credit’s HS4CC Academy for discounted flat-rate pricing. You’ll pay $425 to sign up, and receive 1 course for free ($425 value). Then, you can purchase courses for $299 each. Enrollment is limited to homeschool students in grades 9-12 only.

Wanting feedback from folks that have completed or are currently involved in a doctorate...

For an online program that operates with 7 or 8 week quarters, how many credit hours should you expect to take? ... I am talking with an advisor and hearing that 9-12 hours is the expectation (3-4 classes per quarter). I figured it would be more like 6 hours (2 classes)... especially since I also work a full time job.

I have done 12 hours while working, but that was in a full semester-length format during my masters. Just worried that 9 or 12 hours would be too much for a quarter.

thoughts?

Once I complete a Final Exam on a test, do I have to Unenroll to free up a space in my course roster?
I currently have 3/3 with one complete, but I'm nervous to unenroll and then not have the credit counted..

What do people think?  Has degree planning and alternative credits become easier or harder over the years?

For UoPeople students who are open to combining alternative credit with their degree plan (for example, to complete general education, prerequisites, or electives where accepted), Study.com has made a few updates that may be helpful to know about:
 
New $95/month plan with course access
Study.com now has a $95/month plan that includes access to a set of ACE-recommended courses (70 options, including many standard gen ed subjects). You can work on two courses at the same time but can complete unlimited courses each month, so how much you complete in a month depends on your pace.
 
If you tend to study consistently week-to-week, this kind of structure can make it easier to batch several courses into a single subscription period.
 
Open-book finals (no proctoring)
Final exams on Study.com are now open book and open note, without a proctoring requirement. This removes the need to schedule proctored sessions and can be helpful for students who are working or juggling family responsibilities.
 
Faster grading & continuous progress
Assignments are typically graded within a couple of days, so you don’t have to pause all progress while waiting for feedback.
 
Mobile app for flexible study time
Study.com also offers a mobile app where you can watch lesson videos, take quizzes and track your progress. That can help if a lot of your study time happens in short windows (commutes, lunch breaks, etc.), rather than long dedicated study blocks.
 
Transfer & planning tips
 
Policies and transfer options can change, so it’s always important to double-check with UoPeople before taking other courses for credit. A few general planning steps that some students find helpful:

• Review UoPeople’s current policies on accepting ACE-recommended credits.
  
• Map alternative-credit courses to specific degree requirements (rather than taking random electives).
  
• Confirm any planned courses with an advisor or official source before enrolling, especially if you’re close to graduation or a major milestone.
  

Jindal Global University is introducing three new online Master of Science degrees in Design Thinking and Innovation, Artificial Intelligence and Finance, and Global Risk Management. The Global Risk Management program is in financial risk management, aligned with the topics in the Global Association of Risk Professionals Financial Risk Manager (GARP FRM) certification.

Tuition for each program is 275000 INR (about 3100 USD) or less. The MSc in Design Thinking and Innovation page mentions a “short on-campus immersion” on the university campus in Sonipat, not far from New Delhi.

Nexford University now offers individual online courses, $500 each graduate, $490 each undergraduate. This is per course, not per semester hour. Courses are 3 semester hours each. Previously Nexford only offered entire degree programs where students pay a block rate per term and take courses in a prescribed order.

Students have up to two months to complete each course.

Nexford University is nationally accredited by the DEAC, not regionally accredited. Some destination schools accept nationally accredited credit categorically, some case-by-case, some not. Increasingly, but not universally, the destination schools we discuss most at DegreeForum are friendly to NA transfer credit.

Undergraduate courses are in business, business-related IT and analytics, and a few gen eds.

Because graduate courses at this price point are especially rare, and some RA graduate schools are friendly to NA transfer credit (e.g., Liberty, WGU), I’ll list all the graduate courses Nexford currently offers for single course enrollment here.

• Accounting and Financial Reporting
  
• Data Sciences for Decision Making
  
• Artificial Intelligence
  
• Robotics and Automation
  
• Business Analytics
  
• Programming in R & Python
  
• Data Modeling and Mining
  
• Applied Machine Learning for Business Analytics
  
• Information Visualization & Communication
  
• Statistics for Business Analytics
  
• Leadership and Organizational Development
  
• Global Business
  
• Organizational Strategy
  
• Introduction to Intrapreneurship and Innovation
  
• Corporate Sustainability
  
• The Laws & Ethics of Information Technology
  
• Doing Business in India
  
• Doing Business in China
  
• Doing Business in Sub-Saharan Africa
  
• Enabling E-commerce and Digital Strategy
  
• Policy and Regulatory Enablement of E-commerce
  
• Operations Digital Transformation
  
• From Idea to Pitch
  
• Startup Strategy and Development
  
• Legal Topics for Founders: Navigating the Corporate Landscape
  
• Financial Decision Making
  
• Funding for Startup Founders
  
• Financial Planning and Analysis
  
• Blockchain for Finance
  
• Machine Learning Technology for Finance
  
• The Art of Communication
  
• Building and Scaling an Organization
  
• Internet of Things
  
• Cybersecurity Leadership
  
• Product Management with Agile and Lean
  
• Marketing Strategy
  
• Product Go-to-Market
  
• Technology & Operations Management
  
• Achieving Product-Market Fit
  
• Executing a Vision: Product Design & Development for Entrepreneurs
  
• Food and Agribusiness
  
• Renewable Energy
  
• Managing Healthcare
  
• Macroeconomics and Financial Markets
  
• FinTech and Financial Innovation
  
• Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management
  
• ESG Reporting and Sustainable Finance
  
• Ethical Leadership in Finance
  
• Corporate Finance
  

Penn Foster College now offers individual online college courses for $499 per course. This comes after several years of PFC not offering individual courses, only entire degree programs where students pay a block rate per semester and take courses in a prescribed order.

Most courses are 3 semester hours. 166.33 per semester hour is one of the better rates you’ll find in the US outside some alt-credit and community colleges.

Tuition includes digital textbooks and study materials. Courses are self-paced. In PFC degree programs, you have 12 months to complete each term with a possibility of six-month extensions for a fee.

There are a few important distinctions to note.

Penn Foster College is nationally accredited by the DEAC, not regionally accredited. Some destination schools accept nationally accredited credit categorically, some case-by-case, some not. Increasingly, but not universally, the destination schools we discuss most at DegreeForum are friendly to NA transfer credit.

Years ago it was a moderately popular DegreeForum tactic to take Penn Foster College courses only when they had ACE credit recommendations, to transfer to schools that were ACE friendly but not NA friendly. That tactic is now obsolete, because Penn Foster College has let every ACE credit recommendation expire without renewal. There are no active PFC ACE courses anymore. But if your destination school will now accept PFC credit on the basis that the credit is NA, the ACE basis doesn’t matter to you.

An important distinction remains that the Penn Foster brand and pennfoster.edu website are shared by a set of legally distinct schools and programs, most of which do not have transferable degree-level credit attached. A good way to tell them apart is by referring to the official catalogs. Courses with transferable degree-level credit are in the Penn Foster College Undergraduate Student Catalog. Courses without such credit are in the Penn Foster Career School, Penn Foster High School, Penn Foster Training Institute, and Penn Foster College Diploma and Certificate catalogs.

The Penn Foster College Undergraduate Student Catalog currently lists courses in the following subjects. Most are lower level, designed for PFC Associate of Science degrees. PFC also offers three bachelor’s degrees, in Business Management, Criminal Justice, and Veterinary Technology, so upper-level courses are offered in these three subjects. PFC offers no graduate courses or programs.

• Accounting
  
• Allied Health
  
• Business
  
• Civil Engineering
  
• Computer Information Systems
  
• Computer Science
  
• Construction Technology
  
• Criminal Justice
  
• Early Childhood Education
  
• Electricity and Electronics
  
• Engineering Science Technology
  
• English
  
• Fashion
  
• Finance
  
• Graphic Design
  
• Health Information Technology
  
• Human Resources Management
  
• Humanities
  
• Industrial Engineering Technology
  
• Interior Design
  
• Internet Technology
  
• Marketing
  
• Mathematics
  
• Mechanical Engineering Technology
  
• Medical Assistant
  
• Nutrition
  
• Paralegal Studies
  
• PC Maintenance Technology
  
• Science
  
• Social Science
  
• Veterinary Technology