Every time I check out the national guide, there always seems to be a new professional cert (which I'm excited about)
IBM has recently released their Generative AI Engineering Professional Cert which is worth a whopping 17 CREDITS! This definitely ranks as one of the bulkiest ACE bundles amongst a couple of others:
If someone were hesitant about being able to complete 15 credits through TECEPs in one go (to bypass the residency fee), would WGU Academy be a solid option for someone?
Right now, the two clear front-runners are Waymo and Tesla, though they’re taking very different paths.
Waymo is ahead today in terms of proven Level-4 deployments, operational experience, and regulatory trust. It’s already running fully driverless services in multiple cities and logging millions of miles without safety drivers.
Tesla, however, is closing the gap quickly. Its recent driverless testing in Austin sparked renewed investor enthusiasm and helped push Tesla to a roughly $1.6T valuation. Tesla’s approach which is camera-only perception plus massive data and AI training remains controversial, but it scales differently than Waymo’s sensor-heavy model.
Elon Musk has gone as far as to claim that fully autonomous driving is “pretty much solved” during a recent event for xAI, though critics argue that technical success, safety validation, and profitable deployment are very different milestones.
One inevitability worth discussing: at some point, there will be a headline about a robotaxi killing someone. When that happens, we’ll be forced again into the classic trolley-problem debate:
Do we judge autonomous systems against human perfection, or against human averages?
So the real question may not be who gets there first, but:
Who earns long-term public trust?
Who can make the economics work at scale?
And will there be one winner or regional and platform-level winners instead?
Curious to hear how others see this playing out.
And what happens to Uber?
Does it adapt and become the dominant platform for robotaxis, or does it risk becoming the Blockbuster Video of ride-hailing, disrupted by the very technology it helped popularize?
I just graduated from Thomas Edison State University Dec 12, 2025. I was able to knock out 45 credit hours between March and November 2025, including 3 Sophia classes and 1 Straighterline.
After much research, I chose the MS in Engineering Management at University of Arkansas. You have to have a STEM degree that is ABET accredited as well as a 3.0 GPA in last 60 credit hours to get accepted. Their website says you must have an engineering degree, but apparently this was changed in the last year to include Engineering Technology majors. TESU's Electronic Systems Engineering Technology degree meets all the requirements.
What I like about the EM at University of Arkansas is 1) major school recognition 2) their Engineering Management program is certified by the American Society of Engineering Management, and 3) the price is $1089 per 3 hour class all in (I just registered and paid for Spring 26). So far it has been a smooth process. You can have a Masters in Engineering Management from a major school for literally under $11k!!
I'm currently enrolled or registered or whatever, for a BA and an AAS. (two different AOS's)
When I look at my MyProgress page for each, it says my General Education requirements are waived.
But if I try to game out a different degree scenario, that section takes a 3 credit course, sticks it in that space and says:
".01 of .01 Credits Completed."
I'm confused why isn't it waived there too?
And why it's putting a 3 credit course there instead of say leaving it open for some random 1 credit course I may take in the future?
It feels like a waste of 3 credits.
If I were to enroll in that degree instead of the ones I'm currently in would it fix itself and be "waived" there too?
And what if I decided to do TWO BA's would it still only be waived for one?
As the Eptein files saga has progressed, I became interested in a little sidenote. Apparently, one of Epstein's closest associates was Lawrence Summers, the former Secretary of the Treasury.
Several years ago, New's Poetry in America series of classes was a bit of a rage on this board because it was possible to take five different courses in poetry at the Harvard Extension School for $250 each. That is $62.50 per graduate credit. This was a steal and I took all five courses for a total of 20 graduate credits in English for $1250. I am a high school English teacher and this qualifies me to teach dual credit classes. Following this, I moved to a different state, took a different job and now teach AP English classes as part of my schedule. AP does not require 18 graduate credits to teach, but this made me the obvious choice for the spot.
Well, as the Epstein files have dripped out, it appears that the Poetry in America series and New appear in the Epstein files and both Summers and New traveled to Epstein's island.
Epstein's foundation even gave $110,000 to New's poetry initiative.
I really cannot say anything bad about the classes themselves. They were about the cheapest graduate credits in English that a person could take anywhere and they really do appear on a Harvard transcript. I enjoyed them, learned a lot and benefitted from them.
And, surprisingly, as I looked into this, it appears that Harvard still offers a scholarship for teachers who want to take the classes at $250 per class. I told my co-worker about this and he is signed up for next semester and was approved for the scholarship.
It is still a great deal. It's so good that there must be something funny going on.
City Vision University recently announced that DEAC has approved a new doctoral offering, namely a Doctor of Organization Leadership and Innovation (DOLI). The degree comprises 40 credit hours, and can be completed in 2 years, for just about $13k ($333.33 per credit hour).
The DOLI degree has 5 concentration options (actually six, when including the "diversified" personal concentration):
Executive Leadership & Fundraising. Develop and implement plans to grow an organization in its impact, financial health and relational health. Audience: Existing or aspiring CEOs.
Nonprofit Program Leadership & Social Entrepreneurship. Improve the effectiveness of nonprofit programs by implementing best practices. Audience: Program & social enterprise leaders looking to advance their skills.
Organizational Culture and Change Management. Develop and implement plans to improve organizational health and adapt to change. Audience: HR leaders and executive leaders wanting to focus on people side.
Trauma-Informed Counseling Management. Develop and implement plans to establish trauma-informed culture of health throughout an organization. Audience: Licensed counselors seeking increased training in Christian methods, the management side of counseling and/or interested in starting their own center.
Education Leadership and Innovation. Apply disruptive and continuous innovation principles to designing courses and programs to provide radically affordable and practical online education.
Perhaps most interesting, is that the program includes 9 options for an applied/action research capstone project to complete the program (detailed in the attached image).
CVU is a unique institution, that while organized around a Christian ethos, has programming widely applicable to work within the non-profit sector. All of their offerings are very affordable, and they aim to intentionally leverage technology to disrupt the higher education space to make the whole enterprise more accessible.
I was reviewing Excelsior website and came across this, not for any other degree but Business: Fixed rate tuition (BS in Business program only. Effective beginning with registration for Spring 2026 Trimester.) $3,200 per trimester for eligible students. This all-inclusive fixed-rate pricing includes tuition, course materials, the Academic Services Fee, and Technology Fee.
Someone needs to email them to see if you can complete the 15 credit residency requirements entirely using this fixed rate tuition. IIRC, I don't think they allow the capstone to be completed in the same trimester. Thus, you'll be stuck with an extra trimester to complete the business capstone course. You may want to do the associates capstone for the 15 residency credits, and get an extra Associates on route to the Bachelors.
I was just on Sophia Learning's website and have found that Central New Mexico Community College seems to have recently partnered up with Sophia Learning and StraighterLine. Current students at the Community College and I believe anyone who plans to apply and attend can transfer in certain classes from either place for credit.
I did not look into this deeply, but I see that they don't accept every class from Sophia Learning and StraighterLine. It's mostly general education or pre-requisite courses for your degrees. Either way, I think this might be a great option for New Mexico Residents or anyone who just wants to save money on education in general. This might be great for anyone who wants to study Business Administration because, it seems like the majority of the classes is geared toward that program.
I'm posting a list of links below for anyone who wants to read on this further. Also, contact the admissions office too if you have any question about this.
