COLLEGE CREDIT, AA & BA Degree FAQ

In reading the following Questions and Answers, it may be helpful to keep in mind that the core raison d’etre for the Angelicum Academy is to provide students around the world with the opportunity online to study and discuss together the Great Books of Western civilization, which are, in Adler’s famous phrase: “the backbone of a liberal education,” about which, as Jacques Maritain noted: “The direct reading and study of books written by great authors is the primary educational means…Nothing can replace .’pure reading,’ as Charles Peguy put it, of a ‘pure text.’ One cannot emphasize too much the educational role of great books.” Papal biographer George Weigel similarly noted: “The West has devised no better way of forming the character of the young than by immersing young men and women in the classics of Western civilization.”  The Angelicum Great Books courses represent an essential element in the following programs.

Does the AA or the BA track cost less per credit hour?

College credits on the AA track cost $204-212 per credit, for up to 78 credits. On the BA track they cost a bit more: $225-250 per credit. By comparison, credits at public and private colleges cost $375-1,385 per credit (see Cost Comparison HERE).

So the least expensive way to earn an AA or BA degree is to enroll in the AA track, and once it is completed, switch to the BA track. This is a common approach. However the AA track tuition is even/flat over four years, so it is a little more than the BA track the first two years, and less the latter two years.

The AA track is $3,975 per year for four years. The BA track is $2,999 per year for four years (which includes the 12 Great Books credits per year), plus $225 per credit the student selects to add to that the next two or more years. The student may choose not to add any credits a particular semester, or as many as 15, or anything in between.

How long does it usually take for a student to earn an Associate degree and/or a Bachelor’s degree?

Associate degrees require 60 college credits (usually twenty 3-credit courses). Bachelor’s degrees typically require 120 college credits (usually forty 3-credit courses). That is true regardless of the age of the student. Here is the typical schedule for earning those degrees in college:

Associate Degree: 15 credits (5 courses) per semester x 4 semesters (Fall and Spring for two years) = 60 credits

Bachelor’s Degree: 15 credits (5 courses) per semester x 8 semesters (Fall and Spring for four years) = 120 credits.

Before specifically discussing the Angelicum Academy AA and BA programs, let’s first take a look at ways students commonly use to reduce the time to earn a degree.

Summer School. If a student decides to take 10 courses in summer schools, for 30 credits, that reduces the time required to complete the usual requirements for a bachelor’s degree to three years of college/university. That would require the student to take 5 courses over two summers, or, 3 courses over three summers (+ 1 credit in a four-credit course), or, 2 credits two summers (one after 12th grade) and 3 credits two summers. Any of these scenarios reduces the time required to earn a BA to three years. Because students may also begin college in the summer after their 12th grade, students may reduce the time to earn an AA in college to one year and four months.

Taking Extra Courses.Many students take 6 or more courses some semesters, usually when their other courses are not particularly difficult ones. Taking 6 courses per semester, rather than 5, over five semesters would earn them 15 extra credits, reducing their time at college by ½ a year (one semester). Combined with summer schools (above), this would reduce their time at college for a BA to 2 ½ years.

Other Ways. There are several other ways students earn additional college credits and shorten the time required to earn their AA and/or BA such as: testing out of courses; taking college courses in earlier years of education; early college programs; dual enrollment; concurrent enrollment; correspondence courses; signing up for study trips with credit; independent study courses; preparing special papers; completing a capstone project, a senior thesis or dissertation.

Testing Out. Many colleges allow students to “test out” of some courses, such as algebra, history, sociology and others. This requires passing a test prepared for the purpose of evaluating whether the student already possesses the requisite knowledge in that area of study to give them college credit for it without taking a college course. Many such students earn 3, 6, 9 ,12 or even 15 credits – a whole semester. CLEP, the College Level Examination Program, also provides a means to earn college credit via testing without taking college courses.

AP, IB, ACE. Most high schools now offer students courses that qualify for college credit such as Advanced Placement (AP) courses, the International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma or individual Diploma Programme courses taken during high school or homeschool. The same is true for courses recommended by the American Council on Education’s ACE Credit for college credit.

Early College. 48 states now allow and encourage high-school-age students to enroll in early college programs which usually allow students to earn about 60 college credits and an Associate degree by the time they’ve completed high school; in concurrent credit courses offered at high schools for college credit with local community colleges or with colleges and universities which offer such arrangements; and in dual enrollment (taking courses from college professors, often on campus, evenings or online). Students in these programs often enter college with one to two years of credits or more already earned, many with an Associate degree completed.

To summarize, there is widespread and increasing national recognition that most high-school-age students are able to begin earning significant college credits in 9th to 12th (age 14-17) grade, including an Associate degree, and that many college students are willing and able to complete more than 30 credits per year in college through one or more of numerous ways, reducing their time in college or university by one-to-two years or more, saving their families tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and related costs, and allowing them to embark upon their careers and desired vocations without years of unnecessary delay and debt.

Would you please detail how an Angelicum Academy student can earn an Associate degree and/or Bachelor’s degree from 9th to 12th grade?

Certainly. Colleges and universities are required to provide a minimum of 25% of the credits needed for their degrees. The rest can be earned elsewhere (such as the Angelicum Academy) and transferred in by agreements. We have a number of such agreements with accredited colleges, both Catholic and secular.

For nearly a decade, students in our AA program have been earning their Associate degrees by completion of 12th grade. They did this simply by completing our 4-year Great Books program (for 12 college credits per year = 48 total) and five courses (15 credits or 25% of the AA degree) online from an associated college = 63 total credits and their Associate degree. We refer to this as our AA track. We have prepared a SAMPLE AA DEGREE PLAN chart HERE.

For the BA degree, Angelicum Academy students who have successfully completed two years of our four-year Great Books program (accepted by numerous colleges and universities for 48 college credits per year), beginning the summer after their sophomore or “Romans Year” may begin taking introductory-level college courses, two per semester (on average), for each of the Summer, Fall 1, Fall II, Spring I and Spring II semesters (for colleges such as Catholic International University which have “8 week terms”) for a total of ten college course per year = 30 credits. Alternatively, they could take two courses in the summer and four courses in normal-length Fall and Spring semesters, or similar arrangements at Angelium-associated colleges using conventional semester schedules. In other words, apart from the Great Books course, the courses provided by our associated colleges do not begin until age 16 and 17 or older. By the end of their Junior year such students will have completed 66 credits, more than enough for their AA degree.

Our four Theology Online courses by Fr. Joseph Fessio, Th.D., a former student of Pope Benedict XVI, earn them an additional 12 credits. These courses are asynchronous and may be taken any time of year. We recommend students complete them over time, when they have time, two per year in their Junior and Senior years.

During their Senior year, motivated Angelicum students who wish to pursue their BA by the conclusion of 12th grade, or simply more credits towards their BA, who successfully completed their AA degree in their Junior year with a B (3.0) GPA, would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to allow them to begin taking the same number of courses (2 per semester: Summer, Fall 1, Fall II, Spring I, Spring II) for the final 30 credits needed for their BA (or some similar arrangement). We have prepared a chart illustrating this schedule HERE.

To summarize the credits earned per the above: Great Books courses-48 credits; Theology Online-12 credits; Junior Year ten courses-30 credits; Senior Year ten courses-30 credits. TOTAL: 120 credits and BA degree.

As noted above, more and more high school and homeschool students are earning their AA degrees by 12th grade by earning college credit in various ways. For students who complete their AA by the end of 11th grade, to be allowed to pursue their BA in 12th grade is simply the natural extension of that development, which also represents a gradual return to the age at which students in the Middle Ages through the late 19th century matriculated college and university, which was typically 14 years of age earning their BA degrees in 3-4 years (e.g., Oxford and the University of Paris, the most prestigious universities of the day). To read about that historical norm for beginning college-level studies we have posted an article about it HERE. It is also the norm recommended by the great educational philosopher Dr. Mortimer J. Adler.

As far as the United States is concerned, the reorganization of the educational system would make it possible for the system to make its contribution to the liberal education of the young by the time they reached the age of eighteen…The tremendous waste of time in the American educational system must result in part from the fact that there is so much time to waste.”

“If I had any hope that in the foreseeable future, the educational system of this country could be so radically transformed that the basic liberal training would be adequately accomplished in the secondary [i.e., high] schools and that the Bachelor of Arts degree would then be awarded at the termination of such schooling…it would be appropriate to award a Bachelor of Arts degree at the completion of such basic schooling.”

Adler clarified this in 1981: “the BA degree should be given on graduation from high school. Doing so would return that degree to its original educational significance as certifying competence in the liberal arts, which are the arts or skills of learning in all fields of subject matter.”

It may be noted that after 25 years of experience with offering college-level courses in 9th-12th grades, we are not attempting to reform the educational system of the United States (though we would like to see that), rather we are simply allowing those students motivated to pursue college credits in those grades (and older) the opportunity to do so, as many as they wish and which they demonstrate at each level they are able successfully to complete.

Are the Angelicum Academy AA and BA programs designed for extraordinary students?

Yes and no. As we have noted above, more and more high school, homeschool and college students are earning more and more college credits, earlier and in less time than the previously typical four years in college. There is no screening process to limit any of the various means of doing that to “extraordinary” students, other than simply successfully passing the courses, one step or level at a time (B being the required final grade for much of it). In other words, the various paths to earning college credits described above are open to any student, as are colleges and universities in general, who has successfully completed the prior step.

We have all read of extraordinary students such as: the homeschooler Michael Kevin Kearney who was diagnosed with ADHD but entered college at age 6 and earned his Associate degree (AAS in Geology) at age 8 and went on to complete his BA degree (in Anthropology) at age 10 and his MA (in chemistry) at age 14, and a second MA (in computer science) from Vanderbilt at age 18; or William James Sidis who entered Harvard at age 11 and graduated with his BA (Cum Laude) at age 16; or Eugenie Carys de Silva who graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Intelligence Analysis at 11 years old with a Master’s degree and 4.0 GPA (Summa Cum Laude) from Harvard at the age of14 and a doctorate in Politics at age 15. There are many such examples one can easily find online. Youth is no barrier to college entry. However, these are prodigies, and not typical students. In the 1700s few people entered college before reaching age thirteen, but many received baccalaureate degrees at the age of sixteen or seventeen. Our students earning Associate degrees typically graduate at age eighteen, some older.

It is those “many” motivated students the Angelicum Academy hopes to help provide the opportunity to achieve their goals, not every student, not even every Angelicum Academy student. This has been true of our AA program. About half of our Great Books students join that program aiming for their AA degree while in high school. We anticipate about half of those students will join our BA program, as many already have.

What if a student begins the Angelicum AA or BA program and then decides it’s not for them?

Of course that happens, and such students have several options: they can simply reduce the number of courses they take to whatever number they are comfortable with and proceed more slowly, even taking years longer if they wish; and/or switch to the Great Books High School track; if they are on the BA track they can switch to the AA track; they can take time away from the program, or of course they can withdraw from the course(s) or program with full credit for unused tuition. They would remain free later to reverse those choices as well. We are here to assist students in whichever way and pace they desire to proceed with their education, successfully, including offering opportunities not yet available elsewhere, not to dictate to them.

Can students transfer laterally into the Angelicum Academy in grades 10-12, and join the AA or BA programs?

Students can transfer into the Angelicum Academy at any level, however it would not be possible to join the BA program after 9th grade and earn the BA by the completion of 12th grade. The BA program assumes the student will be taking the Great Books Program during both their 9th and 10th grade years. A student could however join the AA program in 10th grade and earn their AA by the completion of 12th grade. We would need to advise such a student what courses that would entail taking and when. Keep in mind, while such later transfer students might not be able to complete their degrees by 12th grade, they would normally be able to complete them in one to three years, depending upon their prior studies. Normally, students have six years to complete their BA degrees.