Fr Chuck is right in that if you wish to find a degree honored by all US business you will need to find one that is listed with the US Dept of Education.

But, if you are okay with only 67 percent of US businesses honoring your degree (according to vault.com) you can save tens of thousands of dollars getting a Life Experience degree from Almeda University or another Life Experience degree granting institution.

A few years ago, an article in Forbes magazine entitled "Is Yale a Waste of Money?" posited that a college degree's main value is simply because it tells employers you're smart enough to get into college. Forbes even floated the notion that an entrepreneur could charge something like $16,000 to certify qualified high-school graduates as being worthy of attending an Ivy League college. Then those who paid for the certification could save themselves the approximately $144,000 that college would have cost them, start work immediately rather than wait for the four years of college to be over, and be that much ahead of the game than their peers who actually went to college.

Interestingly enough, a Life Experience degree offers that very same advantage proposed by none other than Forbes magazine. And a Life Experience degree costs only $500 - $1000.

Is it worth the price? Again, according to vault.com, 67 percent of all corporations accept a Life Experience degree. Isn't that worth a whole lot more to the roughly 50% of the people who start college but never finish? They have no degree, even though they squandered thousands of dollars on some "fine college education" they never completed. Think of all the money they wasted and also all the money they could have earned during the time they were in college.

If you still think that five hundred bucks for a Life Experience degree is a rip-off, be aware that York University charges $1200.00 just in parking fees! Texas Tech charges an I.D. Maintenance fee. Some more actual fees charged by "legitimate" universities include Information Technology Fee, Library Fee, Cultural Activities Fee, Medical Services Fee, Student Services Fee, Late Payment Registration Fee, Testing Fee, Drop/Add Fee, Computer Lab Fee, Graduation Fee, Student Union Fee, Student Recreation Center Fee, Student Transportation Fee, ID Card Maintenance Fee, Student Business Services Fee, Intercollegiate Athletic Fee, Energy Fee, and more. By the way, these fees are charged to all students. Not just the 50 percent that graduate.

It would be one thing if everyone who started college had a great experience there, graduated, and actually used their knowledge, not just the degree, to create a better life for themselves. But that's not always, or even usually, the case. According to ACT (http://www.act.org/news/releases/2002/11-15-02.html) 49 percent (nearly HALF) of all freshmen entering a traditional four-year college will not graduate. Fully 25 percent of the freshmen will not even return for their sophomore year. 10 percent of the freshmen withdraw from college before the end of the first semester. The colleges know this and they plan for it by having less housing for seniors than freshmen. Colleges do not even have the facilities to graduate all those freshmen entering their school.

Listen to this quote from another Forbes article entitled "Five Reasons to Skip College" published just this year (April 23, 2006): "For, in truth, most professions - journalism, software engineering, sales, and trading stocks to name but a few - depend far more on 'on-the-job' education than on classroom learning."

Isn't that the story behind the Life Experience degree? Get one and doors open-faster, easier, and much less expensively than by squandering years of your life and tens of thousands of your dollars on a traditional college "education".