What is the Cheapest Regionally Accredited Online College?

The cheapest regionally accredited online college that I have managed to find is Louisiana State University. They offer their online and distance learning courses for just $119 per semester hour which compared to the cost of many other online colleges is very inexpensive. There are however a couple of caveats when it comes to taking online courses at LSU.

The first issue that you are going to encounter with LSU is that they offer only a very small number of online courses. That being said they do have a wide selection of the more traditional paper based distance learning courses. If you are willing to combine the two types of courses LSU is probably the least expensive way to get a distance learning degree.

The other big issue with LSU that may be a problem for some students is that LSU doesn't actually offer a distance learning degree. It may be possible to complete a degree entirely through distance learning however you will have to be admitted to one of the state university campuses and they will award the degree. The other option that you have is to take as many courses as you can through LSU and then transfer the credits to another school. If you are going to do this you will need to be careful to make sure that all of the courses that you take are transferable.

If you want to find an online degree program that can be completed entirely online the least expensive option that I have managed to find is Fort Hayes State University. They offer a reasonable number of programs that can be completed online, currently tuition is $182 per semester hour.

There are of course even less expensive ways to get a degree if money is really tight. The cheapest possible way to get a regionally accredited distance learning degree is to use the many examination programs that are available. Programs like CLEP and Dantes and several others will award university credit for about a hundred dollars a course, the price varies from program to program. If you take a 6 credit CLEP exam for example the cost is $80 which works out to about $13 per semester hour. You can transfer a limited number of exam credits to most online colleges, a few like Excelsior College or Thomas Edison State College will actually allow you to complete a whole degree using these exams. In theory this will allow you to complete a degree for less than $5000 including all of the fees charged by the colleges.