College Credit by Exam

While saving money is easy in some aspects of college life such as housing, travel, and meal plans, you have to get creative when it comes to saving money on the academic side of things. In general, tuition and fees stay at the same rate year after year, with periodic increases. One very good way to save money, however, is something your student may already be doing right now. 

Credit by exam is a way to for students to earn credit through AP, IB, or CLEP exams. AP, Advanced Placement, and IB, International Baccalaureate, exams are taken in high school and some colleges will offer credit for an equivalent class at their institution. Of course, not all students take AP or IB classes in high school, but if your child missed the opportunity to take these classes or exams he or she can still take a College Level Exam Program (CLEP) exam.

Conveniently enough, the College Board, the same educational testing giant that brings you the SAT and AP exams also writes the CLEP exams. Any way you slice it the concept is the same. Students prepare for the tests by studying a subject specific study guide, available online, and once they feel comfortable with the material, they take the exam for a fee and depending on their score, earn credit.  Some students can earn credit for knowledge gained through personal study or perhaps they already speak a foreign language and need to show proficiency in the language by earning credit through CLEP.

Not all colleges accept credit earned through AP, IB or CLEP, but if your child’s college does, it is worth looking into.  You can learn more than you ever wanted to know about college level exams at: http://collegeboard.org 

While it may make sense for students to earn credit in this way for introductory, general education or core classes, I don’t recommend this method of earning credit for classes that are integral to the student’s major. If your child is majoring in engineering, and took an AP psychology class in high school, then he may wish to go ahead and study for and take that exam to earn a social science or elective credit. But, an engineering student taking the AP exam for calculus, even if he could pass with flying colors, will usually have problems in higher-level major classes.