Full Sail University 100% Tuition Assistance avialable?

[Alexander Piskun]

Hello! I have one question. If i go to serve in National Guard will i receive 100% Tuition Assistance for studying at Full Sail University?
It says that i will:
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/guard.../bltuition.htm
But i am not really sure, that's why asking.

[matthew.ritchie]

Is the school regionally accredited? Is it nationally accredited? If not, then TA won't pay for it.

[Alexander Piskun]

Full Sail is accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC), [School# 055214]. The ACCSC is listed by the U.S. Department of Education as a nationally recognized accrediting agency under the provisions of Title 34, Chapter VI, Part 602 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations.

As i understand, Full Sail University is nationally accredited. Is it righ?
And huge thank you for answering

[RyCass]

As i understand, Full Sail University is nationally accredited. Is it righ?
And huge thank you for answering

It would be wise to check in with your Readiness NCO and/or your states Education Officer before committing to paying tuition. It's better to be safe now than sorry later!

[jwarren]

Hello! I have one question. If i go to serve in National Guard will i receive 100% Tuition Assistance for studying at Full Sail University?
It says that i will:
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/guard.../bltuition.htm
But i am not really sure, that's why asking.

There are a number of problems here.

1) The link you provided has nothing to do with federal tuition assistance. It refers to STATE benefits, which are totally separate from federal benefits. It specifically states that your Florida state benefits apply to Florida state schools, which Full Sail is NOT.
2) Full Sail is nationally accredited, not regionally accredited (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Sail_University). I don't know if this will affect your eligibility for FTA. Regardless, FTA only provides up to $4500/yr in tuition (http://www.nationalguard.com/life/ed...ion-assistance). Full Sail's tuition is $36,245 (see wikipedia link).
3) The above distinction is extremely important. Regional accreditation is what matters in the land of academia, that is, your chances of transferring credits from a nationally accredited school to a regionally accredited one are very slim. Furthermore, Full Sail is a for-profit institution. In my humble opinion, that makes it basically worthless.

So basically, your choices are:

1) Go to a regionally accredited Florida state school and use your Florida state benefits to cover 100% of tuition. You will receive a quality education and your credits will be (relatively) easily transferable to other legitimate institutions.
2) Go to Full Sail and pay over $30k/yr for a mediocre education that won't even be recognized by certain organizations due to the school's lack of regional accreditation. Did I mention the added feature of not being able to transfer your credits to another (legitimate) school?

EVERY one of these for-profit schools which advertise their "military friendliness" is garbage. However, I'm at the point where I don't even feel sorry for soldiers who are duped by their advertisements because this information is so readily available. Please do not go down the road of fools.

[Polo08816]

But getting an edukashun is important these days.

Heed the advice of jwarren.

[matthew.ritchie]

EVERY one of these for-profit schools which advertise their "military friendliness" is garbage. However, I'm at the point where I don't even feel sorry for soldiers who are duped by their advertisements because this information is so readily available. Please do not go down the road of fools.

Excellent advice.

I must also caution that all colleges, even Ivy Leagues and state schools, exhibit some of the shady practices of the diploma mills, just not to the same degree. Harvard and Yale will gladly help you get into debt to earn a fully-accredited but basically useless degree in Victimization Studies or some other unmarketable topic.

Consider going in the opposite direction: go to community college, become an electrician, and earn more than all of us.

[Polo08816]

Excellent advice.

I must also caution that all colleges, even Ivy Leagues and state schools, exhibit some of the shady practices of the diploma mills, just not to the same degree. Harvard and Yale will gladly help you get into debt to earn a fully-accredited but basically useless degree in Victimization Studies or some other unmarketable topic.

Consider going in the opposite direction: go to community college, become an electrician, and earn more than all of us.

Although, there are industries such as finance and management consulting that care more about pedigree than one's major. I'm not particularly fond of these industries, but that's another discussion entirely.

The general consensus that I've heard in terms of being gainfully employed:
-If you attend a top ~10 undergraduate school, your major matters less. There are scores of graduates from these institutions that majored in something useless but are well compensated. Whether their jobs are "secure" is another debate.
-If you don't attend a top ~10 undergraduate school, then you definitely need to consider your major wisely. It's been recommended to major in something marketable and in-demand such as engineering, computer science, etc. Of course, this is to be balanced with many factors such as talent, capability, interest, etc.

[jwarren]

I must also caution that all colleges, even Ivy Leagues and state schools, exhibit some of the shady practices of the diploma mills, just not to the same degree. Harvard and Yale will gladly help you get into debt to earn a fully-accredited but basically useless degree in Victimization Studies or some other unmarketable topic.

This is a good point, but if you achieve a high GPA from a school like Harvard or Yale you will definitely be able to cruise right into a fully-funded PhD program somewhere and then land yourself a position in academia. This is true almost regardless of the course of study.

My personal advice would be somewhere between the "electrician" and "pure academic" routes. I think that a degree in a quantitative field such as mathematics (with a finance or econ minor, or even double major) or engineering is what you want nowadays, regardless of the field you intend to work in. With a bachelors degree in engineering (electrical or mechanical being the most general) from a good state school and a high GPA, you are looking at $60k right out the gate even in this economy. And that's even in relatively low cost-of-living areas. With a masters and a few years of experience you can easily hit 6 figures (certainly so if you get your PE license).

But even if you don't go into engineering per se (I have a degree in mechanical engineering but I work for a quantitative hedge fund), someone holding a degree in any engineering discipline from a good school with a few years of work experience and/or a good record of military service is definitely marketable in a wide variety of fields.