Western Governors University

From Degree Forum Wiki

Western Governors University has a number of competency-based degrees available. With a few small exceptions (see "Will you admit students living outside the U.S.?"), WGU only admits students who are US residents. Regardless of this limitation, WGU is favored by many due to its balance of costs and ease of access.

Degree Structure[edit]

Unlike many other American universities, WGU has very few gen ed requirements for its degrees. This can make it difficult, though not impossible, to transfer more than a handful of credits to WGU. Students with eligible credits may transfer up to 90 to the university towards a degree. For IT degrees, many industry certificates are accepted for credit.

Tuition Discounts & Tips for Paying for Courses[edit]

As of 2024, 6 months of tuition is $3,975 + a $200 book/resources fee = $4,175 per term. Averaged out, that means you only need to earn or save $24 per day for 6 months during your term in order to afford the next term by the time it comes. This means WGU is affordable even to most people with part-time minimum wage jobs if they take a serious look at where they can cut their expenses at.

WGU offers 3 tuition payment plans:

1) $0 fee = Pay everything (either in installments or in one lump sum) on or before the 1st of the month your classes will start.

2) $50 fee = A) Pay in 6 installments during the term, roughly $700 a month. B) Pay in 4 installments during the term, roughly $1,100 each.

There's a nearly 3% fee on each individual transaction you use a credit or debit card on, but $0 fee to take it directly from your bank account.

Discounts: Students who graduated from a Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California (or several other states) college or community college, or who are hospital, government or school employees in certain states, or who are a member of a Teamsters union (or several other unions and associations), receive 5% off of tuition (= $198.75 off as of 2024) per term. There is no comprehensive list on WGU's website so you need to Google for each individual state or association to see if yours qualifies or if there is a participating association you can easily join.

You will still get the community college 5% off even if you, say, got an associate's at a WA school, got a BA somewhere else, and are now going to WGU for your MA. The discount will take several weeks to appear, will appear without you getting any notification or Email, and will look like "Waiver - Tuition Discount $198.75" in the Discounts & Other Credits section on the Fulfill Financial Requirements page.

Scholarships: 3rd party scholarships work for WGU, including GI grants and (for Associate's or Bachelor's students only) Pell Grants. Master's students, as with at all schools, are unlikely to ever get scholarships from any scholarship service, however you can try anyways. WGU will send you a rejection letter if you aren't accepted after applying to their scholarships.

Bank hack: You can sign up for a new bank account that has a sign-on bonus of $200 or more, typically granted if you spend $500 or more on a 1% cashback card within 3 months of opening the account. Many of these accounts automatically accept you without checking your credit score. An example of such a card in 2024 is SavorOne.

Use that new account to pay off $490 worth of WGU tuition, so together with the WGU 3% credit card usage fee (around $15) your charge will equal to $500. You will obtain $205 in cashback from the signup bonus and additional 1% cashback, which equals a $190 profit. You can then close that new account. Continue to pay the rest of the tuition directly with your normal bank account so you don't get any more 3% credit/debit card usage fees.

- You can sign up for a 1% cashback debit card and use that to pay for all general purchases (such as rent and utilities) where a credit card can't be used. An example of such a card is Discover Cashback Debit.

- Amazon, KFC, and several other companies will completely pay for your WGU tuition if you work there either part-time or for 6+ months. Many people get weekend jobs there just to have their tuition paid.

- Find all the WGU courses in your degree, download people's Quizlet decks to Anki, research memory championship mnemonic techniques, and pre-study all the material before you start the term. This will make degree acceleration much more feasible. You can even read course material or do Anki flashcards in the shower or bath via a waterproof e-reader or a phone in a waterproof bag, which is a common technique the most productive people employ to get more time in the day. Spend particular focus on anything you know you are weak in, and think of the long term - if you're weak in Math, start using Khan Academy immediately even if your math course isn't scheduled to appear until your 5th term.

- If you have your own place, you can create a partition (even something as simple as a sheet or curtains) to make a new room in an area like the living room, and rent out what was your bedroom as an Airbnb or room rental. This is a common technique with Airbnb owners to earn extra money.

- Any time you buy something online, use the computer not your smartphone, and enable cashback browser addons and coupon services like RetailMeNot, Honey, Rakuten Points, etc. You may get up to 10% cashback or discounts with those addons + the additional 1.5% or more cashback from your normal credit card.

- If you have unlimited phone data you don't need to pay for a separate home internet connection. Just create a wifi hotspot via your phone's mobile data that your computer can connect to.

- If your degree has an internship, it may take up to 3 months for WGU to find you an internship placement, then your internship itself will be 2 months or more, which means the internship stage often spills out onto an additional term. Get all paperwork required for your internship (state exams, background checks, etc) done as soon as possible so there are no hiccups. Contact places directly, asking them for an internship, and then if anyone agrees get them to contact WGU themselves, which can be faster than waiting for a placement by WGU.

- Check your food, electricity and gas usage very carefully. Most people could save over $4,000 a year by not buying items containing liquid (most people buy canned beans instead of dry beans, buy sodas, etc), by not buying premade foods (make diy yogurt instead of storebought), by buying in restaurant size (up to 70% cheaper) or directly from farmers (up to 10x cheaper) instead of in bulk, individual packaging, or storebought. Food banks in most areas have a surplus of food that goes to waste each month, and are not government-funded so you can get free food regardless of your income bracket.

Most could save huge on electricity bills throughout the year by using localized heating instead of heating up the entire house or room (electric blankets, diy kotatsu, sleeping bags, even simply closing off the living room so the heat doesn't go into the rest of the house), washing clothes with cold water ($0.04 a load) rather than hot ($0.70+ a load), downsizing or down-teching equipment (mini electric oven instead of normal sized oven, or solar cooker or fire-cooked), etc. Likewise gas (bicycle or electric bicycle instead of driving to close-by places).

References[edit]