Welcome to Transfer Calculus! My name is William Ellison, and I am currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree via alternative means. The goal of this website is to help you make an informed decision if you should wish to do the same.
Alternative means?
The traditional model for earning a bachelor’s degree in the United States goes something along these lines:
- Be 18 years old.
- Attend a residential university for four to five years.
- Graduate in substantial debt (about $38,500 on average) with a degree that may not even get you where you want to go even though at least 40% of jobs will require a college degree by 2030.
Is it any wonder that student debt, credential inflation, and the increasing stratification of American society have come together to make higher education feel further out of reach than it ever has despite being more important than ever? There is a solution – a way to get the credential, a way to earn the knowledge, and a way to do it while spending as little money as possible. However, the pathway is not without difficulties, and there are substantial warnings and pitfalls of which you absolutely must be aware – caveat discipulo et emptor (may the student and buyer beware).
Enter TC
And that’s where Transfer Calculus comes in – an insider’s guide to the world of alternative higher education written by an actively enrolled student. Join me as I explore and explain the world of higher education – traditional and otherwise – with an eye toward helping you make your educational dreams a reality for less than the cost of a used car.
Getting there from here, whether this is your first degree or your sixth, requires a lot of strategic considerations – there are, in other words, multiple calculi (sense 6) that you will need to consider. I’m here to help demystify what all too often seems like an incredibly arcane subject and turn it into a set of actionable recommendations. You can earn a college degree from a respected, regionally accredited institution, and while I discourage you from speed-running it, you can do it faster than the four-year timeline you may have been brainwashed into thinking you “need” to follow.
About Me
I’m currently a candidate for a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and a Bachelor of Arts in Communication at Thomas Edison State University located in Trenton, New Jersey. I am expecting to finish these degrees by the end of 2026. Earlier in my academic life, I completed a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science at the University of Tennessee and a vocational diploma in medical billing at the Tennessee College of Applied Technology in Knoxville. At the time of writing, I have accumulated 249 semester hours at the baccalaureate level, with credits coming from sources as diverse as the Advanced Placement program and third-party non-collegiate course providers. In my spare time, I’m a devoted Boston Red Sox and Denver Broncos fan, an avid recreational mathematician, and keen video game and music collector. I live alone in Knoxville, Tennessee, my hometown.