Unlocking Your Future: Transfer to Western Governors University (WGU)

This conversation explores the unique aspects of transferring to Western Governors University (WGU), including its competency-based education model, affordability, and support systems. Krista Spencer and Ryan Markoff discuss the benefits of WGU's structure, scholarship opportunities, and Ryan's personal journey from Tri-C to a successful career in IT after completing his degree at WGU.

• WGU offers over 70 bachelor's and master's degrees.
• Competency-based education allows students to progress quickly.
• Tuition at WGU is low and starts at about $3,800.
• Students can complete a degree in as little as one year.
• WGU has partnerships that provide scholarships for students.
• KFC Foundation pays 100% of tuition for eligible employees.
• Program mentors provide one-on-one support to students.
• Ryan completed 50 credit hours in just a few months.
• WGU's structure is designed to accommodate working students.
• Transferring credits promptly is crucial for IT students.

Transcript

Transfer Center (00:05.646)
Welcome to Transfer Take 5. Today we'll explore five aspects of transfer to Western Governors University, AKA what we like to call WGU. Today I am joined by Krista Spencer and Ryan Markoff with WGU. I'm Melissa Swafford, the director of the Tri-C Transfer Centers and your host for today. So to get started, Krista and Ryan, can you introduce yourselves? Thank you. Yes, I'm Krista Spencer. I'm a senior account executive at WGU.

Awesome. And Ryan? Hi, I'm Ryan Markoff. I graduated from Tri-C and WGU with an IT major. Awesome. So today we're going to explore all these aspects of transfer to WGU. So I'm going to start with you, Krista. I think WGU is unique in terms of the academic structure and how you offer your programs. Can you tell us about how the schools are structured and also about how you base your assessments and

for your classes. Absolutely. First of all, I want to say thank you for having us here today. We love partnering with Tri-C. We've been a partner since 2016. So a proud partner. We love what you do and we love how you support students to associate's degree and beyond. So thank you for what you do every day. It's so important to us and our community. Awesome. So WGU is an online university. And some of the things that make us unique is our competency based format, which we love. But first of all, I'll tell you that we have over 70

bachelor's and master's degrees to choose from in business, IT, education and healthcare to include nursing. So we love our nurses. We need amazing nurses in our community for sure. But what I also want to talk about is how competency-based allows students to prove what they know and move on as soon as possible. This really saves them time and money. And it's a great way to prove what you know, to take everything that you've learned at TRI-C, on your job.

anywhere that you've acquired knowledge and apply it to school, and it just helps that student move forward quickly. We start the first of every month, so students aren't waiting for a semester to roll around, but we do start 12 times a year, first of every month, which we love. And as a nonprofit university, we keep our tuition extremely low, and WGU charges one price for all the classes a student can take. And tuition starts at about $3,800, depending on the degree that you choose.

Transfer Center (02:24.878)
there is a little bit of a range. And that is for six month term. And many are able to complete a bachelor's degree in one year after transferring the associate degree. that those both those things, the tuition rate and the speed of completion kind of go to affordability, right? Absolutely. How else is WGU working to make a bachelor's degree affordable for our students? So we also offer some amazing scholarship opportunities.

So graduates of TRI-C can apply for the Community College Partner Scholarship, as well as staff actually, graduates and staff, so we love that. And also there's a PTK scholarship and many others that students might be eligible for. Yeah, and the PTK scholarship, I think we talk about this often. Students who are eligible for PTK, it's a one-time membership fee. And then what they get for the scholarship is just amazing of how

schools are recognizing their good work at TRIC through that scholarship. So thank you for that. Absolutely. They are high achieving associate degree completers. So we're so proud of those PTK students as well as so many others. So it's a great opportunity to find funding to pay for your bachelor's degree. We also have a partnership with KFC Foundation. So students can work one shift a week at a KFC franchise and KFC Foundation will pay 100 % of their degree at WGU.

Wow, I didn't know that. I learned something new today. Bachelors or masters or both. They can do both. And it's immediate. They don't have to have held that job for a number of days. As soon as they are hired, that benefit is available to them. That is a great benefit. definitely. It's one of our goals is for folks to earn their bachelor's degree without going into debt. It's super important to us. And I know, Ryan, we're going to get to that when we talk about your story and affordability. was a big part of that.

Yeah. the one last thing I wanted to mention too is that WGU was extremely supportive. So students work with their program mentor and with their faculty one-to-one to achieve their goals. So if their goal is to accomplish that degree in one year or less, that program mentor is going to keep them on task. That's awesome. Yeah, super important. secret sauce of having students be successful is the program mentors and the faculty. Yeah. And I'm excited too, because Ryan's going to talk about his experience.

Transfer Center (04:41.656)
Understanding that WGU is unique and all, you know, that there are experiences and how it's offered is different than everything else. I think it's important to understand, Ryan, one, what brought you to Tri-C and then what took you to WGU? Yeah, absolutely. So I graduated high school and I was like, hey, I feel like I need to go to college. I'm interested in technology and IT and all that stuff. And, you know, Tri-C, you know, I live in Cuyahoga County where Tri-C is at. Very, very affordable pricing.

looking at even in-state schools is still pretty expensive compared to even just per credit hour. So I signed up for Tri-C, did all the basic tuition and the intro. You have to take a bunch of intro tests to mark where you're at. I didn't do the greatest on the math ones, but fortunately, Tri-C offered some really good mentoring or tutoring.

facility. So I was able to spend a lot of time there and slowly work my way all the way up to WGU. So I graduated, took a few more classes to see what I could transfer to WGU and then signed up for WGU and the rest is history. It's all very affordable. why did you pick WGU? What about their program? absolutely. I looked at a lot of different programs in school, out of state, in state. WGU offered incredibly

reasonable pricing, specifically for a bachelor's degree, and then being able to say, hey, I can do this degree in six months, a year, whatever it is. And even if it takes longer than I expect, it's still very, very affordable as opposed to going into more of a more traditional university. Yeah. And I know you have shared how much you accomplished in a short period of time. And I think it's amazing. So why don't you share with everybody what you were able to do in a short period of time. So I transferred, think, around 40 or 50 credit units or credit hours, whatever.

They're called at WGU. And I completed another 50 in the first three or four months, give or take. And that saved me a lot of time. Granted, it was a serious amount of effort. dedicated just about every single second I had outside of just my normal work hours, because I was working full time during this period for the most part. And I was very fortunate to work with the mentors they have.

Transfer Center (07:04.182)
very hands on with, you know, say, Hey, I completed this course or have this question and they're very responsive, probably more so than I would really expect inside email them at like 9pm at night and hear back, which was unexpected. So you there was support for you throughout the whole process. was so much support from WGU, not that I didn't get any from tricy, but it definitely felt more hands on than I was expecting with WGU.

Yeah, especially with an online program based farther away and everything. Exactly. And I don't remember where my mentor was located, but she was very, very good at responding and answering questions and everything like that. That's great to hear. So knowing you were going from Tri-C, traditional format of classes, to WGU with a competency-based education, tell us about how was that experience? What did you think about it at first and then the value you would assign to it? Yeah, I was a little nervous at first. mean, especially coming from Tri-C, I've spent

quite a few years at Tricy just taking normal classes. Some of them are online, some of them are just in person. And then to go into full online mode is like, okay, it's kind of interesting. I've heard of horror stories of other universities, so was definitely a little nervous. But after talking with a mentor and kind of learning about more of like the syllabus for each course, it's like, hey, you just essentially complete this course, you can either take the final exam or the certification for the industry and be done with the course as opposed to going through.

you know, 16 weeks of just, you know, assignments and that's generally not very fun, especially when you're really comfortable with the material already. So being able to go to WGU and say, Hey, I'm confident in these skills. Let me just take the test. So to speak, saved me a lot of time and money for sure.

That's awesome. And I think you mentioned to me before that you got some industry credentials along the way, certifications. I don't know if remember how many or what ones. Yes, I got a bunch of CompTIA certifications, which are more entry level, but they're still great because they cover like when I say entry level, like you need these skills almost anywhere in IT, whether you go into specific programming or networking or whatever. And that was very beneficial, just being able to be forced to study a certification, which I'm aware of the certifications working in the industry, but

Transfer Center (09:11.758)
there's a difference between, I know the certification exists and spending the time to actually study for it and take it and being forced to do that because I've already signed up for WGU, which helped me a lot having that pressure essentially to get it done. That way could do the next credit union. And the certification was included in your affordable. Yes, exactly. I didn't have to pay any extra, like the book, the actual certification. And you got a couple of tries in case you failed one. That's very nice because just the books alone are just like $100 and the certification is usually $200 or $300.

So having that all wrapped into one price made it very, very convenient. Nice. And I think, Ryan, you had a chat with me. You actually started taking kind of technology classes in high school at Polaris, right? Yes, that's correct. And it's a great kind of story. It started in high school. You got engaged with those kind of tech classes at Polaris. We have to TRI-C and then WGU. Before we kind of...

Finish up here, Ryan. I think you have a great professional story in terms of coming to try see what that allowed you to do, but then finishing your bachelor's degree. So why don't you tell us where you are professionally? Sure, yeah. So right now, my title is Lead Cloud Engineer, but the focus on Azure and AWS and Oracle Cloud. While the specific certifications I took at WGU don't apply specifically to Azure or AWS, they do have cloud certifications.

and getting that kind of experience, official experience, I should say, because again, I did have quite a bit of a professional IT experience and going to WGU and say, hey, I know this information. Now I have the official bachelor's degree. I have the certifications. And within a few months of graduating WGU, was able to apply to a bunch of jobs, got a few offers and took the one I wanted, which was a DevOps engineer. I spent a couple of years there. And then a couple of years ago, I applied for this lead cloud engineer position and was able to grow into that, which

has been fantastic. I think it's just a great story of showing from you build from high school what you started learning in high school, your associate's degree, and then your bachelor's degree. So thank you for sharing our story. Before we kind of finish up, Krista, is there anything else you would like our students to know about WGU? We're just really proud of them to take that next step after their associate degree to work towards their bachelor's degree. And I would tell them, don't wait too long.

Transfer Center (11:28.972)
We want every one of your credits to transfer. So with a partnership, you typically get over 60 credits coming from that degree. But in IT, if you wait the five years, some of those credits will no longer transfer because the IT credits are considered a moving target. Things update and they're new.

So we want you to be thinking about that transfer fees. Don't wait too long. Transfer those credits. Apply for free. See how many credits are going to transfer for you and learn more. And if we're not the right fit, find the right fit for you. We really want you to change your life, change your children's lives, and really make that effort for a great education for yourselves, for your family.

and to really our community is better for it. So we're grateful for what you do every day and we're grateful for your amazing students. Well, thank you for the support of our students and thank you both for joining me today. I really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you, Melissa.