Charter Oak State College — Local services in New Britain

The college will do anything to get your money and be admitted, and that's where the niceties end. Their website is contradictory, and they are slow to respond to questions and concerns. You can't trust what they say either because half the time they tell you information that is incorrect. They also rip students off by charging a semester fee of $245/semester (do legitimate colleges do that? NO), and they force you to take 2 courses through the college. One being an online "cornerstone" course where you have to spend about $1350 in ADDITION to the 2 English course that are required by the college. It's basically a dumbed down version of the 2 english course requirements (which can be taken elsewhere), so they can make money out of you.

I would STRONGLY recommend getting anything that is said or promised in writing (or record it), because they will make mistakes, and then deny it when called out on it.

They are not really professional, and the entire experience is amateur at best.

That said, I was able to get a degree for less than $5,000 (I tested out of all the requirements except for the two requirements), but if I could do it again, I would have gone with Thomas Edison State College (which is a state school in New Jersey for testing out of a degree like Charter Oak) instead which has no residency requirements, and can be completely tested out of. I also think the name sounds more legit than...

I did have a helpful advisor, however, the financial aid (FA) department was difficult to get in touch with. I had to go down to the New Britain office in person 3 times and then call & email the office several times before getting even one issue resolved. After a year of their callous responses, I sent an email to the FA office to complain. They basically responded to me by calling me a liar and trying to discredit me! It was terribly unprofessional.

Charter Oak treated me as just another faceless number. The lack of personalization and unfriendly response from the employees showed me that I did not matter. I felt mistreated on their end. Don’t waste your money on a school that will refuse to hear you out and better their efforts. I wasn’t even looking for anything in return; I just wanted them to know that they needed improvement. Instead, they lost me as a student at...

There are a lot of areas where I think Charter Oak State College could improve but, the fact of the matter is, I got my BS here and probably spent less than 5,000 dollars. TOTAL! All these people complaining about the cost of higher education need to look at schools like Charter Oak. They have little in the way of credit-residency requirements -- I was only required to take eight credits in-house -- and they let you test out of as many credits as you like. For a fast, self-directed learner such as myself, it was perfect. My only caution is that I've found it very difficult to get into graduate school with my degree, despite some excellent grades and standardized test scores. The world still isn't prepared for educational...