I'm not sure why you're asking, but I want to toss out another twist on combining aviation and college.
In addition to "aviation colleges" where you actually study aviation as part of a degree program, there are at least a few (and probably more than a few) accredited non-traditional colleges that offer considerable credit for aviation certifications that a student has earned elsewhere.
Typically, these schools don't care how or where you earned your ticket(s). It is the certificate itself that is worth a predetermined amount of credit, usually as determined by the American Council on Education. They don't care whether you earned your ticket in the Air Force or at a mom and pop flight school. It's the certificate that matters, not how you earned it.
Some of the credit awards can be considerable. For example, check out some of the credit amounts awarded by
Thomas Edison State College for various aviation certificates. (About 120 credits are required for a Bachelor's degree, as a point of reference.)
Using TESC as an example again, the college also offers entire Bachelor's degree programs in aviation subjects, the bulk of whose major requirements are satisfied by possessing the certificates. Here are the requirements for the
Aviation Flight Technology degree, as an example.
In addition to the aviation-related subjects, students must also complete the requisite credits in non-aviation, "liberal arts" subjects to satisfy the peculiar tradition of United States undergraduate higher education which requires that at least half your studies (and preferably more) be in subjects that are totally irrelevant to your major. This will be true no matter where in the United States you obtain your degree.
In a non-traditional school, these required "core" or "general distribution" course requirements can be met in several ways:
- By taking the course(s) traditionally (that is, by sitting in a classroom and listening to a
windbag droning on professor expounding upon the subject for the requisite number of hours), and transferring those credits into your program;
- By taking the course(s) non-tradionally (online, etc.);
- By presenting evidence that you have completed non-collegiate training that has been evaluated by A.C.E. as equivalent to the course(s) in question, such as in-service or military training courses;
- By "testing out" of one or more courses (achieving a satisfactory score on standardized tests in the subjects); or
- By writing an essay or undergoing an interview that satisfies a professor of the course(s) in question that by whatever means, you've already acquired an equivalent level of knowledge as the typical student who successfully
endured completed the particular course(s) in a traditional college.
The non-traditional approach, in my opinion, is a great option for students who already have acquired most of the knowledge in their chosen field of endeavor, but who need to fill in the gaps in order to get a degree. If you haven't mastered the knowledge, however, or if you're looking for the whole "college experience," then not so much.
For things like satisfying an airline's requirement that you have a Bachelor's degree, however, a degree from an accredited non-traditional school should do just fine. Most airlines (and many other employers) don't give a rat's whether your degree is in Aerospace Engineering or Lower Slobovian Literature.
Simply, bluntly, and somewhat cynically stated: Airlines (and many other employers) require candidates to have degrees because possessing a degree provides a bit more assurance that you're not a moron, not because being degreed has anything to do with your ability to fly an airplane (or to perform the duties of many other jobs that require a degree). A degree that was earned non-traditionally is equally irrelevant to the actual duties of the job as one that was earned by listening to windbags droning on for four years, and therefore satisfies the irrelevant degree requirement equally well.
In case you haven't guessed, it's my opinion that higher education in the United States is a racket. The "liberal arts" model of undergraduate education intentionally requires students to spend one-half to three-quarters of their time studying subjects that are utterly irrelevant to their majors; which is why most professional licenses and certifications in the United States require at least a Master's degree. With the exception of a few disciplines (such as engineering), the Bachelor's degree is useless by design. The U.S. education industry considers undergraduate education to be nothing more than a feeder system for more-expensive graduate education. It's a racket of the highest order.
By way of contrast, British undergraduate education focuses almost entirely on the major. When an Englishman says that he studied math at Oxford, he means that for four years, he studied math -- and very little else. That's why most British physicians possess only a Bachelor of Medicine degree. They spent almost every moment of their undergrad years studying medicine, and they graduated as qualified physicians. (They're also addressed as "Doctor," whereas British physicians who actually do possess M.D. degrees are addressed as "Mister" or "Miss." That somehow makes sense if you're British.)
But alas, that's not how things work here in the U.S. In America, as many as three-quarters of your undergraduate courses, by design, will be irrelevant to your major. You will study those courses for the sole purpose of fulfilling the requirements to complete a degree that qualifies you for little other than to enroll in graduate school, or to prove to an employer that you're not a moron by virtue of having completed a degree that is utterly irrelevant to the actual duties of the job in question.
That being the down-and-dirty truth of the matter, if you're looking for a degree simply to satisfy an employer's requirement that you have one, then it behooves you to at least consider the most expedient path that will lead to a degree from an accredited school. In the case of aviation, a person's combined certificates may be worth as much as half their Bachelor's degree requirements; so an airman with a lot of tickets and/or ratings would be a fool to not at least consider converting those tickets to credits.
That's my opinion, anyway, and it's worth every penny you paid for it.
-Rich
