How to Hack a Masters Degree

Want a masters fast AND cheap? Here’s a quick look at everything you need to know:

1. Know Your Terms

First, you need to know that bachelors degrees are also called undergraduate degrees. That’s the typical four-year college degree that comes right after high school. A masters is a graduate degree that almost always requires a bachelors to be accepted. Postgraduate school is next, which is where you can earn a doctorate. You’ll most likely have to get your masters degree before earning a doctorate.

Thankfully, masters degrees usually only take two years and can be done even faster online.

2. Know Your Goals

Here’s an important question to consider: do you actually need a masters? Most people think it’s flashy and cool, but it doesn’t open doors as dramatically as bachelors degrees. It could mean more time in school and less time in your field. Plus, masters are more expensive per credit hour.

Masters degrees are great if you’re aiming for upper management, or specialized fields like teaching college, law, or counseling—any area where you need very advanced knowledge to get in the door. 

If your goals don’t sound like those, I wouldn’t bother. You could end up wasting your time and money.

3. Know That Masters Are Hard to Hack

You’ll normally only be able to transfer 25% of a masters degree. Some schools won’t accept any transfer credits.

 This makes them hard to hack because hacking relies on finding cheap, fast credits through third parties and sending them to the school. Not to mention, there aren’t many ways to earn graduate credits outside of actual graduate courses.
And the reason for that is that graduate degrees don’t have the same focus as undergraduate degrees. 

Undergrad is about learning and showing competency. 

Grad school is about discussion and gaining expertise, which is a lot harder to make standardized tests for.

For instance, when I was earning my masters in English, the main benefit was the class discussions with a smart professor and classmates who cared. In undergrad, people don’t care as much; they’re just looking for a job. That’s part of why I hacked undergrad: I wanted to get into a classroom full of passionate masters students who really cared. Therefore, it can be easier to get high grades in masters classes because professors are less focused on grades and more on actually learning the subject they are passionate about.
Because masters programs don’t let as much transfer and you can’t really assess the joy of learning and discussion, it’s harder to hack grad school. Luckily, it’s not impossible.

4. Know These Competency-Based Programs

Probably the best way to hack grad school is to find a competency-based program and complete the courses as fast as possible. Competency-based programs add you to a course and give you access to all the readings. And when you’re ready, you do the one final project or final exam. If you pass, you move on to the next course. It’s possible to finish a competency-based class in days instead of weeks!

For instance, I had a student who earned a Masters in Organizational Leadership through University of Maine at Presque Isle (UMPI) in about 8 weeks. You can watch an interview with him here.

UMPI has one Masters degree, but tons of people zoom through grad degrees over at Western Governors University (WGU). You can finish some of their grad degrees in under 6 months for ~$4,500. As long as you have the time to commit to the program, you could have a Masters half a year from now. Again, considering most graduate degrees take two years, that’s amazing!

Another option is Purdue University Global’s (PUG) Excel Track program. Both PUG and WGU have MBAs, computer grad degrees, and healthcare grad degrees, which are what most people want. If you’re more into liberal arts, chances are you’d prefer a typical, in-class degree.

5. Know About Portfolio Credit

The only other way to hack masters degrees is through portfolio credit, and very few schools accept this for grad programs. Liberty University Online (LUO) is the best at it. 

Their MBA has 36 credits, and Liberty will let you transfer in up to 50% of the degree. That’s insane!

There are courses that Liberty will let you earn credit for by building a portfolio to prove you already know the information. A portfolio can include a resume, letters from your boss, work logs, papers, work projects—anything it takes for the school to be convinced that you know what you’re doing.

If they like what they see, you’ll be rewarded with graduate degree credit. 

I’ve seen other universities’ grad programs accept transfer credit and offer graduate-level portfolios, but I’ve never seen a school do both things at once as well as Liberty. 
For certain degrees at LUO, you can use portfolio credit for up to half your degree. Each portfolio attempt costs $100 and takes 10-20 hours to do, but if you pass, you save $1,700/course and 8 weeks of your life.
All of a sudden, a $22,000 degree becomes a $12,000 degree!

You might be wondering: how do you know this system works? Well, that’s because I earned 14 credits at Liberty University using this exact method. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It’s that simple! Now you know everything there is to know about hacking masters degrees. I hope this helps, and if you want coaching on how to select or hack a masters degree, sign up for a consultation.