ASU UL Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

The Universal Learner Program provides students who are not already enrolled in a program at Arizona State University an opportunity to take courses from ASU instructors in a variety of common core subjects and electives for just $25. This unique program allows students to take the entire course and then decide after course completion if they like the grade and would like it added to an official Arizona State University college transcript by paying $400 more. Those who opt not to pay the additional $400 will have no record of the course on their college transcript, and no damage to the student’s GPA if they don’t finish the course or opt not to transcript it. We call this “GPA Protection”. All materials are included in these 2 costs. Signing up is quick and easy, and the student can sign up for a course usually within about 3-4 business days. There is no red tape, no need to send transcripts, no placement tests, no age limit, and no residency restrictions – the program is open to anyone in the world. Prerequisites are a suggestion, not a rule, so you can start where you feel you are ready.

1. NEW Students who are still in high school (or lower), who do NOT have an ASURITE ID should go to ea.asu.edu/partners/hs4cc and sign up for an ASURITE ID – this will place the student in our HS4CC portal, where additional courses and sections may be available. Adults can use the ea.asu.edu main portal to sign up. This step can take 2-3 days. Note: Once you receive your ASURITE ID, it usually takes 24-48hrs for it to be fully activated in their system and able to sign up for a course (or see all courses in the student Dashboard).
2. FERPA (high school students only; adults learners skip this step)
   Once you receive your ASURITE ID and can login, you’ll need to fill out the FERPA agreement to allow parents or guardians to speak with ASU staff about the student’s account. Please login to myASU (far top right corner) and add the Parent/Guardian to the account by clicking on the “Add a Guest” and fill out the information. This is probably the ONLY time you’ll be instructed to log into the myASU portal. The rest of the time you’ll use the Login link on the Universal Learner Portal page (black bar) farther down the page. ASU has a detailed list of steps here.
3. Once the ASURITE ID is active, students can sign up for courses. Please see the course sign up Q&A below.

1. Log in to your ASU account using the Login button on the black bar in the ea.asu.edu (adults) or hs4cc.ea.asu.edu (HS4CC) portal, you will be presented with the Universal Learner Student Dashboard. Do NOT use the myASU link in the tippy top right corner of their website!
2. Verify you are in the correct portal by looking at the URL window. Adults should start with ea.asu.edu, homeschool high school students should start with hs4cc.ea.asu.edu
3. You should also be presented with the student Dashboard
4. Click the “Add Courses” link either on the black bar at the top, or from the blue bar titled “My Current Courses”
5. Scroll through the list of courses and select the Add Course button.
6. Notice that some courses have both a self-paced option and an Instructor Paced option. Be sure to select the correct course.
7. Follow the prompts to pay the $25 course fee. A photo ID is required in this step, as well as a camera on your computer or device you are using.
8. All ASU courses require a photo ID to upgrade for credit. That can be a government issued ID, a school ID, Military or DoD or dependent ID, passport/passport ID, notarized College Board form with photo (used for AP/CLEP testing by underaged kids), and some have successfully used homeschool or co-op ID’s. If using a homeschool ID, ideally it would have their name, DOB, and Photo – must have a photo. There is also now an option to sign up using a birth certificate and your photo, for younger students under 18 who might not have a state issued photo ID yet. If you have questions or concerns, please email ulcourses@asu.edu or call them! You will use this ID when you upgrade the course for credit at the beginning of the course, and again for any proctored exams (some have proctored finals).

hs4cc.ea.asu.edu or ea.asu.edu will take students to the login for the portal. Be sure to use the Login Button just a bit down the page, NOT the myASU link at the far upper right corner. Click on the relevant course button to access course materials.

NOTE that courses are only available to access starting on the start date.

This isn’t a “one size fits all” answer, but there are a few things to keep in mind as you consider your options.

1. Choose something that interests your student. Personal interest is a great motivator, especially if this is their first class.
2. Choose a general education course (English, Math, Humanities, Social Science, Science). General education courses have the highest likelihood of transfer toward a degree plan later.
3. Choose easier classes to build confidence. College classes are going to require work, make no mistake, but some ASU classes are considered “easier” by our HS4CC parents, and an early win goes a long way for motivation later.
4. Choose a course not available through local dual enrollment. ASU’s EA catalog offers a lot of special and interesting courses you may not have access to locally. If you have free dual enrollment locally, use ASU courses to supplement your plan.
5. Check the “high school graduation” box. If your state has high school graduation requirements, each ASU course = 1 high school credit. You can accumulate a lot of high school (and college) credit this way in half the time.

A few course commonly suggested are:

HEP 100 Introduction to Health and Wellness
Frequently recommended by those who have taken it as a great first course and confidence builder. Health is a teacher-led course. This course could be classified as a health course or elective worth one high school credit and 3 college credits.

ENG 101 English Composition 1
Students who enjoy writing may enjoy ENG 101 English Composition, which has self-paced or teacher-led options. This course is likely a great transfer candidate for most colleges and it may replace the need for placement exams. English 101 is worth a full high school language arts credit and 3 college credits.

MAT 117 College Algebra
Students who are finishing Algebra 2 and enjoy math may wish to start with MAT 117 College Algebra, which also has self-paced or teacher-led options. Like English Composition, this course may also fulfill the placement test requirement for entry to other colleges. College Algebra is also a common general education requirement for many degree plans. Like many colleges, ASU utilizes Aleks math as their math platform. ASU also added extra video tutorials and a Discussion Forum to answer questions. College Algebra is worth a full high school math credit and 3 college credits.

The content is the same, an 8 week course is just at a faster pace.

Teacher paced courses either have weekly assignments and deadlines, or assignments unlocked for numerous weeks and interim deadlines.

Self-paced courses are completed at the student’s pace. Assignments may be 100% unlocked at the start of class, or unlocked automatically as the student progresses. Some self-paced courses allow up to 1 year to complete the course. Others may have a specific deadline, often early or late summer – visible in the dashboard.

Both courses have equal access to instructors and staff, usually via a discussion forum. Both course types allow up to 1 year after completion to pay for the course to be placed on an official ASU college transcript.

For additional information, course syllabi are available in the Files section of the HS4CC with ASU Courses Facebook group, and often parents leave reviews of courses and how assignments are unlocked, if relevant.

For questions about accessibility and accommodations, please visit ASU’s DRC Connect and submit a new student application. If you have any questions regarding the process, please review this knowledge base article.

Universal Learner students are considered “visiting students” at ASU – they are NOT fully enrolled students, meaning the student didn’t apply as a high school graduate and get accepted as a fully enrolled student at ASU. Therefore, your ASURITE ID will be restricted to enrolling only in ASU’s ULC’s. Courses listed under the myASU portal are from the main course catalog vs the Universal Learner Course catalog, which is smaller, but has it’s own unique benefits.

If you are interested in taking courses as a high school student from the main course catalog (not the ULC’s), please see the question(s) below about a separate program called ASU Prep Digital (only for students who have not graduated from high school).

The “regular portal” is the public facing portal offering Universal Learner Courses (ULCs) to the general public – anyone can sign up at any age, anywhere on the planet. The HS4CC portal is for homeschool families and always includes all courses from the “regular portal” PLUS we often have extra courses, extra “seats” in a course, extra pacing options, or on occasion we’ve been asked to beta test a new course for them. Since there’s nothing to lose, and everything to gain from being in the HS4CC portal, we suggest joining the portal from the start by going to ea.asu.edu/partners/HS4CC to sign up.

[a “portal” is an anchor page or gateway to a website and main launching point for the content the site provides.]

Have the student log in using and look at the url when sitting at the Dashboard screen. If the url starts with hs4cc.ea.asu.edu, then your student is in the HS4CC portal. If not, please email ulcourses@asu.edu with the student’s name, ASURITE ID and request to be moved to the HS4CC portal.

If your student does not have an ASURITE ID yet, please sign up through ea.asu.edu/partners/hs4cc and ASU’s system will automatically assign your student to the HS4CC portal.

If your student already has an ASURITE ID and is not in the HS4CC portal, and you’d like to have them moved to the portal, please email ulcourses@asu.edu the student’s name, ASURITE ID, and request they be moved to the HS4CC portal. Please allow them 1-2 weeks to make this change. The portal change can be done at any time and does NOT impact currently enrolled courses.

We have several recordings about the Universal Learner Program:

1. A recent presentation and Q&A with ASU staff
2. The Q&A document from the presentation. This includes questions members wanted to know, but might not have been included in the presentation.
   

College placement exams are sometimes required to make sure your student is ready for college level courses. Typically, this means passing a test that evaluates your student’s reading, writing, and math. Some students are nervous testers, don’t test well, aren’t close to a college testing center, or don’t have access to online testing. Those students might be able to complete the prerequisite English and/or math course(s) and use those to acquire a placement test waiver, thus avoiding the exams entirely. Since the ASU UL program does not required placement tests, students can directly access any course offered without a placement exam, and can bypass prerequisites, as these are simply a suggestion on the UL platform.

While the decision to accept or decline these courses in lieu of a placement exam is entirely up to the receiving college, we have had MANY members of our groups use ASU UL courses to bypass exams successfully. We suggest contacting the receiving institution to see if this is an acceptable option.

You can join our HS4CC with ASU Courses group on Facebook. The group is comprised primarily of homeschool parents and a few students. Members share reviews and personal experiences with courses, suggestions of which courses to take, answer questions, and generally help one another with the program.

RA= regionally accredited college (credit) like your state schools and many private schools. This is the gold standard in college credit with the greatest “transferability” between other colleges.

NA = Nationally accredited college (credit). This type of credit doesn’t transfer as well and is best avoided unless the student has confirmed it will be accepted by the receiving institution. These are not state schools – they’re typically a private school.

CC = community college

Dual credit /dual enrollment / concurrent enrollment /concurrent credit / PSEO /CCP = are all commonly used interchangeably to describe college credit earned in high school and placed on both the homeschool high school transcript. BUT there are regional variations for each as to whether they mean the student gets credit on both transcripts or not. In general we assume both transcripts unless specified otherwise.

LL = Lower level credit (things typically taken freshman/sophomore year in college); LL credit often has a lower course number. At ASU, these courses would start with a 1 or 2 for freshman/sophomore (lower level) courses, and 3 or 4 for junior/senior level courses (upper level) respectively. For instance, ENG 101 is a freshman level course. CIS 394 could be considered an upper level (UL) course.

UL = outside of the Universal Learner realm, or based on the context of the statement within the Universal Learner realm, UL typically stands for “upper level” credit, such as courses taken during Junior and Senior year of college. They are often higher numbered courses, like CIS 394 vs ENG 101 – the 394 implies a Junior or Senior course. Within the Universal Learner realm, it might stand for Universal Learner – depends on the context of the sentence.

UL / ULCs = as mentioned above, in our HS4CC with ASU Courses Facebook group this often also means Universal Learner (the platform the courses primarily discussed in this group are on) or ULCs (universal learner courses). We’ve been encouraging members to refer to these courses as ULCs to help eliminate some of the confusion for newer members between upper-level courses and Universal Learner courses.

SH = Study Hall; this is new in 2023, it’s a remarketing of the ULCs (universal learner courses). They’re identical courses, just on two different platforms. SH starts with unlocked videos on YouTube which can also be viewed without signing up for the course. Once the student decides to sign up for the course, they need to pay their $25 and gain access to the rest of the material. The ULC platform remains the recommended method of taking these courses, as the infrastructure is built around it, and our HS4CC portal usually has more classes, pacing options etc… And SH only has a tiny subset of the ULC platform. If you have an ASURITE ID, you’ll use the same ID with Study Hall, so we suggest new students sign up via the HS4CC portal link first, so you don’t have the additional step of moving portals later.

You’ll also see abbreviations in this specific group for the ASU UL courses. ENG, BIO, etc. most are fairly straightforward subject prefixes for the courses, but a few are less transparent, like PAF, POS, etc. You can look those courses up on the ea.asu.edu website and after a few times of doing that, they’ll click.

HS4CC = Homeschooling for College Credit. It’s the organization started by Jennifer Cook DeRosa more than a decade ago. It’s entirely volunteer supported. We have ~50,000 members. We do have an HS4CC portal with ASU for ease of management and so that we can have access to extra courses, like the 2 Poetry in America courses that are strictly for high school students. We generally have a small handful of extra courses only available in our portal. We do not make money from it. The portal along with this group is 100% supported on our side by volunteers.

ALEKS = the name of a software company that provides math courses to many colleges throughout the US including ASU. ASU uses ALEKS math as the base course for lower maths through Precalculus. Above Precalculus, they use Gradarius as the teaching software.

AoPS = Art of Problem Solving; A high school math curriculum company some members like to use for math. It’s a long name that’s often abbreviated as shown.

CLEP = College Level Exam by College Board. Exams are administered on college campuses or online at the student’s convenience. Colleges typically have a list of approved CLEP exams and their course equivalencies on their website. Google “college_name clep list”. Students study independently for CLEP exams with the intent of testing out of a college requirement. Only a handful of these exams have a written portion, in addition to the multiple choice questions all CLEP exams have.

AP = Advanced Placement exams by College Board. Exams are typically administered at high schools around the country on a specific day/time in May. These are typically a group of multiple choice questions, plus 1 or more written answers to questions. Students may study independently or as part of a course for AP exams. Homeschool students planning to take an AP exam should contact area high schools in August/September to find out if the high school will allow them to take the exam at their location and to sign up for the exam. Like the CLEP exams, colleges often publish what AP exams they will accept and what course(s) they will replace on their website. Google college_name AP exam list.

We have a member maintained repository of current and past syllabi from ASU UL courses. They can be found in the Files section of the HS4CC with ASU Courses Facebook group.

The most up to date reviews will always be in the HS4CC with ASU Courses Facebook Group. There are threads specifically for each course, plus many individual posts requesting or offering information, and the Files section of the group contains a member-maintained repository of syllabi for each course.

Students have up to 1 year after the course to pay the $400 to have the course added to an official ASU transcript. If you don’t plan to pay right away, we highly recommend adding reminders for yourself to remember to pay for the course before the deadline. ASU doesn’t extend the deadline if you forget.

If you just finished a course, you’ll need to wait for the final grade to be posted before you can pay the $400 to put it on a transcript. Keep checking the Dashboard – the button will change when it’s available to transcript, then click and follow the prompts.

You sign up for courses yourself. Login and select courses using the Add Courses on the Dashboard.

Note: if your ASURITE ID is brand new, it can take 24-48 hours before the ID is fully activated such that you can see the courses and have the ability to add a course.

You can get an ASURITE ID without the ID, but the student will need a photo ID (or birth certificate, see below) to sign up for them. That can be a government issued ID, a school ID, Military or DoD or dependent ID, passport/passport ID, birth certificate combined with your student’s picture (18 and younger), etc. We have reports from homeschool families successfully used a notarized College Board form with photo (used for AP/CLEP testing by underaged kids), and homeschool or co-op student ID’s. If using a homeschool ID, it should have their full name, DOB, and Photo – must have a photo. If concerned, you could potentially combine one of these with a birth certificate. As of summer 2023, homeschool ID’s alone have been reported to still be working fine for many members – as always, you should choose your comfort level in how you’d like to proceed. If you have concerns, please email or call them! You will use this ID when you upgrade the course for credit at the beginning of the course, and again for any proctored exams (some have proctored exams, some do not).

Yes, the courses are regionally accredited – the gold standard for college credit. ASU is a well known and well respected 4-year tier-1 research university (there are only 131 tier-1 research colleges in the US). As with EVERY class or exam, we always recommend you check with the colleges of interest to see how they transfer. Often colleges who have evaluated a course from another institution will put that information in a transfer tool – look for their transfer tool by googling: “college_name transfer tool” or something similar.  If the course is not in the college’s transfer tool, I’ve personally verified classes in advance for my kids for classes like ENG101/102, College Algebra, etc and they transfer into those colleges as expected for most classes. To request a course evaluation, ask for the contact info for the Transcript or Transfer specialist (or some similar job title), to find out if they transfer. Not all colleges will “pre-evaluate” a course for transfer, but some have had good luck with this at 2 year colleges and perhaps some 4-year colleges. Some colleges may have a transfer pathway already setup as well, so it doesn’t hurt to google for that possible relationship.

Yes! If you’re interested in transferring courses FROM your current program TO ASU for a 4 year degree, they have a Transfer Pathway page to help students plan their degree efficiently.

ASU does not offer 2-year degrees.

All courses are on a standard ASU transcript, as if you were a regular ASU student.

No. Though do keep in mind, if you take a course from Arizona State University, and your family lives in Vermont, it’s rather obvious that it was probably an online course. Though not common, there are instances when a receiving college might specify a course cannot be completed online. Since Covid, many schools have offered more online courses, so this may be less likely, but we do see an infrequent post or comment.

There will not be a record of the course taken at ASU if you do not pay the $400 to have it transcripted. If you are giving your child high school credit for the course, we suggest listing it as a regular or Honors level high school course, with no mention of ASU. If you note that it was taken at ASU, the college will likely be looking for a transcript from ASU with that course on it, which you cannot get.

As a side note: It’s a good idea to keep a course description and list of materials used for every high school course, in case a college requests it for admissions. You can optionally include the resources and/or the ASU faculty grading in the course description. This is entirely up to you as the homeschool parent to decide. For additional feedback, please visit our HS4CC with ASU Courses Facebook group, as this is a very commonly asked questions. You will be able to see many opinions on how this could be handled.

Most courses allow up to one year to pay the $400 to have the course added to a transcript, but do pay close attention to those deadlines on the website! Every year, we have a small handful of parents and kids who are distraught over missing the deadline by a few days or a week. This is a hard ASU deadline, with no wiggle room.

The start and end dates are shown on the transcript for self-paced courses.

Nothing.  The course does not show up on the student’s ASU transcript until the student pays $400 at the END of the course, after the final grade is known. It will NOT show as a drop or withdraw if the course is not finished or was never dropped.

Yes, provided you are following whatever rules your state might have.

Most homeschool parents will add the course number and course name as it appears on the ASU transcript, with a notation of the source of the course credit (ASU).

If you opted not to add the course to the students’ college transcript by paying the $400, we suggest NOT putting the college course number and not adding the notation for the college, so that admissions at the receiving institution isn’t looking for the course on an ASU transcript. Members often call the course an honors level course and give it the same name or a different meaningful name on the high school transcript.

You probably logged into the myASU portal instead of the Universal Learner portal. Please put hs4cc.ea.asu.edu in the URL bar. Be sure to look down the page for the LOGIN button and click that to log in. Do NOT click the myASU link in the far upper right corner. That link is for regularly enrolled ASU students rather than Universal Learner students, who are considered “visiting students”.

https://ea.asu.edu/about/contact-us
or ulcourses@asu.edu (their main email for the program)

We do NOT recommend calling the main phone line for ASU. Not everyone manning the main campus phone lines knows of the existence of the Universal Learner Program or understands it. It creates a lot of confusion and frustration for our members.

ASU now requires everyone to setup 2FA for added security. Students have the option to receive a call, verify via a DUO push, or enter a passcode from either a Text or Duo after they have logged in with the ASURITE ID and password. The authentication options menus are visible when logging into their system.

We’ve written a helpful post with pictures describing in detail how to set up and work with 2FA at ASU.

If you have a brand new ASURITE ID, it sometimes takes another 24hrs to log in once you receive it. If you still can’t login 24hrs after receipt of the ID, I would contact them. ulcourses@asu.edu

Also, be sure you are logging in from either ea.asu.edu or hs4cc.ea.asu.edu – there is a known issue for UL students trying to login directly from the asu.edu url.

It’s possible the course might not be offered right now. Not every course is offered every term. You can type in the search bar to narrow your search.

It’s also possible the student might be in the wrong place or might not be in the HS4CC portal.

Check the url – it should have hs4cc.ea.asu.edu in the url window. If not, replace it entirely with hs4cc.ea.asu.edu and see if that fixes it. You may need to log in again. If your student is assigned in ASU’s system to the HS4CC portal, this should direct them to the Dashboard for our portal.

If that doesn’t work, and you’ve never accessed the HS4CC portal before (new ID or newly added to the HS4CC portal), the ID might not be linked to the HS4CC portal. Request to be moved by emailing the name, ASURITE ID, and request to move to the HS4CC portal to ulcourses@asu.edu.

Also remember, we don’t use the myASU link at the far upper right corner 99% of the time (only special purposes like FERPA waiver, sending a transcript to another college, etc). That link takes students to the full catalog for post-high school regularly admitted ASU students, which are restricted to admitted students only. As an ASU UL student, you have a “visiting student” status.

Courses can be accessed from the Student Dashboard at hs4cc.ea.asu.edu.

In rare cases, a student might be in multiple portals, for instance taking an ASU UL course through a high school AND taking courses through the HS4CC ASU UL portal. There is usually a default portal set for the student’s account, and logging in from ea.asu.edu will drop the student at the student dashboard for whatever their default portal is. If you signed up for an ASURITE ID from the ea.asu.edu/partners/hs4cc link, your default portal will be the HS4CC portal. To access the other portals, the student needs to specifically type which portal in the url, which will take you to the Student Dashboard for THAT portal. In this case, the HS4CC portal can be accessed as described above. We can’t help with the urls for other portals – you need to get that information from the other institution.

Study Hall (SH) is a separate learning offering recently launched by Arizona State University that utilizes Universal Learner Courses (ULC’s). Building on an existing partnership, ASU, Crash Course, and YouTube have launched Study Hall, which aims to become the destination for college hopefuls to understand how to navigate college, explore majors and fields of study, and start earning credits for first-year college general education requirements with as little friction as possible. The courses are identical between the Study Hall and Universal Learner platforms, however, the videos for the UL and their SH doppelgangers are unlocked on YouTube, allowing students to preview the course content on YouTube before officially signing up for the course, whether on UL or SH. 

The courses are identical between the two platforms, however the Universal Learner (UL) platform has far more courses. ASU and HS4CC still suggest students use the UL platform, as all courses are centralized (students won’t need to go to several places to log in for courses), and the courses are the same (SH uses ULC’s).

We suggest creating the student account first in the HS4CC portal – sign up using this url: ea.asu.edu/partners/hs4cc. Using the HS4CC url will automatically place the student in the HS4CC portal. The same ASURITE ID can be used for both UL and SH.

ASU Prep Digital is an online virtual high school sponsored by Arizona State University. Parents can choose to enroll their students full time or part time in the program. Part time students may take any combination of high school and/or college level courses. College level courses can be selected from the main course catalog, rather than just from the ULC’s. Keep in mind that the courses from the main course catalog are conducted like “normal college courses”, and do not include the “GPA protection” provided by ULCs. The courses are also more expensive, at about 1/2 of regular tuition price (around $600/3cr course, plus fees and books). Part time students may also take high school level courses from the Prep Digital catalog.

We hosted an information session specifically for their “Concurrent Courses”, which is what they call their program that allows for college courses that will also be on the student’s high school transcript. In some states, you might call this dual credit, dual enrollment, PSEO, CCP, etc.

ASU Prep Digital Concurrent Courses Information Session Video

Q&A document (includes additional questions from members not included in the session)

Information Session slides

There are a couple of distinct advantages in taking concurrent courses from ASU Prep Digital. First, the student gains access to an ASU college advisor, who can review the student’s courses and help determine if the courses taken and planned will fulfill degree requirements at ASU as the parent and student have planned. Second, students can also take upper level courses, if the course is not restricted and prerequisites have been met. Upper level courses are difficult to find at a discounted rate, and as a high school student.

Note for clarity: full time Prep Digital students may also take concurrent college courses, but the program is pricey outside of Arizona, they can only take 2 college courses per semester (homeschoolers are not restricted by this rule), and it’s no longer homeschooling, it’s a virtual online public high school. You’ll need to follow their course requirements for graduation, just as you would at an in-person high school.