Finish the degree or course you once left unfinished
A friend has invited you to do this with them.
Credits from a course you left years ago can still count, and a counsellor can often tell you in one appointment how close you are. Some people find the finish line is three classes away.
Moderate£100 to £500 / $130 to $650MonthsIndoorsOn your ownUK and US
Someone who has done it
Virginia Ordaz and her mother finished their degrees at San Joaquin Delta College in California; the Open University's credit transfer is a UK route, not theirs.
How to start
- Ask each college or university you attended for an official transcript.
- Book an appointment with an admissions or academic counsellor and ask what you would still need.
- In the UK, apply to the Open University for credit transfer before registering on a module.
Where to go
We opened this link on 23 October 2026 and found it to be what we say. Dates, places and prices are on the official page, where they stay up to date.
Plan this
Pick a day, or a month, and we will set out how to get ready, step by step, with a date and a reason for each. Projects run over months and stall without a rhythm, so the plan sets milestones you can see.
From the site
Going back to study: Open University, community colleges, free courses and how to fund it
The realistic options for studying as an adult: the Open University, u3a, FutureLearn and Coursera, US community colleges and state tuition waivers for older residents, plus the UK Advanced Learner Loan, part-time student finance and the Lifelong Learning Entitlement.
Read next
Sixty paper hats on a table in Bridlington: David Smith and the shape mathematicians had sought for decades
David Smith of Bridlington, a hobbyist with no training in mathematics, found 'the hat': the first single shape known to cover a flat surface only in patterns that never repeat. How he found it, why he could not prove it alone, and the free tools that let you put the same tiles on your own table.
Every day in the emergency room, Dr Carl Allamby is back in his auto shop
Carl Allamby opened a car repair shop in East Cleveland at 19 and enrolled in night classes for a business degree at 34. A required biology course revived a childhood wish to be a doctor. He graduated from Northeast Ohio Medical University in 2019 at 47 and joined Cleveland Clinic's Hillcrest Hospital as an attending emergency physician in 2022, at 51. How he did it, what the research says about how adults learn, and how to start.

