FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions about Studying with us?

How Legitimate is ACS as an Online School?

• ACS established in 1979, and  has built a solid reputation as an independant and ethical provider of online education. It has a long history of engaging with and supporting industry worldwide, but particularly in Australia and the U.K. 
• ACS maintains various formal relationships with many industry bodies, and receives ongoing support from industry (eg. CIH and AIH offer free student memberships to our students; AILA, GMG, Greenife WA, RHSV and others promote our courses to their members, we are a founding member of IARC).
• We have always employed the very best, host highly qualified and experienced tutors. Tutors and course developers have a minimum of 3,000 hours of formal training in their discipline or related disciplines (equal to a Bachelors degree), plus at least 5 years of relevant industry experience. Many are recognised experts in their industry. They include former university professors, research scientists, successful business owners, published authors and others.
• The founder and principal has been widely recognised as an expert in education, publishing and horticulture.

How Flexible are the Courses?

Very. 

• Asynchronous study (study at your own pace). Unlike many colleges, no set finish date. Provided you stay in touch at least every few months, you can extend study with no extra fees for years, or complete a course very fast in just weeks - whatever pace suits you is ok.
• Study guides set tasks in a way that allows students to make choices about how and where they undertake many of their learning experiences. We build flexibility into every course so that a student can relate what they study and learn, and the projects and assignments they undertake can be related to the individual's unique context (where they live & work, and what they do).  Other schools can be tailored to the environmental, political or economic conditions where they live; but our courses are intentionally designed to be relevant in any region - and any environmental, political or economic context.
• Every student is treated as an individual, with one to one interactions between you and real staff - both academic and administration staff located both in the UK and in Australia. Talk to people not robots.

What Costs are Involved?

Course fees and optional exam fees apply, but that covers everything.

We  have always believed that the ethical approach to education services is to provide optimum service to students at a minimum cost. We don't compromise service, but we do all that we can to reduce your costs.

We compared our fees per study hour with those at public colleges and universities in the UK, USA and Australia, and found our fees were commonly around half what those public institutions charge.  How do we do it?  We have spent close to 50 years building up and improving our intellectual property,. We own the courses, texts, videos and software we use, so we don't need to charge students as much as colleges that buy in the rights to that I.P.  Also we subsidise students by licencing our I.P. to other schools. We avoid unnecessary marketing and accreditation costs, which weigh down many other institutions. Just think about it. When you see a lot of advertisements for a university - someone needs to pay for those ads, and those costs are probably coming from their student's course fees.

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