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Comment by dukoid | Hacker News Reader

In Germany, there is Fernuniversität Hagen. I guess it scales better than "regular" universities, so there isn't really a need for more of them to meet demand? https://www.fernuni-hagen.de/english/

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The Fernuniversität has all the same hideous bureaucracy, form filling and hoop jumping of any other German university, with similar entrance requirements. It is cheaper so it has that advantage. The Open University has no entrance requirements whatsoever for its Bachelor’s and it’s not terribly difficult to get onto a Master’s with the v university of London without a Bachelor’s so if you’re not severely cash constrained at least look at those.

I've never heard about this. Can you say more about the University of London MA and their programmes?

OP is almost certainly referring to Birkbeck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkbeck,_University_of_London

It’s a well respected institution and it’s graduates are well regarded by employers.

Then why does it never make it to the top 120 university ranking of the guardian?, I never understood why.

They opted out http://www.bbk.ac.uk/news/league-tables

There are a number of modules from Master’s programmes that can be studied as stand alone qualifications[1]. Apply to do one of these modules, do well, continue doing the modules as stand alone qualifications until you have done the maximum number you can without transferring to the Master’s student roll, transfer.

Only a small minority of degrees have modules that can be studied this way. You need to show some evidence that you’re capable of study at this level. For my Finance Master’s[2] a MicroMaster’s in International Law from UCLouvainX[3] sufficed. It’s also difficult to get the Master’s in the minimum two years this way because they won’t let you transfer from studying individual modules to doing the Master’s without your exam grades having been released and being satisfactory, though it is possible to do it in two years if you start with the first session of the year.

[1] https://london.ac.uk/courses/international_type_of_study/15/...

[2] https://www.cefims.ac.uk/programmes/economic-policy/masters/

[3] https://www.edx.org/micromasters/louvainx-international-law

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