What is the Ner Yisroel college program

ner israel only officially allows 2 courses a semester (besides for the yeshiva credits) – might take you a while to complete a degree at that pace. also to my knowledge they are associated with Towson University not University of Maryland these days. Someone can correct me if I am wrong.

@Mordechai-Ryan

Why do something if you are so ashamed of it? Is it that you want to live a middle class lifestyle but you want people to think that you are a “hard core kollel family”

Why not just be proud of the fact that you take your familial responsibility seriously?

The person who administers the Ner Yisroel college program is sitting shiva this week. In short, they monitor the number of evenings per week (usually two) one can register for classes. Boys attend a number of local colleges such as Johns Hopkins, Univ Md Baltimore County,local community colleges, Towson, Univ Baltimore, and Loyola University. It does require attending summer sessions and most boys finish within 5 years with yeshiva credits counted towards the college degrees. Yes, college is secondary to Torah, but Ner Israel has since its early years been an advocate of merging serious Torah learning with the ability to obtain credentials to seek a parnasah too.

Unless it has changed since my time, which admittedly is many years ago, but you come out with both a BTL and a secular degree from one of the colleges they have a program with — Towsons, UMBC, Hopkins, etc. Approximately 60 credits from yeshiva are transferred, and thus you only need to take 60 secular credits. Something like 32 need to be in your major. If you go to summer school as well, you can get your BA/BS in 2-3 years. NIRC restricts 1st year Bais medrash guys, but essentially you have your degree 4-5 years after graduating high school. In my time, very few guys went to Rowsons. Guys who were going for computers, accounting or law went to UMBC and guys who needed a science degree went to Hopkins. The state universities are much cheaper.

I am also currently in Ner Yisroel, and in truth the options for college are quite limited. There are basically 5 programs:

1)The Hopkins business program- as far as I know is set up as mordechai-ryan describes. The issue is that Hopkins is closing it’s part time business program,so I don’t think they are accepting any new applicants. As far as I’m aware, there are no other undergraduate majors through Hopkins set up with yeshiva. There are rumors going around that the yeshiva is trying to set up an alternative to the Hopkins program. There is no way to ascertain the veracity of these rumours.

2)There is an education program (a masters) through Hopkins which is done over the course of two summers, with no coursework throughout the rest of the year. It is run as a separate yeshiva class (not integrated with actual Hopkins, but still a Hopkins degree). That being the case, the program is only offered when there are enough bochurim to start a cohort (10-15 students). The problem is a new group just started this summer, and you can’t join in the second year, and there usually is a buffer year, so you’d have to wait 3yrs to start, and by then moshiach hopefully will have come (or the program will be non-existent). cost- aprox $18000

3)There is also an MBA program through Loyola which also takes about two and a half years, in which you use your BTL with Business prereqs (I think its 10 courses) to get in and you take 10 graduate courses at Loyola. I don’t know much about it, but its generally not recommended because you have no undergrad backing and you are considered to be overqualified with a masters degree.

4) Premed/dentistry/PA/anything science related through Towson, is as mordechai-ryan describes. Your science prereq courses are done through Towson over 2 yrs, but you don’t get a degree from there there. Good luck. Also, to apply the program to other science related fields isn’t so simple as the program was set up for med (dental) school. Cost-aprox $8000

5)UMBC(University of Maryland Baltimore County)- for those from outside Maryland, this is not to be confused with the real University of Maryland (College Park-ranked 62nd versus UMBC ranked 158th). UMBC takes up to (supposedly) 90 transfer credits from Ner, but no Talmud credits. The courses in Ner you’ll have to take shldn’t be that big a deal though (they are mostly in Jewish subjects). The way it is set up is that somehow these courses take care of your electives and most gen ed reqmts (all but a science, English Comp, and a math) leaving only your major to be done at UMBC. Most do psychology, some econ, but you could do History as well (it’s a 39 credit major at UMBC). In this way you’ll do 39 credits plus the gen eds not covered by Ner. It takes about 2-2 and a half yrs. Your degree comes from UMBC. However, how this all works out (i.e- Are there aprox 75 non gemara credits offered at Ner? How do they cover gen ed reqmts?)is quite confusing. Cost- aprox $30,000.

All timelines are minus 6/4 month fridge (exactly how long you have to wait depends on the program).

All costs are in addition to yeshiva tuition.

There will be no info on any of the websites about joint agreements, all are grandfathered in. The credits from Ner do transfer.

I agree with LevAryehBoy, posting on Yeshiva World is probably a better way to get accurate information about Ner Yisroel then calling Ner Yisroel. Nothing is poshut, you’ve got to speak to guys. Doing college at Ner Yisroel is a test of Bitachon; How anything works doesnt make any sense, and seemingly simple things take forever to achieve (interpret that as you wish). There will be more bittul zman on logistical issues than on the actual college itself. In the end though, with enough davening and at the last possible minute, everything will work out.

all inclusive

To jwashing: I have degrees from Hopkins (BA and Masters) in psychology and my son has a degree in Information Technology from UMBC. College tuition is in addition to NIRC tuition. Many NIRC grads enter Federal Service at SSA or other local or DC Agencies. Some attend law school at UMd or UB, pass the Md Bar and enter the legal world. Others are in the Accounting, Information Technology, or math-actuarial science areas. There are as many options as there are majors at the schools. While NIRC monitors the number of evening a week the boys can attend they do not monitor what you are majoring in. Just don’t expect much help from NIRC, it is all from the boys themselves and the college career advisers. There is no formal partnership with any colleges so calling them is useless. It is a transfer and acceptance of certain credits from NIRC. Israeli yeshiva credits are more suspect and most will not be accepted. All in all if you are thinking about an out of NY area yeshiva where serious Torah learning can co-exist with college then NIRC is the place. Check it out.

Many yeshivos including Chofetz Chaim, Ner Yisroel, Shaar hatorah, Torah Vdas (& others) have the ability to issue a BTL degree after usually 4 years of post high school learning (average age of 21-22). With this BTL degree, various Graduate Programs are available, some need additional prerequisites when you apply. This might be the easiest path for higher learning and professional degrees. Many of the online or CLEP courses in essential subjects are looked upon as garbage.

bklynmom: Any yeshiva that is accredited can give a degree that will meet the requirements of having a college degree. An unaccredited (as a college) yeshiva that is state licensed to give degrees can give one that will be accepted only in that state. For many jobs and graduate programs, any college degree is the requirement. If a job has specific requirements (e.g. the formal premed requirements, or for some jobs, 30 hours of a given subject, etc.), that’s a matter of a transcript. For some jobs, a degree in “talmud” (or for that matter, art history, or chess, or motion picture history) is enough – for other jobs they ask for something more specific. There are no legal requirements that a B.S. or B.A. cover any subject – 100% in Talmud is fine under American law.

CLEP and AP are accepted by all but the most elite schools, and sometimes by the elites. They cover all the basic freshman subjects. You study for the test, and take the test. Online courses from accredited universities (typically public ones) that are offered for credit (often with a proctored exam) are accepted widely and meet any requirements. Indeed, one can get a fully accepted bachelor’s from several major universities from online only programs.

However a “program” such as Ner’s isn’t really a “joint program” since the “participating” schools don’t recognize it as such. You are taking college credits from one college (Ner, which is an accredited college) and transfering them.

jwashing, – you’re welcome, dude.

I think that Ner is an amazing yeshiva for amazing guys and I think that if you want to go to yeshiva and go to college at the same time Ner is the best yeshiva for you! Talk to the Rabbis there and for the class at Ner request Rabbi Frand i heard how much the boys love him and i listen to all his speeches and read all his books and go to his shiurim. His a really amazing person and amazing Rabbi B’H – that if i wore a boy and went to Ner i would TOTALLY want him and request him:)