The Retirement Course is being offered free of charge to consumers as a societal benefit from The American College of Financial Services.
The Retirement Course is made up of 14 educational modules organized into 4 “badges”. The badges are sandwiched between a short introduction to the course and a conclusion. The only requirement is completion of the Introduction to gain entry to the course. The introduction includes course navigation instructions and an initial survey to assess initial knowledge on the course’s subject material.
Answers are used by The American College to advance our research and improve our educational materials. All demographic information (age, race, gender, etc) is anonymized and only used in aggregate. Your name and email address may be used to provide support and communicate with you. If you were referred to The Retirement Course by a financial advisor or other third party, they may receive your demographic information in aggregate form for their own research and they may receive your contact information for marketing and follow up purposes. There is a charge to the third party for this service so not all participate. If this is a concern, you should ask the individual who supplied your join code whether they are receiving information from The Retirement Course. You have the option within the at registration to request that your information not be included in any aggregated group or you can take the course through our open membership join code by navigating to The Retirement Course Registration page.
No. The only required portion is the Introduction so that you get properly enrolled and learn how to navigate the course. After that you can take any lesson in any badge in any order that you like, however, the short Pre-Survey within each badge is required in order to view the content for that badge. It is there to simply help you assess your pre-existing knowledge prior to reviewing the content within that badge.
The Retirement Course is designed for flexibility and there is no formal graduation requirement. You can take whichever lessons are most useful to you in whatever order you’d like. If you do choose to complete the entire course, you’ll receive a certificate of completion suitable for framing.
The education provided in the course is accurate for anyone but the course is primarily built for individuals aged 50 – 70 who are in or approaching retirement. These folks are beginning to visualize retirement, still have time to make meaningful adjustments to their plans and need to understand what decisions they’ll need to make when they get there.
The Retirement Course covers a wide variety of retirement topics, ranging from retirement savings vehicles, to Social Security claiming strategies, to health insurance options, to retirement housing choices, to retirement income generation, to handling health care, to the psychological and wellness factors of retirement and more.
Each lesson is designed to take 20 – 30 minutes to complete. The entire course (14 lessons) can be completed in 6 – 10 hours depending upon one’s pace. However, the course is designed to be self-directed and self-paced. There is no time limit for completion nor a requirement that a learner takes every lesson.
Technical support is offered via a “Support” button on the main blue menu bar located at the top of most pages or by emailing to start@theamericancollege.edu. Questions about the course itself can be emailed to TRC@theamericancollege.edu. This course is intended for general information and not to address specific advice related issues.
Of course! Feel free to share your Join Code with as many people as you wish. Keep in mind that if you received your join code from a third party, the system will think that your friend was referred by that same third party. If this is an issue, simply provide them with the open join code: The Retirement Course Open Membership.
Our research has shown that individuals achieve better financial outcomes when they work with a professional advisor. The Retirement Course has provided you with education to make you a more informed consumer but it isn’t intended to completely replace a professional. Each lesson ends with a link to locate an advisor who’s been educated in that particular subject matter.