Excelsior is good, but you don't have to join with the costs until you are done with the nursing concepts 2. Online at ebay.com you can buy (i'm doing this) the nc1 and nc2 i saw from the college network, 20$ each, and i would have payed 400$ each, and rue, istudysmart.com, and college network and chancellors(which i hear are great) are all companies that sell the books that transfer to the online excelsior program. I just am not sure i have the discipline involved in studying online, althought i completed all RN courses (except actually nursing ones) at a community college and found i'd have to wait another 6 months to start them! Hope this helps, also yahoogroups have tons of nursing groups. Some are excelsiorRNstudygroup, and freehelpexcelsiorstudents...the list goes on..good luck!