To clarify one point, U. Phoenix is not online-only.
My wife got her Masters in Educational Counseling through UofP several years ago. THey are not a diploma mill, and they are not an online only school. They have brick and mortar presence in many cities.
Yes, they are for-profit, but the coursework she had to do was very rigorous, and she had to learn the material well in order to get a good grade.
To put UofP in the same category as the “send me $500 and I’ll give you a degree” schools is not valid.
I used to work for one of their competitors, Career Education Corporation. Like Phoenix CEC schools are accredited and provided reasonably good courses. The problem is that we would let anyone in, and we charged them a bucket full of money. Often we would enroll students who had no chance of passing. Phoenix is no different.
On line course work is more profitable, which is why companies like CEC and Appolo push it. For that reason most uni’s these days offer some online stuff. Unfortunately at CEC the failure rate of our distance edu students was savage (they still had to pay for the privilage of failing).
I’m actually “attending” UoP right now. I’m just over halfway to getting my MAED. Because I’m getting a degree in the field in which I’m currently working, the course work doesn’t seem that difficult. There have been a few classes that had a heavy workload so while it hasn’t been difficult material, I will say there were a few times when I was overwhelmed between work, parenting, and schoolwork. Admittedly, there are people in my classes who honestly don’t belong there. They can’t put together a coherent sentence and just from reading posts, they don’t seem very bright (yes, I’m being judge-y). Then again, some of the folks I did my undergrad with weren’t too bright either. Luckily I’ve been teamed up with some great folks and we’ve stuck together through the entire program.
Where I work, getting a Masters is really just a “box-checker” for moving up–they don’t care where it’s from or what it’s in, as long as I have one. In fact, they recommend UoP as a fast and easy way to get an advanced degree. There are several people on my base doing the UoP thing. I would love to get my Masters from a more reputable school but I’m a single parent who works 50-ish hours per week and I honestly don’t have the time (or money for childcare) to go to a brick and mortar school. For me, this is the only way I can get my Masters. Hopefully after my daughter gets older, I’ll be able to go back and get another degree from a more reputable school.
I’ve never attended UoP but my Brother-in-Law has. He’s in training and staff development and has his masters from UoP and seems happy with it. I’ve certainly known a great many people who have done so and again, seem happy with it. As a hiring force I haven’t downchecked people for having a degree from UoP.
Correct. There is a brick-and-mortar building just south of Portland off of I-5.
When I hire adjuncts for our department, I bin degrees from UoP and any other for-profit and/or online-only school. I know personally and professionally a number of people with undergrad and grad degrees from those schools, and have been universally unimpressed with the competence of those people in their fields.
That personal experience, combined with the experience of knowing that UoP (at least) is EXTREMELY reluctant to allow students to fail classes and that the for-profit accreditation situation is sketchy at best, does not make me feel bad that I might possibly miss a potential gem out of a handful of applications discarded for those reasons.
This right here. For-profits have a bottom line, to increase value to shareholders. This is done by recruiting more customers. So while it’s possible to be bright and have good courses much of the experience IMO is marred by the fact that your peers aren’t necessarily going to enhance your educational experience. And it’s criminally expensive, and the default rates for UoP students is abysmal. I have real problems with how they do business.
That being said, I have a student who’s a dean and moving up in the UoP world, who’s a real pro and I know does a great job teaching. I don’t doubt one can get a good education from a UoP but I suspect the uniformity of graduates is uneven. I can assure you any taxpayer supported institution with their default rates and graduation rates would be shuttered.
Heh, who do you think ends up paying when the students default on their federal student loans? That’s why I have such a problem with them - we are ultimately subsidizing their corporate greed with our tax dollars. If we stripped these for-profit schools of their accreditations they would no longer be eligible for federal student loans, and I’d be fine with it.
I hear they are being considered for one of the teams in the SEC and Big XII conference realignments purely because of their significant alumni base.
This. The problem with UofP, DeVry, Strayer and their ilk is that they have reputations beneath those of even the lowliest state schools, but have a price tag on par with private liberal arts colleges.
Where you have you degree from is largely a matter for lazy hiring managers in fields that have lots of applicants; it makes it easy to reduce the pile. Once you can cross that initial threshold and get that first, meaningful, important job in your field, it’s your personal success and ability to network that will be important; not your alma mater.
Social occasions and congresses may continue to embarrass you, though. I’m more proud of my military service than my degree-of-convenience. On the other hand, I’ve got one kick-ass career.
Sad to say, in this day and time, the same can be said of brick-and-mortar campuses as well.
And they have at least four physical sites in the Houston metroplex that I know of.