Actually, the real name is University of a Pheonix. It flies everywhere, reborn from the ashes of its old job.
I just totally made that up, but it makes sense, no?
The difference is in for-profit vs. not-for-profit. There is a bias against for-profit schools for a good reason, in my opinion, as some have shown here.
A for profit school is beholden to its shareholders, so its primary mission is NOT education. Say what you will about efficiency, blah, blah, but there’s no way that diverting money into shareholders pockets is going to benefit students or create a better school, with better resources for the mission of education than a school where all of the resources and money go towards education.
I’m not saying that you can’t get a good education at a for profit school, but I believe you won’t get as good a value for your money there.
Well… you’re still comparing capitalism to socialism. The for-profits have their motives, but who says the traditional schools spend their revenue well? I’m not going to say the market is obviously better. But I could see how commercial schools could be more efficient at teaching.
What the for profits will do, though, is not worry so much about who they let in. That doesn’t necessarily affect the quality of the education (hey… it’s up to you to keep up). But that does ruin half the point of a university diploma: that the admissions councelors did the work that human resources should be doing and carefully filtered applicants. The “quality” of the education doesn’t matter that much (in reality, you’ll have to train on the job either way).
A public 4 year institution costs a fraction of what my for profit cost. In fact Emory University, a prestigious private university cost about the same as ours. Had our students attended a 2 year public, their tuition cost would have been about 1/10th. Further more even the 2 year public school (Georgia Perimeter College) provided substantially better services. On top of this most of our student had to take remedial courses. These did not count toward graduation but still cost thousands.
Yes it does. Group work is much harder. It’s harder to teach a class at widely different levels. Lecturers are demoralized by having to fail people or pass those that they shouldn’t. Some students react to failure by becoming angry.
Please don’t get me started on remediation
Hmm. Well, whenever the market is broken what it means is there’s not enough competition and meritocracy. Open-admissions schools ought to be very competitive with one-another, both on price and quality. I get the feeling that at least in your school students signed up because it was easy and didn’t comparison shop.
So… what can posters say differentiates the schools or which is the best value? Does anyone even know? Btw, bannerrefugee, you did say, “I didn’t work for Devry or Phoenix but I can’t believe they are much different.”
If there was good competition, I think open-admissions schools could get really good. (Low cost, intensive training, results-driven instead of prestige-driven.)
Apropos of not much, at least one of the DeVry University campuses has a college basketball team (can’t recall if it’s low-tier NCAA or if it’s NAIA). The aforementioned Pepperdine University has at least one physical campus in Malibu, CA, and competes in NCAA Div 1 basketball.
As far as I can tell, though, Pepperdine University is not a for-profit school but a conventional not-for-profit one. It’s a conservative Christian school associated with the Churches of Christ (and based on the website pictures, at least, appears to be located in a beautiful area of Malibu).
Yes, they’ve been in Malibu for decades and it is a beautiful campus. They also have a number of satellite locations. I don’t think they are terribly selective but they are well known and respected around here. Like a good CC, the outcome depends on what the student puts into it. They definitely are a university, and in spite of their religious affiliation, should not be confused with fundamentalist colleges like Bob Jones and Oral Roberts.
DeVry used to be a top notch school. They worked their way up to being accreditated so you could transfer credits earned to other schools.
Unfortunately now DeVry and the U of Phoenix are concentrating on getting money. DeVry ruined its reputation by using commercials that appeal to those traditionally served by community colleges. Also it doesn’t help DeVry and Phoenix use commercials with rappers and unwed mothers trying to say how great it is for them to go back to school.
That is a fine goal no doubt but what it does make the school seem less in stature that it once was
I got the impression the sales department marketed to people who had no idea how to comparison shop for higher education and then ripped them off.
If you are cool with that, maybe you should buy for profit education shares, which are pretty cheap right now.
Timed out
This topic is irrelevant to the OP, and worthy of GD.
Okay, I know that this is an ancient (by internet standards) thread, but I just can’t let this pass.
Sul Ross State University is a fully-accredited “regional”. This is the colloquial term for a state university that primarily serves a part of the state rather than the entire state. UT, A&M, TTU, et al., are the Big State Universities. Sul Ross, Angelo State, Lamar, and many, many more, are nice low-profile Universities that primarily serve far west Texas, not-so-far west Texas, and terribly-terribly-far east Texas. The regionals don’t play football games that play on ESPN, but We Are Legion. You probably know of one or more nearby. East Carolina? Sure, they’ve had great football success of late, and that’s probably why you’ve just now heard of them–they’re a “regional”. Like App State. They are comprehensive universities that offer Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. Many students are in residence. Many also commute from the region. And in the summer, the campuses are flooded by teachers who need their Master’s degrees (or Rank 1 or Rank 2) so that they can make extra dinero someday. But they are every bit as “real” as UT and the other horrible, horrible universities where the faculty keep their heads safely stored up their own asses and the students suffer for it.
That said, DeVry and UoP are accredited. Their degrees count. Your bias is your problem. But Sul Ross is a traditional, brick-and-mortar school like the thousands of other regionals that you’ve never heard about.
Love,
A proud Sul Ross graduate (and faculty at a different, but larger, regional in a completely different state).
Look at the accreditation. If a school is accredited by one of the Regional Associations of Colleges and Schools, it’s a “real” school.
I can understand peoples views on DeVry. DeVry does not do a lot of advertising such as ITT. So peoples perception would be that, it is equivalent to a school such as ITT. Trust me, it is NOT the same. I am a current student, and the DeVry of 1985 is not the DeVry of 2012. The curriculum has changed and is more demanding. We have to take math, english, psychology, history and science! We receive credit for our classes and they are transferable to any university as well (ITT does not). So maybe 10 years ago, it was not a reputable “University”. But today, it is…
I can understand peoples views on DeVry. DeVry does not do a lot of advertising such as ITT. So peoples perception would be that, it is equivalent to a school such as ITT. Trust me, it is NOT the same. I am a current student, and the DeVry of 1985 is not the DeVry of 2012. The curriculum has changed and is more demanding. We have to take math, english, psychology, history and science! We receive credit for our classes and they are transferable to any university as well (ITT does not). So maybe 10 years ago, it was not a reputable “University”. But today, it is…
I can understand peoples views on DeVry. DeVry does not do a lot of advertising such as ITT. So peoples perception would be that, it is equivalent to a school such as ITT. Trust me, it is NOT the same. I am a current student, and the DeVry of 1985 is not the DeVry of 2012. The curriculum has changed and is more demanding. We have to take math, english, psychology, history and science! We receive credit for our classes and they are transferable to any university as well (ITT does not). The work load is very heavy! Probably 2 times the amount at a “traditional” college. The professors are helpful but hard! They expect the best! In all math classes, you cannot receive any scores lesser than a 80% or you FAIL! I am currently in a basic “trig” math for my BS in engineering… (hence, this is my 2nd year of math!) and it is a BEAST! This school is no walk in the park! So maybe 10 years ago, it was not a reputable “University”. But today, it is…
does DeVry allow you to repeat if you feel that you didn’t do your best the first time around?
Welcome to the board, navigator2, and thanks for your perspective. You’ll probably see some teasing about the duplicate posts, and people often also like to tease when someone posts in a thread that is a few years old. But we’re glad to have you.
You’re very much wrong here. DeVry is a university and they do offer 4-year bachelors degree programs. They do in fact have associates programs as well, but to state that they are a “trade school” is incorrect.
As for the other comments about being a for-profit school, that is very much the case. When I graduated DeVry over 10 years ago, grads were in great demand, in fact the entire marketing of DeVry was built around job placement success of graduates. Not sure how they are doing today with the same metric.
Did they back in 2008 when he posted that?