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- Lately in the St louis area I have heard radio commercials for the University of Phoenix/St. Louis. I have seen where St Louis major colleges offer classes at outlying areas (in the surrounding towns 10-20 miles distant) using other college facilities but I assumed it was to reduce congestion at the main campus. Why would a distant college halfway across the country offer courses locally, using local college facilities and local teachers? Is there any financial advantage? The commercial notes that U of P is “the largest privately owned college in the US”. Does that have anything to do with it? - MC
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The public university in Phoenix, AZ is called Arizona State University West. It has nothing to do with the private, non-centrally located phoenix university; a private school, mainly (in my limited experiance) used for continuing education.
The later of the two can be found at http://www.phoenix.edu…
As far as I can tell, the University of Phoenix has nothing to do with Phoenix, AZ at all. It’s just a name. There’s one near me too, and I live in Northern California. According to their website, they have 85 campuses. Only one is in Phoenix.
Sort of like Miami University in Cinncinnati!
I thought Miami University was in Oxford. Does it have a Cincinnati campus?
Miami University (Ohio) is much older than the University of Miami (Florida).
BobT
Yer right! Miami U co-hosted an academic conference I went to in Cincinnati a few years back, so I had just assumed that’s where it was.
BTW, there’s also Washington University, which to avoid having to be corrected again, I’ll just point out is somewhere in the midwest, a long way from either the state of Washington or the capital of the US! 
Coincidentally enough, Washington University is in St. Louis.
Also, I was under the impression that the “Miami” in Miami University was named more or less after the Indian tribe that used to be resident in those parts. Just like Fort Miamis and the Maumee River. Could be wrong, though.
It was part of the trade when the Cardinals went to Phoenix. :D:D
The University of Phoenix is basically a graduate degree factory. Pay the tuition, show up for classes (whose “professors” are rarely little more than local business people) and voila: one MBA/other masters for you, straight off the assembly line. It is known in private education circles as Education, Inc or The Diploma Mill.
St. Louis University, Fontbonne College, Maryville University, and Webster University all have extended site campuses throughout the St. Louis region. These extended sites almost always offer only undergraduate or graduate classes business or management courses, and the classes run on evening/weekend schedules. The schools cater to people looking to finish their bachelors or move on to a masters. The attractive thing for the colleges is that they make tons of money this way, as most of these part-time students get no school-based financial aid, they pay full tuition (typically $375/credit hour). It helps subsidize school-based financial aid for traditional full-time students.
To the contrary, University of Phoenix is accreditted by the “North Central Association of Colleges and Schools”, which is NOT a fake accrediting agency that diploma/degree mills use. These are same people that accredit traditional, state-run universities.
Now the “professors” thing is true; they’re not really professors. That’s one of their bragging rights – taught by the people who do for a living that which you’re studying (okay, I’m paraphrasing a bit). In any case, I’m not saying that they have GOOD or BAD instructors; I’m sure they have a mix like any school of both good and bad.
Pay tuition, show up for classes – yeah, that’s pretty accurate, actually. It’s certainly not a cakewalk to get an “A”, but you pretty much have to be determined to truly fail.
Further on this – My sister got some valuable experience as an instructor at Phoenix (coincidentally, the one in Phoenix) when she was ABD (all but dissertation). This in turn was of great assistance when she was out looking for a “real” job in academia, because she could claim actual teaching experience. She was a great teacher, just not too experienced (at that time), and I think she felt her time at Phoenix was of benefit both to her and to the school. That said, I don’t think she would ever argue that an MBA from Phoenix will not carry the same as one from, say, Wharton.
I COULD be wrong here, but… didn’t “60 Minutes” do a segment on the University of Phoenix a few weeks back.
They definitely did a piece on a college (and I’m PRETTY sure it was “the University of Phoenix,”) that offered most of its courses on-line, via the Internet. By offering classes this way, they now confer award more bachelor’s degrees than all but a few major state universities. This despite the fact that most people have probably never heard of the University of Phoenix!
IF I’m remembering the name correctly, the University of POhoenix has “students” all over the nation, including many who’ve never set foot in Arizona in their lives. And IF I’m remembering correctly, it’s possible that this “on-line university” has administrative offices or some small facilities in many cities around the country, to provide information/assistance to potential applicants.
On the “60 Minutes” segment, there were some critics who seemed to think the University of Phoenix was little more than a high-tech diploma mill, while other commentators seemed to think it represented the future of higher education (and that all the major, reputable colleges would have to start offering degrees through on-line courses, too).
The University of Phoenix is owned by Apollo Group, headquartered in Phoenix, AZ. Hence the name.
Astorian, U of P does have a huge online program, so it might have been the subject of the show you saw. However, it does have dozens of real campuses around the country – it only went online in the last few years. So it wouldn’t be correct to say it just has small facilities to provide information.
I’ll do my best to NOT turn this into a pit issue, but I have to say that I have a very poor opinion of these programs. Independent of whether the quality of the education is any good, I can tell you that as an MBA from a regular school (UT Austin), these people are thought of by most of the business community as jokes. And that’s really unfortunate because as many people point out, these programs aren’t cheap, and working people who otherwise don’t have time to do a regular MBA program get scammed into it as a convenience (on-line/ at night/ etc.) only to later find out their degree is worthless in terms of increasing their salary or opening up better job opportunities.
In fact, I think it is especially tragic because I know Arizona has a few good MBA programs (U of A I think), but when these people come in for interviews, everyone’s immediate reaction is “isn’t Arizona the one that gives MBAs out in cereal boxes?”