DR ANATIDAE Wrote:RCD, Randall has already supplied you with some real facts and I've provided you with a list of accredited universities that have been referred to as 'mills'. If you were capable of researching the subject yourself you will perhaps learn more - and hopefully benefit from the experience. But this is unlikely! But why not start your 'research' with Union Institute? On top of that you could even read your dissertation!
And, in respect of KU you would be totally incapable of ever reaching the KU degree entry requirements.

Quote:This Phoenix is not Rising
10/Feb/2007 09:03 PM EducationPermalink

http://homepage.mac.com/drbluesaci/RMV/f...ory-8.html

The Nation's largest "for-profit" University, The University of Phoenix, is in trouble. The New York Times has an article today outlining the problems facing the institution that has a reputation for being little more than a diploma mill.
The University of Phoenix became the nation’s largest private university by delivering high profits to investors and a solid, albeit low-overhead, education to midcareer workers seeking college degrees. But its reputation is fraying as prominent educators, students and some of its own former administrators say the relentless pressure for higher profits, at a university that gets more federal student financial aid than any other, has eroded academic quality.

According to federal statistics and government audits, the university relies more on part-time instructors than all but a few other postsecondary institutions, and its accelerated academic schedule races students through course work in about half the time of traditional universities. The university says that its graduation rate, using the federal standard, is 16 percent, which is among the nation’s lowest, according to Department of Education data. But the university has dozens of campuses, and at many, the rate is even lower.

In recent interviews, current and former students in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington who studied at University of Phoenix campuses in those states or online complained of instructional shortcuts, unqualified professors and recruiting abuses. Many of their comments echoed experiences reported by thousands of other students on consumer Web sites.

The complaints have built through months of turmoil. The president resigned, as did the chief executive and other top officers at the Apollo Group, the university’s parent corporation. A federal court reinstated a lawsuit accusing the university of fraudulently obtaining hundreds of millions of dollars in financial aid. The university denies wrongdoing. Apollo stock fell so far that in November, CNBC featured it on a “Biggest Losers” segment.  

Quote:
Their business degree is an M.B.A. Lite,” said Henry M. Levin, a professor of higher education at Teachers College at Columbia University. “I’ve looked at their course materials. It’s a very low level of instruction.”

In November, the university’s reliance on part-time faculty caused a problem with Intel, hundreds of whose employees it has educated. Alan Fisher, an Intel manager, said the company had decided to pay for employees to attend only highly accredited programs. Although Phoenix is regionally accredited, it lacks approval from the most prestigious accrediting agency for business schools, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.

John J. Fernandes, the association’s president, said the university had never applied. “They’re smart enough to understand their chances of approval would be low,” Mr. Fernandes said. “They have a lot of come-and-go faculty. We like institutions where the faculty is stable and can ensure that students are being educated by somebody who knows what they’re doing.”

Dr. Pepicello defended the effectiveness of the faculty, saying instructors were carefully certified.

Most educators acknowledge that the university has helped traditional institutions recognize the needs of older students.

Some of the university’s detractors suggest that it has always relied too much on part-time faculty and raced too quickly through course material. Others say the university’s academic program was once better but has deteriorated in breakneck expansion — it has opened 50 campuses in a decade. Today, even a cursory Internet search will turn up criticism on sites like ripoffreport.com and uopexperience.com.

“Phoenix claims that 95 percent of their students are satisfied, but the reports we get indicate otherwise,” said James R. Hood, founder of a similar site, consumeraffairs.com.

Many reports follow a similar pattern. Students say they liked recruiters’ descriptions of the classes, but after enrolling concluded that they were learning too little or paying too much. Many who quit say they were left with huge debts.

Robert Wancha, 42, a former National Guard commander who is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in information technology at the university’s Detroit campus, said that in a computer course last fall his instructor, Christopher G. Stanglewicz, had boasted that he had a doctorate but did little teaching, instead assigning students to work in learning teams while he toyed with his computer.

Mr. Stanglewicz, reached at his home, acknowledged that he had covered only a fraction of the syllabus , partly, he said, because the university required him to cram too much information into too few sessions.

“Students get overwhelmed,” he said. Mr. Stanglewicz asserted in the interview that he had earned a doctorate in economics from the University of Kentucky. But the authorities there said his name was not in their records. (Dr. Pepicello said that Mr. Stanglewicz had never told the university that he had a doctorate, and that he was qualified to teach.)

Not all students are critics. Yvonne-Louise Catino, 43, of Bloomington, Minn., who is studying online for a doctorate, said she believed she was getting a rigorous education. In a week, Ms. Catino said, she might read eight journal articles and write several essays. “I love the online environment,” she said, “being able to direct where I want to go.”

Quote:“You’re not learning from an actual teacher, you’re teaching yourself,” Ms. Clark said.

Many students accuse recruiters of misleading them, and the university’s legal troubles trace back to similar accusations of recruitment abuses. In 2003, two enrollment counselors in California filed a whistle-blower lawsuit in federal court accusing the university of paying them based on how many students they enrolled, a violation of a federal rule.

After the lawsuit was filed, the Department of Education sent inspectors to California and Arizona campuses. The department’s report, which became public in 2004, concluded that the university had provided incentives to recruit unqualified students and “systematically operates in a duplicitous manner.”

The university paid $9.8 million to settle the matter, while admitting no wrongdoing. But the department’s searing portrait of academic abuse aroused skepticism among many educators.

Dr. Breneman was finishing a chapter on the university in a book he helped edit when he read the report in 2004. He said he found it “credible and compelling.”

When the book, “Earnings from Learning: the Rise of For-Profit Universities,” was published last year, it said the university’s academic model was convenient for working students, but included a “cautionary note” saying the recruiting scandal had raised “disturbing questions.”

Those questions are likely to dog the university as it defends itself in the lawsuit, which a district court had dismissed but an appellate court reinstated in September. The university could be forced to repay hundreds of millions of dollars if it loses. It asked the Supreme Court last month to review the appellate ruling, arguing that an adverse outcome in the lawsuit could expose it to “potentially bankrupting liability.”

Quote:I want data

Quote:Unfortunately I am wasting my time with you ninnies.

Hogwasher Wrote:Unfortunately I am wasting my time with you ninnies. I want data and you give me nothing of substance. To be fair, I don't think it's because most of you are stupid, just that you never learned to think clearly. And you're lazy. Thus the purchase of degree mill output by some of you (Dr. Duck) and the love of sub-substandard schools by others. (Ruhl) 

ham Wrote:

Quote:I want data

go thread the court papers then.

ham Wrote:What matters is that these otherwise legally accredited institutions did churn out fast, easy or even "print on demand" degrees. Period.

DR ANATIDAE Wrote:Bye Bye again RCD - the TRUTH is far too hot for you here. Once again you display an incredibly naive knowledge about education, degrees and qualifications - and about anything associated with the real world.

Hogwasher Wrote:Now now, Dr. Duck, you're a boob with a purchased degree, and you cast shame on your countrymen. And you don't deal in facts, just rambling nonsense, so there isn't a question of TRUTH to be addressed. You're just not useful, and your hot air isn't substantive. But there is one thing that makes you distinctive: you're the second-most pompous person with a fake degree ever to post in the shill forums. (John D. has you beat, sorry about that.)