U Phoenix 'On Probation' Soon

[Martin Eisenstadt]

...recent areas of scrutiny at the university include faculty changes, student-to-teacher ratios and student default rates on loans.

Could having a malingering union goon on faculty have had anything to do with it? Or not having enough malingering union goons on faculty?

Along those same lines, I was tempted to say "Ah ha!" when I read Doogle's post at the gay boy porn front. But that would be too easy.

Actually, he has some interesting things to say about the "self-directed learning teams." (Talk about burning bridges. Guess he has no plans to ask for his old job back.) I've never talked to anyone who didn't agree that the "learning team" thing was a total disaster, yet UoP still rakes in the dough.

I've got some experience in this area. I was a full-time Campus Chair for a year at UoP and an adjunct for an additional 2 years. I don't know what the HLC is concerned about, but here's my take:

Often, when a school gets in trouble with an RA, it's due to money, management, or both. Money probably isn't the case here.

UoP 's learning model, while admirable in theory, is not so hot in practice. Classroom students are limited to 20 hours per course (undergrad) or 24 hours (grad). The rest of their learning takes place in self-directed learning teams. There are so many problems with executing and controlling this, I don't know where to begin. Let me just say that basing an entire university on that model is stupid. (The online equivalent isn't any better.)

UoP originally didn't accept students who had not completed 2 years of school. Then it limited enrollments to those with at least 20 s.h. elsewhere. Then it finally went after the people who'd never been to college at all. But as an open-enrollment school, that means that a whole lot of people (tuition-paying, BTW) who should not be there are attending and paying. And since the first 5 classes for these people are totally easy, and since it takes enrolling in only 3 to reach UoP 's break-even point for students, they're usually okay. (Dropping enrollments might have an effect on the break-even point. My data is from a time when UoP 's enrollments were about 200K.) So....

I wouldn't be surprised if the HLC's criticisms are focused on that new-to-college group. The drop-out rates for them are horrendous. New MBA students, meanwhile, were--IMHO--ready to go. I taught in both undergraduate and MBA programs and the difference was remarkable. So was the difference between students starting their UoP bachelor's programs and those near completion. Night and day. Part of that was the difficult process of earning a degree this way. The other part was that students got better as they went along. But a huge part was the weeding out of students early in the program--students who'd paid good money but who never should have been there to begin with. Students who had already paid for several courses and no longer represented a loss to UoP .

We'll see.

http://www.degreeinfo.com/general-distan...n-hlc.html

...He basically learned nothing while attending this university and he was nearly 25,000 dollars lighter after he paid his education "bill"...

Sounds like your pal got off easy. At least he graduated, and $25k isn't out of line for an MBA these days. There are lots of horror stories out there about dropouts with six figure loans in collection.

...he does have the "sheepskin" framed in his office though...

There's the bottom line. A lot of people with jobs and lives are effectively excluded from traditional on-campus programs. Whatever its multiple and well-publicized faults, UoP offers many an opportunity they might not have otherwise, and manages to make a pretty penny doing it. As others have noted, it's the latter that seems to cause people more concern than the former.