Who is on "our" side?

[ham]

Yes, I'm discarding it.

Most DE schools are scams. Look at the University of Pheonix, for example. They operate on a short paper curriculum. For each class one must write a one page short paper. It doesn't matter how much you learn, or if you only spent a few minutes flipping through the basic concepts. UoP just wants the students to write a short paper, which is entirely objective, so they can pass them through and go on to pretend that thy have a curriculum.

Any school who wants you to do work without studying for it is just out to take your money. A real school would be interested in teaching and offering learning opportunities.

With some of these schools (regionally accredited) you can learn more on a family hiking trip than with their entire test/write-out-of-school scam program.

Some said

Personally I find that I learn a lot more when I can study in an environment of my own choosing and creation, get up and take a whiz when I need to, go get a sandwich when I'm hungry, turn on the radio and/or the stereo when the mood strikes, or just blow it off and go work out when I've had enough.

I don't see that my learning experience would be improved at all if I first had to fight traffic, try to find a parking place, wonder if thieves or vandals will select my vehicle for their attention today, dodge proselytes and perverts on the way to class, involuntarily listen to some deviant's political indoctrination disguised as part of the class, sit at a desk designed for a midget, rub elbows and make small talk with people to whom I wouldn't give the time of day otherwise, etc. etc.

Those with the multi-billion dollar endowments and owners of said bricks & mortar would have us believe that only the latter above-described experience constitutes the full measure of a true and valid education. I think not.

The fact is that when people cannot be herded, confined and detained they are less amenable to indoctrination, peer pressure and threats.

I never studied with one of the many bizarre USA outfits, but I studied with say UK ones. They adopt triple marking: supervisor, department and external examiner. If that is dodgy, I have no idea what isn't. Phoenix is dodgy, but scandals show there are fraudulent practices going on at A+ universities favoring certain people, so they are dodgy, too. Degree mills are dodgy because all they want is a valid credit card.
You may have an overidealized and unreal idea of what constitutes classroom settings.
I'll give you example from an online class [I am against ALL forms of classroom] I had to take.
Someone mentioned the word 'queer' and there was an endless fight over it, the hell with queer theorists.
A self-proclaimed tetraplegic student went on a grievance rampage when one mentioned a tetraplegic should not be appointed president.
Two people never stopped arguing as if they were carrying on a feud started elsewhere.
Another said he had been a teacher at Stanford (but was taking a first year course).
One claimed at 22 he had 4 postgraduate degrees...
I posted a mainstream press article and it was argued it could offend one category.
Another posted a mainstream press article and it was argued it could offend another category.
They had all kinds of weird way to interpret and sidetrack materials we were studying taking one issue and running with it.
Do I need THAT?
No way.
Does that add to my learning experience?
No.
Glad I now can do without.