Apollo Group [University of Phoenix's Owner] Gets Graded on the Curve

I thought you guys would want to read this. Pay special attention to the second to last sentence...

(FWIW, while I abhor UOP, they succeeded in making online learning a very viable model....which others schools, both traditional and other for-profits have sought to emulate.) The takeaway from this article though is that UOP enrollment is down.

But I disagree with this jerk thinking all online schools are "diploma mills." Even the for-profits are RA schools...however, my only beef with for-profits is that they are for-profit....those schools are only beholden to stockholders, and not students.
AHEAD OF THE TAPE: Apollo Group Gets Graded on the Curve - WSJ.com

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N2IT

Really no surprises there. With WGU and other competitors taking market share with more ethical practices and provided a lower price point while adding more value makes a lot of sense.

I agree that lumping all on line university as paper mills is nonsense, but UOFP is a papermill. I have several former past teammates who admitted this. The course work can be found on line with mere google searches. My friend admitted to finding several test on the internet for this University.

And the insanely high debt you go into after graduatation from here is rediculous.

It reminds me of ITT which is worse IMO, from a financial view. Since Vatterott and ITT are for profit nationally accredited schools I believe you have to get personal loans for them. A former co-worker is now in debt 115,000 dollars and is paying over 1,000 a month for a bachelors.

Some of these schools credit hour have gotten out of control.

NetworkingStudent

erpadmin wrote: »

I thought you guys would want to read this. Pay special attention to the second to last sentence...

(FWIW, while I abhor UOP, they succeeded in making online learning a very viable model....which others schools, both traditional and other for-profits have sought to emulate.) The takeaway from this article though is that UOP enrollment is down. But I disagree with this jerk thinking all online schools are "diploma mills." Even the for-profits are RA schools...however, my only beef with for-profits is that they are for-profit....those schools are only beholden to stockholders, and not students.
AHEAD OF THE TAPE: Apollo Group Gets Graded on the Curve - WSJ.com

I think The school loan market will be the next market to crash.

I’m still struggling to understand what a degree mill is..can someone define this for me?

I went to a for profit school and I still feel like I learned more on my own by doing certifications, than from the classes. We used an Altiris Products & Services | Symantec Corp. network, so are systems were often locked down. It was a game to see if the computer labs could run the labs from our books . Sometimes the labs would work, but often they wouldn’t work at all.

Some things that I never understood while I attending my for profit school:

The price per credit was insanely high!! We are talking at least $400.00 a credit!!! I know it wasn’t sub sized by the state, but still it was pretty high.
Local technical and community colleges offered the same degrees, but required less credits.

They never discussed transfer agreements, their accreditation, ect. I think the new obama law changed that a bit, and now they have to mention it to students.

They didn’t offer Cisco classes or internship classes..Don’t most colleges offer these types of classes? Also, classes were eliminated all together if there wasn’t enough student interest.

They let me transfer in one of my Business classes, when I was close to graduation and I needed only a few credits to graduate, however; they wouldn’t let me transfer this class in when I started at the school. I think they want each student to pay a certain amount of money before they graduate.

They used to have a lot of tests that you could take to test out of classes, but they slowly eliminated those. I think they were losing money.

A lot of students wanted to go to the U of M, metro state, ect….teachers would chuckle nervously and tell them how their degree wouldn’t transfer to the U of M.

If The University of Phoenix went out of Business would those students that graduated from that school basically have worthless degrees?

swild

a degree mill is essentially an organization that doesn't care about education. You pay them money, they give you a diploma.

The current worth of a UoP degree is debatable, but I don't think that the degree's worth would be lessened by UoP going out of business.

I started a semester at ITT and quickly learned that it was just a scam. A former coworker has an associates from ITT and is $65k in debt for it.

N2IT

Swild it's really sad. And even worse a lot of them have adjustable loans. The co-worker I referred too in my previous post started off paying 600 a month and now its ballooned over 1000 a month.

SteveLord

A neighbor's wife is in UoP. I can't imagine the kind of costs associated with it. On a recent conversation, I said I was pursuing a degree and he said "Oh like UoP or something?" I had to tactfully and very briefly respond. Obviously, I didn't want to **** on the school is wife is in to his face, but the thought was there obviously. $:\$

My technical school is in the same boat. Just another business that preys on mostly lower income people who want a quick path to a career. Mine did PC Repair, the MCSA type of track (which I took) and Medical Assistant type of work. I Googled reviews on my school (Lincoln Technical Institute in New Jersey) and it is still a joke with students complaining of poor education and being in loads if debt.

the_Grinch

UoP's stigma is starting to catch up with it, as noted in various news reports. The education bubble is about to burst, just waiting for it to happen...

tpatt100

Yeah the student loan bubble is about to pop sooner rather than later. The problem is I understand the intent in government subsidized loans and if they implement stricter policies it sort of makes it harder for those to climb up the economic and opportunity ladder. On the other hand schools need to address the costs for education and find ways to accomdate these students. Buuuttt part of me thinks major colleges needs to retain that "image" of college vs making it more accessible for everyday people. Maybe a focus on training certificates and the associate degree would be a good start. Keep the bachelors and masters degree for management and such.

erpadmin

tpatt100 wrote: »

Buuuttt part of me thinks major colleges needs to retain that "image" of college vs making it more accessible for everyday people. Maybe a focus on training certificates and the associate degree would be a good start. Keep the bachelors and masters degree for management and such.

Mmm-hmm...keep bachelors and masters for rich drunken frat boys and sorority s***s (no ambiguity there) and training certificates and the associate degree for poor folks with no elitist connections.....

Did I read that right? Generalizations aside (since I was a poor drunken frat boy...lol), that's pretty much what I gathered the general jist was....

tpatt100

erpadmin wrote: »

Mmm-hmm...keep bachelors and masters for rich drunken frat boys and sorority s***s (no ambiguity there) and training certificates and the associate degree for poor folks with no elitist connections.....

Did I read that right? Generalizations aside (since I was a poor drunken frat boy...lol), that's pretty much what I gathered the general jist was....

Uh no? no idea where you got that idea from...

Anyways, many jobs are pushing for bachelors degrees because they can, it is not even them pushing it they are using it as a means to cut through many applicants. Applicants see people getting jobs that have bachelors degrees, rejected applicants go into debt pursuing a bachelors degree. People with bachelors degree go into debt getting a masters degree and so on and so on.

Some colleges want to retain the image of the traditional lecture hall, writing academic papers, etc, etc. They might not find it in their best interest to find ways to attract non tradtional students. So they can wait and wait because student loans allow most students to go into debt pursuing an education there.

Most jobs do not require a bachelors degree so colleges that want to compete and prepare for the day that government backed loans are not there would be smart to find ways to return to the idea of education > college experience and focus on the training certificates for trades and associate degrees for a flexibile job market. Community colleges usually can adapt their education much faster than four year universities. Focus on establishing internship programs with local businesses is a good start.

Eventually employers might see the benefit of a better trained employee pool vs the traditional four year college grad and hopefully the four year degree returns to being a higher standard rather than just the baseline it is becoming.

YFZblu

1. The vast majority of schools are for-profit, even if they don't admit it

2. The UOP is not a diploma mill - The Higher Learning Commission conducts detailed audits of the environment and the coursework; if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. I personally think that graduates of for-profits should have every opportunity grads of state schools get - judge them based on their knowledge, their merits, and how well they present themselves. Trashing a [insert for-profit school] grad is a travesty if the degree is accredited.

3. Yes, student loans are the next 'bubble'...When it bursts, people will blame the biggest offenders. But in the end, students make their own decisions and are responsible for fully saturating the potential consequences of taking 70k in loans for a Bachelor's degree. At what point do we turn our blame to the Students? While we're trashing for-profits, let's also blame McDonald's for making us fat.

Note: I do not attend a for-profit or hold a degree from a for-profit.

YFZblu

N2IT wrote: »

The course work can be found on line with mere google searches. My friend admitted to finding several test on the internet for this University.

In the realm of IT certification we call those "Brain ****"...Would you blame Cisco because the morons at Test King posted CCNA answers illegally?

erpadmin

YFZblu wrote: »

1. The vast majority of schools are for-profit, even if they don't admit it

Yes and no. While all schools are in the business of making money, when we're discussing "for-profit" we're talking about schools that are owned by a corporate entity that has publicly traded stock. UoP, Capella, etc., are what we're talking about. But yes, just because a school is "non-profit" or is a state school, doesn't mean they're not trying to make money...so your point on that is noted.

YFZblu wrote: »

2. The UOP is not a diploma mill - The Higher Learning Commission conducts detailed audits of the environment and the coursework; if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. I personally think that graduates of for-profits should have every opportunity grads of state schools get - judge them based on their knowledge, their merits, and how well they present themselves. Trashing a [insert for-profit school] grad is a travesty if the degree is accredited.

See my last sentence in my initial post. Again though, while UoP isn't a paper/diploma mill by definition because of its legitimate accreditation, the school is not beholden to students...only to stockholders. Their entire business model is "we get most of our money from federally guaranteed student loans...whether these students flunk out or not, we still get paid." Even with Apollo Group lobbying the crap out of Congress to help keep the gravy train going, sooner or later, the train ride will end...guess who ends up holding the bag? I trash the business model...not the level of education received. [I'll let others do that...]

YFZblu wrote: »

3. Yes, student loans are the next 'bubble'...When it bursts, people will blame the biggest offenders. But in the end, students make their own decisions and are responsible for fully saturating the potential consequences of taking 70k in loans for a Bachelor's degree. At what point do we turn our blame to the Students? While we're trashing for-profits, let's also blame McDonald's for making us fat.

Well...Congress is going to make Public Service Loan Forgiveness into an even better deal. If the change passes Congress [and signed by Obama] PSLF recipients only have to make 60 student loan payments, instead of 120 (five years instead of ten years.) It's an election year too....dollars to donuts this law will pass.

To read the full version of the actual bill itself, please go here: http://tinyurl.com/6txure8

To read answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012, please go here: http://tinyurl.com/8xh4csd

SignOn.org Beta - Support the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012

erpadmin

tpatt100 wrote: »

Uh no? no idea where you got that idea from...

Your whole image of major colleges bit....I like going the facetious route.

It's cool though, as I like your subsequent response a lot better.

SteveLord

Thanks for keeping us up to date on PSLF erpadmin. I didn't know changes were coming.

YFZblu

erpadmin wrote: »

See my last sentence in my initial post. Again though, while UoP isn't a paper/diploma mill by definition because of its legitimate accreditation, the school is not beholden to students...only to stockholders. Their entire business model is "we get most of our money from federally guaranteed student loans...whether these students flunk out or not, we still get paid." Even with Apollo Group lobbying the crap out of Congress to help keep the gravy train going, sooner or later, the train ride will end...guess who ends up holding the bag? I trash the business model...

The Apollo business model is very cleverly evolving out of necessity - Apollo owns the University of Phoenix, Universidad in Mexico, BPP in England, WIU, and sells its IPD services to many schools across the country. I don't think it's a question of *when* the gravy train will end, because in a sense it already has in many ways.

I think Apollo's original business model - online classes for working adults with a certain amount of credit hours and professional experience - was a good one. I can see their company returning to that if survival requires it.

spicy ahi

I went to UoP in 2001 and graduated in 2004. I had previously attended a B&M college until being deployed and then coming back, I went into a work cycle that wasn't conducive to attending college. That said, when I first started it was actually pretty good. The teachers were knowledgeable and experienced folks in the field and had the appropriate credentials such as a Master's degree or higher, certifications if applicable, and a resume detailing experience in the subject matter of the class. In fact, the first classes I attended, the teachers would post their resumes along with their bios and syllabi. It started changing about 2003, and it began to evolve (in my opinion, anyway) into the now infamous model of "push 'em through at any cost" education. I was too invested at that point to turn back so I finished my last year and got the diploma. It's served me well, but agree with the article and points made. The bubble is about to burst, and those caught deep will be hurt the most. I was lucky enough to be active duty for the first two years and only had to pay out of pocket (subsidized by the GI Bill, of course) for the last year. But the bill for that one year was $30,000! I'm down to about 22k now so I'm still feeling the pain but it was worth it in my case. I feel for those going to school now; I don't think they'll get quite the effect for the expense that I did.

erpadmin

YFZblu wrote: »

I think Apollo's original business model - online classes for working adults with a certain amount of credit hours and professional experience - was a good one. I can see their company returning to that if survival requires it.

The above is also another thing I addressed in my initial post: UoP...

succeeded in making online learning a very viable model....which others schools, both traditional and other for-profits have sought to emulate.

UoP showed the world that online learning IS possible...but think about this...why in Hades would I pay UoP $715 a credit (for a Masters in Information Systems), when I can pay either the same amount or cheaper to a B&M school that's well known that can also be done online? When UoP first started, they could get away with their ridiculous tution. They showed that there was a huge demand for online learning. However, that's where that ends......if I have a choice between paying $715 for UoP, vs. same amount or a little less or a little more for a well known B&M, I think the choice is obvious where one should go (the B&M....)

Again, not even going after the quality of education....(and I can...) but a school that is famous for notoriety, vs a school that's got a good reputation and a B&M.....it's just obvious...

YFZblu

erpadmin wrote: »

The above is also another thing I addressed in my initial post: UoP...

UoP showed the world that online learning IS possible...but think about this...why in Hades would I pay UoP $715 a credit (for a Masters in Information Systems), when I can pay either the same amount or cheaper to a B&M school that's well known that can also be done online? When UoP first started, they could get away with their ridiculous tution. They showed that there was a huge demand for online learning. However, that's where that ends......if I have a choice between paying $715 for UoP, vs. same amount or a little less or a little more for a well known B&M, I think the choice is obvious where one should go (the B&M....)

Again, not even going after the quality of education....(and I can...) but a school that is famous for notoriety, vs a school that's got a good reputation and a B&M.....it's just obvious...

Well I think you've introduced the argument for personal accountability. You're post is absolutely correct. Why pay $5 for something when you can get something similar (or better?) down the road for $2? I would take it one step further: Why blame the person selling $5 somethings?

I am curious though...how many well-known B&M schools offer full degree programs that are 100% online? From my view many schools tried it and rescinded, or created online programs that are not fully online and eventually I'd have to enter a classroom - not that it's a bad thing, I'm just saying.

cmitchell_00

I think when U of P started out it had an awesome model for the online program but, keep in mine U of P has a ground campus like the B&M too. However, as everything else it's model catches on and other traditional universities have applied that online model to their schools. I just feel now if the school is accredited and is cheap (i.e. affordable) why not explore higher learning since most I.T. jobs ask for an Bachelors/or same work experience.

techdudehere

The student loan situation is this: As long as the government keeps the loans flowing, desperate people will keep taking them. Eventually parents might begin telling their kids that the loans aren't worth it and they will never get the money back, but that will take a very long time. As can be seen with loan forgiveness options opening up, the government realizes that the education process is failing but they can't open the floodgates by allowing bankruptcy. I won't make a prediction because I don't know what will happen. I am glad I went to a public school, though. It still cost more than its worth, but I am not hurting nearly as bad as many.

petedude

erpadmin wrote: »

Your whole image of major colleges bit....I like going the facetious route.

You swim with geeks, so you hopefully know your Hitchhiker's. . . remember the one thing the group of respectable scientists didn't like?

petedude

NetworkingStudent wrote: »

I think The school loan market will be the next market to crash.

I think this will happen too, but I'm not certain how soon. It will not just affect UofP and their ilk, but also the whole formal B&M system as we're aware of it. Too many schools are charging too much money to keep pretty lawns and excessive administrative overhead. Of course, the for-profits like UofP will get the worst of it, and more legit expensive schools like Harvard will escape it (barely), but change is certainly coming. Our government can't foot crazy education bills forever, and people just aren't going to stand for gouging now that cheap options like WGU are available. The initial waves of this are already visible in some of the state school systems.

erpadmin

YFZblu wrote: »

I am curious though...how many well-known B&M schools offer full degree programs that are 100% online? From my view many schools tried it and rescinded, or created online programs that are not fully online and eventually I'd have to enter a classroom - not that it's a bad thing, I'm just saying.

http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/53985-master-list-b-m-colleges-offering-online-degrees.html [It's a sticky, for crying out loud.....

]

GetEducated.com | Review, Rate, Rank & Compare Online Colleges & Degrees

Also, the offline-online model you're talking about is called a blended program. Many schools offer that for a variety of reasons. But there are a LOT of B&M schools throughout the country that offers 100% online degrees.

erpadmin

petedude wrote: »

You swim with geeks, so you hopefully know your Hitchhiker's. . . remember the one thing the group of respectable scientists didn't like?

guide to the galaxy? Honestly...I never saw it.

[Seriously]

Valsacar

erpadmin wrote: »

To read the full version of the actual bill itself, please go here: http://tinyurl.com/6txure8

Site (http://www.forgivestudentloandebt.com/) blocked on my government computer