Excelsior College - reputation?

I'm considering changing my focus from business (MBA) to liberal arts after having decided it is what I truly love. So, I'm looking for a distance learning properly accredited institution with a good reputation to do this at. Excelsior comes to mind.

What is the opinion of the experts out on the board about the Excelsior Master of the Arts - Liberal Studies program? Does anyone have experience, good, bad, or otherwise with this institution? Any opinions on the overall reputation and acceptability of the degree in higher ed circles? I'm a senior-level administrator in a large higher education system and credibility of the degree is important - on the other hand, it doesn't have to be Harvard or Duke but something I can put on my wall without shame.

Thank you.
- Carl

 

There are several USNY/Regents/Excelsior graduates here, but I don't believe anyone that has graduated from the graduate Liberal Arts program. My take on Excelsior is that they are what I call a "generic RA school" (before I get flamed, I also place my own undergrad alma mater in that category). Meaning they are decent and 100% legitimate, but they're probably not too well known outside NY and the DL community.

If you're interested in Liberal Arts, I am very intrigued by the Master of Liberal Arts program offered by Texas Christian University. It's one of the most flexible RA graduate programs I've ever seen, with the student being given huge latitude in course selection. There are also some very interesting courses available, including Parapsychology, The Supreme Court's Greatest Hits, etc. IIRC, the tuition is a bit pricey, but I also think that TCU probably enjoys greater name recognition than Excelsior. They also have a cool mascot, the Horned Frog.

 

You can certainly put an Excelsior degree on your wall without shame.

However, I would suggest that if your school's reputation is a major concern, in most cases you would probably be better off going with a doctoral-degree-granting institution. Since they tend to be much more involved in research, they tend to have higher noteriety among academia.

You mentioned Harvard. Why not Harvard? Are you familiar with the open-admission Master of Liberal Arts degree offered through the Harvard University Extension School?

 

Re: Re: Excelsior College - reputation?

Harvard Extension has offered more and more courses online in recent years, but as of right now, you'll still have to spend some substantial time in Cambridge to earn a Harvard Extension degree.

 

Back when I was considering the liberal studies master's offered by what was then Regents College, in 1997, I got the impression that it was not designed with future doctoral studies in mind and went with the more traditional Cal State M.A. in Humanities. In retrospect, that was a good decision for me--my research-based Ph.D. program requires an M.A. with thesis for admission--but whether it's a good decision for other folks is debatable, particularly if Regents/Excelsior has added a thesis option over the past six years.

I'd suggest looking over other liberal arts style master's programs of this kind--Thomas Edison's M.A. in professional studies, for one (as I seem to recall that it involves courses on topics as diverse as ethics and Indian philosophy)--before deciding for or against the Excelsior program. It's quite possible that Excelsior will meet your needs just fine, but if you're new to the distance learning field, you may find that there is another program out there more geared to your specific interests and predilections.

Good luck!


Cheers,

 

A degree from Excelsior is what you make of it. I'll grant you that if you just make the statement "I got a MA from Excelsior" it probably doesn't carry as much weight as many schools, but if you bother to explain that you took courses from Harvard, Duke, and University of X and consolidated your courses at Excelsior to receive a degree then your degree will have much more credibility. [How about that for a run on sentence?]

John

 

The University of Oklahoma also has a good MLS that is mostly distance based.