Problems with AIU

I have a friend that applied and of course got admitted to AIU.
He previous education included several business classes in a private Asian school and a 6-month tech degree. AIU came back to him with a 13-month plan for his BIT degree.

Each class is 5 weeks in lenght and you are suposed to participate in class discussions and do individual code programs (ex: Visual Basic etc).

In 13 months he will have a degree. It took me 4 years. The amount of work that he is faced with in a for example programming class is no where to the same level I went through at a local college.

I dont think it is fair that both him and I will have a college degree. Majority of his classes were 10-credit classes.

- COST
Another thing which is a mystery to me is the cost. He was never able to get a clear understanding of the cost. There was no clear explanation of the per-credit cost. Very weird. It cost him about $20k for the BIT.

Why doesnt the US govt set some rules and regulations that schools have to follow such as:
- minimum lenght that a degree can be granted?
- maximum number of credits that can be accepted as transfer?
- clear explanation of fees?
- proctored exams?

I feel that with what is going on w/ all these mills and schools like AIU, UoP etc etc a college degree is becoming a big joke.

 

Oh and yes - regarding the VB problems that are so chalenging - I can get a person to do the code for me for less that $15 .

 

Which "AIU" are we talking about? Atlantic International University http://www.aiu.edu, or American InterContinental University http://www.aiuniv.edu/?

Atlantic International is not properly accredited. American InterContinental is Regionally Accredited, which means that all legitimate US colleges (including your alma mater) will recognize its degrees. University of Phoenix is Regionally Accredited, too.

> Why doesnt the US govt set some rules and regulations that
> schools have to follow

The way Regional Accreditation works is that universities evaluate one another. The 50 states have more power to regulate education than the federal government has. In 1980, Ronald Reagan ran for president promising to abolish the US Department of Education.

 

I was talking about American Intercontinental University.

http://www.aiu-online.com/

 

- minimum lenght that a degree can be granted?
Do you mean earned? If so, the reason is that it does not matter. A degree simply verifies that John Doe has learned X amount of knowledge in Y subject. How long it takes John Doe to learn X/Y is irrelevant. Remember, not all degrees are created equal, but accreditation ensures certain standards are met.

- maximum number of credits that can be accepted as transfer?
I am glad that the US govt. has nothing to do with this. Each institution sets their own guidelines and qualifies the credits being transferred since they are the institution awarding the degree, not the US govt.

- clear explanation of fees?
I don't see what this has to do with the US govt. (caveat emptor).

- proctored exams?
I don’t know what you’re asking here.

 

I'm with cmt. I'm completing a bachelor's at COSC, including fees and tests it will run me about 2600.00 and I'll be finished in 6-8 months (I spent about 2,000 getting my AAS so a total of 4600.00 for me). Now to complete a similar degree at the state university right down the road it would take me 4+ years going part time and cost me about 8,000 (plus the 2,000 I've already spent for a total of 10,000). My son's BA at the same university will take 5 years full time and end up costing me about 25,000. Both degrees are accredited.

The last thing I want is Uncle Sam any more involved in my life I checked into AIU and the same degree I'm finishing now would have taken me about 15 months and cost 23,000.

Same degree, 4600.00, 10,000.00 or 25,000.00.

Maybe you should be happy for your friend that he can afford AIU and that he'll be done in under two years.

And you are right, AIU doesn't really give a per class or credit break down, maybe they do once enrolled.

 

My point is that for a lot of these degrees one is "paying" to earn them.

------- you wrote --------
- minimum lenght that a degree can be granted?
Do you mean earned? If so, the reason is that it does not matter. A degree simply verifies that John Doe has learned X amount of knowledge in Y subject. How long it takes John Doe to learn X/Y is irrelevant. Remember, not all degrees are created equal, but accreditation ensures certain standards are met.
----------------------------
It should matter how loing it takes one to "earn" not "pay" for a degree. There is no way my friend has or will learn the same amount of material that a regular student in 4 years will learn. He is 24 nad has never taken any freshman/sophomore classes that I took in college. No calc1,2,3, no diff-equations, no foreing language, no english writting, no art, no phylosophy, no religion etc etc ... I was still a BS-EE student but I took a lot of classes that made me a more well rounded individual.


------ you wrote ---------
- maximum number of credits that can be accepted as transfer?
I am glad that the US govt. has nothing to do with this. Each institution sets their own guidelines and qualifies the credits being transferred since they are the institution awarding the degree, not the US govt.
-----------------------------
There is nothing wrong with an "authoritative: agency being involved and letting people know that XYZ schools are legint and follow ABC rules etc etc. Why do you go to BBB to check things?

-------- you wrote----------
- clear explanation of fees?
I don't see what this has to do with the US govt. (caveat emptor).
--------------------------------
He still does not know why he is paying certain fees or how much per credit he is paying.


------- you wrote ----------
- proctored exams?
I don’t know what you’re asking here.
-----------------------------------
I am saying that there is no standard. I helped him in a couple of programming assignments and severs other problems in previous classes. Majority of assignments were so easy to do that it took me no more than 15 mins to search on Google and compose a response. He barely opens the books and his GPA is 3.8.

This is a joke - This is a business to make money and a way to make the Bach-degree worthless.

To me AIU-ONLINE is a very advanced mill.
Just my opinion.
----------------------
Again, I am only posting facts that no one from AIU can say they are not true. I dont know how they received their RA but whatever, so did NCU.

I guess RA agencies need the money. -

 

This is an interesting thread regarding a RA program that rarely, if ever, has been discussed except in the case of unaccredited or SA online programs. Advertising of BS/BA and MS/MA level degrees that can be 'earned' in only a few months for sky-high tuition and fees sends up a red flag that makes me question the value of such programs and the credibility of the institutions promoting them. If I were considering an online program, I would like to be able to obtain as much information as possible, both in the form of facts and opinions, to help in making an informed decision. An informed decision involves more than learning that a school is RA - I want to know the dirt too.

 

AIU does give you a tuition schedule as soon as you begin the enrollment process. The tuition schedule is located in the student orientation area and is available for download by all students in PDF format.

As far as the quality of instruction at AIU... I rate it no worse than any other college. I have attended several and AIU seems to be on par with everyone else. It depends entirely on the instructor.
Some are very easy going and pass almost their entire class while others are much more rigorous.

As far as exams, AIU doesn't give them. Grades are all based off submitted projects and discussion, while I suppose you could pay someone to do it for you, it would be difficult to include all the little minor details the instructors ask for unless you had whoever you were paying sit down with your text and go through all the assigned chapters, which I would assume you'd have to pay extra for, and it'd really get quite costly.

And then, when you got to the group project, you couldn't hire that out because what you are supposed to do is dynamic and changes frequently depending on the actions of your group members. So you'd end up looking silly for not being able to do your assigned parts with any degree of competency, and your group members would kill you on the peer evaluation, and in most classes the group project makes up 15-20% of the final grade.

At any rate, as an AIU student yes there are things I am unhappy with. There are things AIU could improve greatly, but they are certainly not a degree mill.

 

I wonder if codekiller is reading all this.

 

wow! Is it that easy to maintain high GPA with AIU. Probably I should get one degree from them too, ofcourse with high high GPA... just search on google to do assignments and no need to open books... cool

 

I simply disagree with the AIU Bashing

onlinephd quote

In 13 months he will have a degree. It took me 4 years. The amount of work that he is faced with in a for example programming class is no where to the same level I went through at a local college.



I've finished the AIU BIT in September and I found it very challenging indeed. I had to have 60+ (80 total)credits to be admited. Being prior military I had accredited class credit coming in from 2 different colleges plus my Navy (ACE) courses which were also accepted.

After attending HPU Hawaii Pacific University and Maryland I simply don't see the difference between taking a slow 8 week course that I attended once a week and taking a 5 week course that was intense. Maybe you think these classes are easy because you're familar with the subject, but all of us aren't as gifted to know everything about I.T., maybe that why we go to college. The networking classese were not difficult becuase I've been doing it for 14 years unlike the programming which was the challenge.

As for paying for your college degree, all degrees are paid for, it doesnt matter if it's Duke or AIU. Different quality in schools, i know. If you would look around the web you'll see many schools offering the 2+2 plan, such as Capella and AIU. If you have a AA or equiv you can enter and complete thier program in 13-18 months.

I respect your opinion but disagree with it strongly and attitude toward AIU. Education is changing to more and more DL's . There is a choice involved with what school to attended if you don't like the school , simply dont attend. Please don't bash someones school on the grounds it doesn't meet your criteria of education. I'm sure there might be some Ivy league folks who feel that way about your education also, it still doesn't make it right.

In my opinion the important thing about a college is whether it is RA or DETC, and I can actually learn something that will propel me forward. I simply don't have time to be upset because someone elses curriculum is different from mine.

Please tell your friend who has enrolled in AIU good luck with his future. Also have him come to this forum to read how highly you regard his school.

2+2 doesn't always equal 4 years

Happy New Years all


http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=sfp&p=2%2B2+plan+college

 

Perception vs. reality for OnlinePh.D.

Online,

I don't mean this to be a personal attack but rather a post designed to illuminate how, in this case and in my opinion, you are guilty of being a hypocrite. You have said, in earlier posts, that you have earned a bachelor's degree in EE and that your program had much higher academic standards than is the case with the AIU program in which your friend is enrolled.

HOWEVER, many of your posts are filled with so many typographical errors and errors in grammar that, if your resume came across my desk AND it contained this level of writing, I would not consider you for a position. For instance, you typed:

"It should matter how loing it takes one to "earn" not "pay" for a degree. There is no way my friend has or will learn the same amount of material that a regular student in 4 years will learn. He is 24 nad has never taken any freshman/sophomore classes that I took in college. No calc1,2,3, no diff-equations, no foreing language, no english writting, no art, no phylosophy, no religion etc etc ... I was still a BS-EE student but I took a lot of classes that made me a more well rounded individual. "

Do you agree with me that it may be slightly embarassing for fellow alumni of your own school to read your post and realize that you cannot spell any of the names of the courses you took? I am sure that you are a highly intelligent person BUT, in your criticism of this school's academic standard, you have highlighted how your own school did not equip you properly as a writer. AIU's DL program is in IT and not EE and there is a BIG difference. I think the majority of your comparisons have more to do with that difference in program content than they do with AIU standards or lack thereof.

People in glass houses....

 

Hello,


I have been reading your post and I have a couple points to bring up to you.


1. You said that your friend will receive his bachelor’s degree in thirteen months. This is incorrect! AIU is a degree completion program not a degree program which you previously stated. The difference being in a degree program you begin with no degree and achieve a degree with no previous experience. In a degree completion program you already have a degree so based on the classes you have you will have classes you need to complete the degree. So if you average in the 2 years your friend sacrificed to obtain his associates degree then its more like 3 ½ years to complete his degree. Now if we take any brick and mortar schools and take out summer vacations ad make all you classes continuous then you would have gone to school the equivalent amount of time as your friend.

2. You receive too many credits for the classes that you are in! Well this is funny if because apparently you do realize the luxuries that you enjoyed at a brick and mortar. At AIU we don’t have the luxury of our teacher paraphrasing the chapters to tell us what we don’t need to read. We also don’t have the luxury of our teachers preparing well detailed notes about our assignments. We are expected to learn something that take most people 10-15 weeks to learn in five weeks. Honestly how long did it take you to learn asp.net, ado.net And VB.net, It took us 15 weeks it took you 45 so of course you probably have a better grasp on the concepts but it also means that you were given luxuries that we were also. I don’t know about you friend but I read 3-4 chapters a week to complete my assignment and do additional research to make sure I understand my project and I don’t cheat by asking some one else to help me code my projects sound like you friend may be a cheater and a slacker. And If he is asking you for help cheating for him them he is cheating of some one else to.

3. You said that you can get some to code a project for 15.00. I charge that much to install ram in a pc so what’s your point. Guess you were trying to say how easy it is to do the programming at AIU but after you learn anything its easy. I could easily charge 300.00 to reconfigure the anti-virus suite, Optimize the page file swapping ability of the pc and verify the integrity of the systems file state. ( but would it be ethical for me to charge 300.00 for defragging the hard drive ,installing antivirus software and running System file checker )I can walk up to most people in the United States and tell them this and if they know nothing about pc’s think this is a great deal or I could charge 50.00 and they would think the same thing( also some programmers see as though they usually know nothing about hardware at all). Not that this is hard for them to do but if they tried to do it they wouldn’t be able to they would rather someone who has done it before do it instead of trying to figure it out for themselves. Which brings me to the same point I made previously your friend may be a cheater and a slacker.

4. Proctored exams I am not going to spend a lot of time on this but I would like ask you to tell me what you remember the second quiz you took your freshman or sophomore years is school from your third class, probably nothing! When most people take tests its only to pass them that for a good grad in class not to master the curriculum only projects can truly do that.

5. What is an information technology degree? Applied computer science is the answer not computer science or electrical engineering. You never did state what your degree was in. I bet it was not in Information Technology. For the most part most Information technology programs are set up the same way some people lose site of our degree and assume it is a computer science degree it is not! I believe most colleges will even let you take Computer science if you have a degree in information technology because they are completely different degrees.\
6. I think this is more a personal attack on your friend than AIU. I believe you have some doubts about your friends intelligence so you came hear to prove how much more intelligent you are than him! I also believe that you have not told him how you feel about the school or his previous work in school. So why attack the school? Most schools have an accelerated program or weekend program and it set up the same way! Do you feel the same way about them? For instance I believe Maryville university has a accelerate programs and Webster University also although the classes are slightly different and a little more advanced they are steal accelerated. And what research have you done to prove that AIU graduates are not properly trained? I typed in google BIT Information Technology and came up with numerous alumni with very prestigious job titles that were usually pleased with there degree.


So when you do some real research I would like to hear back from other than that why don’t you just tell your friend how stupid you think he is and leave us out of it !

 

C vs. VB.NET or ADO.net

I think AIU is on the right track by teaching cutting edge technologies like VB.NET etc.. There are still many colleges that teach Data Structure of which you don't see real life application right away. There are many colleges still lay a lot of emphasis on C rather than Java whereas the actual market is for Java. Technology is such that you have keep abreast and not what you should teach what my grandfather learned while he was doing his Bachelor in CIS. My grandfather was taught COBOL in his undergraduate CIS course. There are still many colleges that they will pride in teaching COBOL.

Watch out for Charles Stuart degrees, it will spread like a wild fire when they open up for the rest of the world. They are laying emphasis for certifications like CCNP, MCSE etc by giving credits. Education should be relevant for today and not for my grandfather days.

 

Teaching courses in C++ (maybe C for non OO basic programming) isn't necessarilly teaching "old technology". You are taught algorithm design, OOP, and different types of data structures which can be transferred to different programming languages (java for example). There may be some difference in syntax but, I feel, you can pick up any "new" language fairly easy once you have the fundamentals of programming. With all this said, I have yet to understand why a Cobol course would be required in any type of computer curriculum (do they still use this)?

Bill

 

For all of you non-computer geeks

Yes, COBOL is still very widely used by large corporations who utilize mainframe computers and applications. Most programmers in Central Illinois program in COBOL. It is old, but it is still the primary mainframe language. No programmer should leave school without at least a beginner class of it or you will greatly hinder your marketability. As for C, a look at the state governmnet of Oregon's hiring reveals they use it a lot.

 

First of all, I dont care much to check my spelling as this is not something I am submitting for grading. -

I have logged on to my friends AIU portal and seen the quality of the material ... it is a joke.

As far as teaching - there is no teaching. He was taking a VB.NET class and the professor was not helping them at all - all he would say is - yes I know it is frustrating - but try again -

I have nothing against AIU but I know for sure that the knowledge that mojority of students are getting is very low - I would call it more like high school level.

You make your own choice - but I would never pay $20k+ for a BIT degree.

Good luck and take care.
PS: I have a BS and MS in Electrical Eng - I have no idea what this has to do with anything but I was asked to clarify. In English one can use a spell checker but I am too lazy -

 

onlinephd

How can you compare the curriculum a degree in electrical engineering to the curriculum in a information technology degree? They are 2 completely different fields with completely different focuses. That like me obtaining a degree in computer science and writing about the level of training you recieved in programing because it does not meet the same standards as the
the training I recieved in my program apples and oranges! Have you even looked at another information technology programs curriculum? An information technology degree is not ment to be a programing degree for that you either should look for a degree in icomputer engineerig,computer science ,software engineering or electrical engineering. Most of your posts sound like random ramblings of a pompus,irrogant idiot and are for the most part completely unfounded. So I say to dont go to AIU but those of us who have studied hard through our full time jobs that took care of our family and still manged to graduate from a regionally accredited school with and exceptional reputation you have my utmost respect.

P.S

To those of you thinking of attending AIU this post really does not have to do with AIU It has most to do with online phd's fragile igo and he low opinon of his friend that helps to cheat through school. AIU has its problems but the curriculum is solid and if you want a degree and be proud of what you accomplished check it out first there is always those to cast stones till some cast stones at them.

P.P.S


Yes etech I read ! What you think ?

 

That explains why you think every IT major should have "calc1,2,3," and "diff-equations". Not every program is going to be as rigorous as the other (especially in IT, IS, CS, etc.). These degrees are not regulated as hard by a professional accreditor as engineering degrees are (ABET). You are going to find programs that are, infact, inferior to others (online or B&M). Another thing about the easy VB projects... Maybe that isn't the focus on an IT curriculum (it could be used to lay fundamentals down on visual programming perhaps?). I would say the harder work is probably in the "Technology" end of the spectrum (data comms, networking, etc.).

Personally? I would NOT shell out the tuition money required for AIU (whether it was an easy IT curriculum at AIU or Phoenix or a rigorous EE curriculum... at MIT). They have a different paradigm in teaching and, it seems to work (one grad and two students on this board that I know of that [other than some administrative issues] are pleased with the program).

Best Regards,
Bill