Australian Universities are degree mills

...so suggests an anonymous university chief. Looking forward to a very interesting story.


"THE DEGREE FACTORIES" – 4 CORNERS MONDAY 27 JUNE

Next on Four Corners: What’s a university degree worth in the 21st century? Is the race for dollars breeding leaner, smarter universities? Or are they dumbing down in a quest to survive?

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Look at the big picture. Australia’s universities are pumping out record numbers of graduates. Thanks to the Asian student market, they generate $7.5 billion a year and rank among the nation’s star export earners.

Now look closer. About a quarter of Australia’s 38 universities have been bleeding money. While blueblood Sydney University boasts a AA-plus credit rating and a handsome return on investment, battling Newcastle is down $29 million and recently announced a shocking 20 per cent staff cut.

Only two Australian universities rank in the world’s top 100.
Staff-student ratios have shot up nearly 30 per cent in 10 years.

A funding squeeze has forced universities to become marketing outfits with a growing addiction to the income earned from full fee-paying international students.

And as foreign students have flooded in, universities have become mired in allegations about falling standards, soft marking, plagiarism and backdoor immigration.

Now Australia’s reputation for world-class tertiary education – which drives its international student market - is at risk. "All universities are degree factories," one university chief admits to Four Corners. "One way or another, they’re a degree mill."

It’s not only quality that’s suffering. As students pay more and more for overcrowded courses, equality of opportunity is becoming a timeworn slogan. The Government downplays any expectations that university education is a right and not a privilege.

"I think that it’s a privilege," Federal Education Minister Dr Brendan Nelson tells Four Corners. "Having a university education is not something that any of us should take for granted, and one of our failings as a country is we’ve created this culture in which young people feel that if they don’t get a university education that in some way they’re not as good as someone who does."

Dr Nelson is on a mission to push Australian universities into elite international ranks. But in the face of new competition from countries like China, which is pouring money into building its own world-class universities, how will he go about it?

Four Corners examines the winner-takes-all strategy that will see Dr Nelson manoeuvring key resources – like prestige-loaded research funding – into selected centres of excellence. New private universities, including big name brands from overseas, will be encouraged.

Lacking the funding or the cache to keep their market share of foreign students, some struggling universities may be stripped of their status entirely.

Featuring forthright interviews with vice chancellors, lecturers and scholars, including Nobel laureate Peter Doherty, foreign and Australian students and Minister Brendan Nelson, this report explores the depth of today’s university crisis and what sort of education tomorrow’s students can expect.

Ticky Fullerton reports on "The Degree Factories" – Four Corners, 8.30pm, Monday 27 June.

This program will be repeated about 11pm Wednesday 29 June; also on ABC2 digital channel at 7pm and 9.45pm Wednesday.


Four Corners
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/

 

It all depends what one means by 'degree mill'.

It is possible to earn a bachelor's master's and doctor's degrees from some Australian universities without ever sighting university, lecturer/ supervisor, or graduation! Your degrees are posted to you through the mail!

But the article clearly is refering to the number of students that are being 'pumped' through the system. To overcome some of the problems facing Australian universities such as overcrowding in lectures and staff ratios, it is time for universities to brush up on e-business and deliver a higher component of their studies via the internet.

Where there is a danger of Australian universities becoming 'degree mills' is through their overseas affiliations. I am still aware that standards required for off shore programs vary in quality to those offered on campus. This is a continuing bone of contention for students who pay huge expenses to come and study in Australia against their counterparts who do a twinning degree in the home country through the same university. The standards are different; the degree is the same!

'Degree mill' is not the right word. But there are dangers lurking.

 

I believe a poster here got into a huge mess when an outside contractor hired by an Australian school folded operations, leaving him lighter by a large amount of money. I can't remember what school it was.

Any school that offers DL programs needs to keep strict quality control over its product, I think it's asking for trouble to outsource a program to someone else.

 

There are a lot of morons that do not know what a degree mill is. I am reminded of the fact that during my senior year of college, some darn fool ran something in the school paper claiming that Western State College is a degree mill. Funny. WSC has a campus. They have professors. They offer classes and hold lectures. They even require term papers and exams. I even actually remember going to class, taking exams, and writing term papers. But yet this fool (no doubt a fellow student himself) goes slinging the term "degree mill" around and applying it to my (and his) alma mater. So, not everyone who uses the term "degree mill" knows what he's talking about. Not surprising. One of the costs of having free speech is that even stupid people are entitled to their opinions.

 

When the term "degree mill" is used for otherwise properly accredited or recognized schools, it usually refers to access, that there are just too many people graduating. How good could their standards be?

This is, of course, nonsense, and normally the source is someone who has already gotten their education. "I got mine, get yours" is a disgusting approach to higher education.

A commonly applied standard to schools is the quality of their admissions. Elite schools (or those perceived to be) only accept the "best and brightest." Or so they'd have you believe. But admissions don't tell the true story; they're just the simplest to measure. What should be measured are the outcomes. So what if a school admits a bunch of people? What are the graduates like? Have they made the journey, even though they may have begun at a lower level than some others? That's what matters.

The U.S. has, arguably, the best university system in the world. Or, certainly, one of the best. We also have the most open one--anyone with the ability can get a college degree. I like to think those two concepts are related.

 

I have known several otherwise educated people (college and university faculty) who play fast and loose with the terms "degree mill" and "diploma mill". I have had to educate several of my colleagues over the years that graduates of the University of Phoenix are getting accepted into masters and doctoral programs and are getting jobs (the two most important outcomes to college graduates).

One colleague, after making some rather ignorant remarks about Nova Southeastern Unviersityin a meeting, was "educated" about the fact that Nova is an established brick-and-mortar campus, has a medical school and is the leading university in the nation for awarding doctorates to Black students (and 16th in doctorates to Hispanic students). He (very contritely) apologized to the other members in the meeting.

David Noble, Professor at York University in Canada, has gained a high degree of notoriety by labelling nearly all distance learning programs as "Digital Diploma Mills". Needless to say, many other of us in academia do not share his views.

Tony Piña, Ed.D.
Administrator, Northeastern Illinois University

 

As ranked by whom?

Tony

 

Tony, even Canada has its share of idiots and in some cases a disproportionate number. ;-)

If it was not for distance education, particularly online distance education, it is doubtful I would be able to earn a degree due to the difficulty in trying to schedule an on-campus education around employment. And taking 4 years off from "working" to earn a degree is simply not an option for many of us.

 

Apparently David Noble has ticked off many educational institutions in the past,

Re: David Noble:
"Noble's leftist politics have given him a rocky career. He has been fired by both MIT and the Smithsonian Institution and was blocked from giving the commencement address at Harvey Mudd College because the administration claimed he was "anti-technology". At York University he was attacked as "anti-science" and "anti-intellectual" by the university president and his appointment to Simon Fraser University was blocked by administrators.[1] (http://www.monthlyreview.org/ddmxcerpt.htm)"

Further:
"In late November 2004, at York University, Noble garnered controversy for handing out a small number of information sheets regarding York's principal fundraising body, the York Foundation. Noble alleged that the Foundation "is biased by the presence and influence of staunch pro-Israel lobbyists, activists, and fundraising agencies" and that this bias affects the political conduct of York's administration in important ways."
http://stevehome.dynup.net/en/David_Noble.htm


I don't think he has much creditability left in the distance education field or several others!

MP

 

Noble

Typical, everyone who disagrees with him is blind or ignorant. Only he is the enlightened one. A true demagogue....

 

I don't think Harvard's ALM program or any of the many other courses available via the Internet were included in Robert Reid's following comments yet Mr. Noble makes liberal use of the statement:

"In his classic 1959 study of diploma mills for the American Council on Education, Robert Reid described the typical diploma mill as having the following characteristics: "no classrooms," "faculties are often untrained or nonexistent," and "the officers are unethical self-seekers whose qualifications are no better than their offerings." It is an apt description of the digital diploma mills now in the making."

Were Tandy PC's around back then?? LOL

David Noble's collection of humour can be found at:

http://communication.ucsd.edu/dl/

 

Very true Tony. I have encountered this especially in regard to U of P. I had a staff member who spent a weekend concerned because a university prof from a state university said that UofP was not accredited and they did not accept UofP credits. I printed the accreditation info for her and her school is accredited by the same RA that does Notre Dame (not that the schools are comparable). I have frequently heard slams against UofP. One Rutgers graduate told me it was a step above a mail order school.

As to distance learning in general....I have often recounted the story of two PhD's I know (one from Cornell and one from TAMU). Both were appalled that dl docotrates existed. The woman (when I told her about Capella, Union, etc) said "Oh so you basically buy the degree". The guy looked ill and was just really disturbed by the concept. Both are gen x ers. So ignorance abounds. I am reminded of the comment someone made that actually even in a bricks and mortor school most learning is distance leanring because it takes place outside the classroom. Only a small portion of the work you do is inside the classroom.

Someone on another thread asked about whether TRACS accredits any DL only schools and the answer is no. I am sure this perception issue is partially why. As a relatively new (15-20 years old???) accreditor I am sure that they want to do as much as they can to continue to build their credibility (which they have done). They therefore insist on campus programs, libraries, etc. The RA accreditors can weather any issues from accrediting completely dl schools like NCU, Jones, etc due to their history and length of existence.

North

 

I wouldn't argue that universities need to maintain a strict level of quality on their DL programs, but from what I've seen, the unversities themselves are at least sometimes not well suited to control the quality of all aspects of the program. It goes without saying that the quality of the cirriculum should be controlled by the unversity. But I'm not sure about things such as:

1) Quality of the presentation
2) Quality of customer service
3) Quality of marketing

I think the coopertation of University Alliance with several universities may be an example of what I mean. The quality of marketing of UA and the quality of the presentation seems to be much better than the quality of let's say FIT's own distance learning program. Personally, I think that this is a good thing.

 

Excellent post, Tony. I always enjoy your objectivity and fairness.

 

Dr. Noble has never had any credibility in the distance education field, but has been the darling of the anti-technology set. Faculty members who do not wish to take the time to learn the latest tools and technologies of their field love someone like Noble, for whom technology is a way for nasty administrators to take advantage of faculty and get into bed with corporate interests for their own personal gain.

Having "leftist politics" is nothing new in academia (most professors are left-winged); however, Noble has the habit of being extremely and publicly critical of the institutions that employ him (not something that endears one to his administration). Since Noble seems to have found fault in virtually every institution for which he has worked, one wonders why he continues to seek positions at univerisities. If I hated where I worked so much, I would seek another line of work.

Tony

 

You mean to tell me that there actually exist GenXers who are old enough to have PhDs? They must be taking them younger and younger these days!

 

Utter nonsense by Noble. Over 300 accredited colleges and universities offer complete degree programs via distance learning and the vast majority of higher education institutions offer distance learning classes. Faculty are certainly existent (I teach online courses and, the last time that I checked, I exist).

Tony

 

Thank you, Jimmy. There are so many good individuals that make positive contributions to Degreeinfo and have been helpful to me. I definitely have my biases, but I am appreciative of your kind compliment.

Tony

 

Re: Re: Australian Universities are degree mills

The London Times Higher Education Supplement is a fascinating ranking of hundreds of universities throughout the world, it seems to be pretty common when comparing international schools. Rankings are always subjective, but I am impressed that the Times does a ranking based on academic research--how often one university's academics are quoted in other research. Lack of published research is a problem for lots of DL schools, and I think they will need a lot more publishing to compete against B&M well.

This is a disappointing thing to hear about Australian schools, that their DL and B&M requirements are not identical. Anything that weakens the academic content of DL degrees hurts the cause.