Opinions: NCU vs Newcastle

I would like to garner some forum opinions on the Newcastle DBA vs the NCU PhD. I have been accepted to both programs and I would appreciate some feedback from the board members.

On the one hand, the PhD program offers a specialization that I am quite interested in. The other hand shows a somewhat traditional foreign school doing some non-traditional education to raise cash...not that both don't do it for cash. (maybe George Brown could chime in here and provide some opinion on the Australian perception of Newcastle)

What do you think of the utility of either degree...comparing one against the other? Also, my goal is not to become a teacher. I'll stay in industry. Cost isn't all that much a factor for either. Both schools have similar tuition. I believe either program would take about the same amount of time to complete.

(I'm leaning more strongly toward NCU at the moment for a number of factors. I recall asking the forum members the same question when looking for an MBA. Regis, Colorado State, or Cal State? That was back in the days of AED but many of the same voices now live on this forum.)

Thanks, Bing

 

I'd rather have the Newcastle degree. I suspect it would be more prestigious than one from NCU. But I also suspect the process at NCU is more straight-forward. And completing the degree ought to be a significant factor in one's decision-making.

Costs are similar, with the Newcastle degree coming in about 5K cheaper.

 

The following opinions are my own. You are free to agree or disagree:

I would encourage you to pursue the Newcastle DBA. Newcastle is an established B&M school with a 40 year history and 20,000 students. It has a proven research record in most faculties and a worldwide reputation for excellence in research.

NCU is a purely online "university" that has been around for 9 years. No campus. No research. No international reputation. It is RA, but in my opinion, shouldn't be.

 

Empty your PM mailbox..

Bing, I canot reply to your PM's as your mailbox is full. Empty some of them, including your sent file....

 

Re: Empty your PM mailbox..

Newcastle.

 

Newcastle hands down...

My apologies to current NCU students, but I cannot get past the fact that NCU is an online only school. We can sit here and debate the quality all we want but fact is in the real world those schools are still viewed very poorly. This really comes into play when doing a DBA.

In addition, there is the added controversy ongoing with NCU/SCUPS and that school in Vietnam. There is also the hidden issue of just why NCU dropped Title IV finding. Newcastle can use Stafford loans and they aren't even in the USA. I do not like where I see NCU going right now and for that reason I never seriously considered them for the DBA. My opinion though.

Actually, if you are wanting a career in academia there may be better options for you. Such as Aston (yes, it is EXPENSIVE).....

 

There is an added element of stability to consider. NCU has been around for only 9 years. As more B&M schools start offering DL alternatives (and they will), these purely online "universities" may lose their utility.

People will ask themselves if they want a degree from a for-profit virtual school run out of an office somewhere or a degree from long established reputable school that offers an external DL option?

 

Most important...

"As more B&M schools start offering DL alternatives (and they will), these purely online "universities" may lose their utility."

Good point. I think the B&M's have seen the writing on the wall and will jump on the DL bandwagon. This could spell doom for the online only schools....

 

I would say this is a good comment in light of a bachelor's or master's degree. However, how many brick and mortar RA American schools are jumping on the external doctorate programs right now? I can hardly name any. UMUC? Nova? None are totally external and all have program costs in the stratosphere.

Are there any other American brick and mortar schools even looking at doing a totally external doctorate at a competitive cost with Touro or NCU? If there are I haven't yet seen them mentioned. So, I think that on-line schools still have a chance here. They fill the gaps that the regular brick and mortars are not filling, or won't fill.



Bing

 

I don’t think the prestige factor will allow AACSB schools to aggressively market DL doctorates. As long as there are no US distance MD and ABA Law degree programs the chance of many DL AACSB PhD programs will be remote. The current AACSB accreditation standards also make it difficult.

There appears to be growing resentment by some AACSB professors towards the lessening of the AACSB requirements as is. Watering them down even more would not go good with the big boys. In order to meet demand the GMAT and admissions standards would need to be lowered almost to the level of open admissions. I seriously doubt we will see this!

Unless I missed it somewhere, Newcastle is not even a member of the AACSB, let alone accredited. NCU isn’t either but doesn’t profess to be a research school. In the US anyway it seems to be AACSB or nothing for teaching at the big boys in most cases. A search of EQUIS or AMBA turned up zero for teaching positions in the US at The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The for-profits appear to be able to react to changes in the marketplace better than the established B&M schools. This is an advantage that cannot be overlooked. I believe the for profits are here to stay.

Since you do not care to teach (certainly don't blame you!) and you like the NCU program I think you answered your own question!

Good luck either way.

Just my opinion

 

One major reason that there is limited selection of DL doctorates from US B&M schools is because of the taught component of the degree. European-based business doctorates like Henley, Aston and Grenoble are heavily research-based with minimal coursework. The taught elements are usually workshops that are conducted various times a year. Naturally, pure research degrees are easier to delivery externally. As long as good contact is maintained with the supervisor, progress can be made.

Because of this coursework focus in the US, some schools are handicapped regarding delivery. It requires the development of an infratructure to support teaching. Obviously, the University of Newcastle (Australia) has such a support structure since it is an American-style coursework degree with a dissertation of 30,000 - 40,000 words. Very short compared to European standards which are usually 70,000 - 100,000 words.

Again, this is my personal opinion, but I do not consider "doctoral" programs at NCU or TUI to be at doctoral-level and many other people probably share this opinion. Don't short change yourself, if you're going to spend 4-6 working on a doctorate, get a good one.

 

Hey Bing,

I hope that you make the best choice! I just wanted to write that if you plan on getting a job in the states, you might as well go for a RA school. Here is my myopic rationale. I think that most HR folks would not know a school (outside of the top tier ones) if it bit them in the back-side. With that being said, I would think they would be MUCH more curious about an out of country degree than one from the states. In order to (sort of) prove my hypothesis, I called my best friend (he is the HR manager for Pepsico). He informs me that he ALWAYS asks if the school is RA or not. If it is not, he does not care too much what approvals the schools do have (outside say the top tier foriegn schools i.e. Oxford or Cambridge).

So, if your choice is DL and it comes down to an RA one vs another similarly approved school - go RA. Also, if NCU has what you want - go for it - nothing worse than getting far into the process wishing you had something that you are not pursuing!

I do wish you the best!

peACE,

ACE

 

In my opinion, you are not going to see very many B&M schools getting into the on-line doctoral business for many reasons, to include the following:

Professors at these B&M schools are typically focused on conducting research and publishing—this is what they want to do. However, they cannot spend as much time as they desire in this area because they have to teach their courses. So they look to their handful of full-time doctoral students to teach many of these courses, as well as to do a lot of the busy work on their research projects. For these professors, this is the value that doctoral students provide to professors at B&M schools—teach the undergrad and some grad courses, and do most of the grunt work on their research projects. These professors will gain nothing from a totally on-line, part-time doctoral program. All it will do is add to their teaching load. Their students won’t be available to teach any of the professor’s courses, and there will be limited interaction for the students to collaborate with professors on their research. Besides, these professors want on-campus, full-time help, and they are very peculiar as to whom they pick to be their doctoral/research students—the professors are looking for students who have their (the professors) research interests at heart. On-line doctorate programs are not that picky when it comes to admitting students.

Just my opinion.

 

Cost?

Bing:

First, congratulations on being accepted to both programs. I know for me cost was a large factor in choosing an institution. As a working adult I had to give careful consideration to program costs.

How important is cachet to you proportionate to cost? You did not mention financial information for either program, are they comparable in that regard?

 

The taught component refers to the coursework right? Isn't this what DL schools excel in, and brick and mortars don't have down for the most part? Australian schools seem to have external coursework down pat as do many DL schools here.

Likley. Most of the PhD programs I know make you take your courses at the school. Once done, you can go off someplace to work on your PhD. I have a guy in my group now like that. He went to Northwestern for a PhD. He completed all his work except for the dissertation. He is now a distance ABD working and trying to do his dissertation.

4-6 years without a master's degree let's say. I don't know anyone with a master's spending 4-6 additional years getting a PhD unless they are fairly unmotivated. Not saying it doesn't happen, though. I see that on Rutgers site they are quoting 4-6 years, but with no master's for their business PhD. Looking at the Univ of Chicago, they are saying that a doctorate in social work can be completed in 4 years(no previous master's). Columbia's education doctorate is about 3 years with a master's. Looking at Michigan's b-school shows many profs that went from MS to PhD in 2 years...many at Michigan. My friend went to Stanford for his PhD right out of a BS. It took him 3.5 years...but he took of to ride motorcycles around the country a lot, too.

Dr Rene hits the nail on the head. It takes longer at brick and mortars because you are doing the professor's scut work for him rather than spending time on your own research.

Thanks for the thought. I am one to think a topic through well. I hope to make my final decision here this week.

 

Also, I forgot to mention that if cost is not a consideration you might want to look into the Doctor of Management program at University of Maryland, University College.

It is an EXCELLENT blended program with limited residency for around $50K

http://www.umuc.edu/grad/dm/

 

Re: Cost?

Cost is the minor factor. My company is willing to reimburse on tuition for NCU, as they are RA(they have a policy on regional accreditation). Not so with Newcastle. However, if I am impressed that the utility of a Newcastle degree is that much greater then the cost difference is not all that huge in my opinion. It's not like these schools are in the Walden, UMUC(not interested in the DM degree at all), or NSU tuition ranks.

One of the factors my company liked was that NCU had a plan that mapped out to an area in high need here. The coursework and degree title fit well with my HR and Career departments. I showed them the DBA program and they were not quite so persuaded with it to provide the assistance. This is a small consideration for me but not the deciding factor.

Newcastle approved my dissertation proposal. My proposal, or dissertation concept, was the same at both schools. With either school I would end up doing the same research.

 

Regarding B&M schools jumping into the business: they have been doing so for a long time, and it hasn't prohibited stand-alone DL schools from proliferating. Also, some B&M schools are jumping right back out.

Another thought on degree utility: there might be some difficulties experienced with a foreign degree, even when legitimate.

Regarding DL vs. B&M: I wonder how much that difference is experienced in reality. Look at unaccredited DL schools. If you ask employers if degrees from unaccredited schools are acceptable, you get a largely negative answer. But if you present to them actual cases of holders of degrees from unaccredited schools, you get a different picture. I think this also applies to DL schools. I suspect the stigma we allude to might be strongest in the educational circles, but much less so in other employment situations. We've seen as much with unaccredited schools, as well as schools accredited by non-RA agencies. So.....

It gets back to the question of why someone wants the degree. Likely, a DL doctorate will benefit many people in their quests to advance in their careers. But if one's goal is to start a career, there are likely better choices. And neither program (Newcastle's or Northcentral's) is likely to track someone directly into a faculty position.

(Not that such is a necessary goal; graduates of nontraditional doctoral programs are not necessarily heading towards academic careers. To use that criterion--whether or not someone entered an academic career after earning a nontraditional doctorate--is, well, stupid. See Degreeinformation DL for a thread propagated by its operator, suggesting I'm somehow a failure because I don't work for a B&M school. This after I earned a degree specializing in NONTRADITIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION! Then wash your hands thoroughly and return to this board.)

 

Noticed that you are considering the NCU PhD and not the DBA vs Newcastle DBA.

Do you prefer the PhD over the DBA if given the choice?

 

It depends on circumstances...

In the town where I work there are 2 local faculty members with Australian credentials. One of them teaches for the local state university's MPA program (I work in government service) and many people in management will have had contact with her as they pursued their advanced degrees at the local state university (which also has DL for their MBA and MIT). This, along with a strong perceived bias against the online schools, means I will probably be far better served by Newcastle than NCU. However, in this instance it isn't simply a local versus foreign school. NCU makes me nervous when you start looking at things which have occured recently. I would have looked at Touro again before I went with them.....