College Rankings

Does anyone know of a list of rankings for distance learning programs or online schools offering doctorate degrees? The U.S. News & World Report has a guide listing the schools but it does not rank them.

Out of NCU, Capella, UOP, Walden, and Touro, which would you, consider the #1 in degree recognition and reputation? I know that there are many more schools, but I was interested in these.

 

As far as recognition, UOP has it hands down, but not always in a positive light, their agressive marketing tactics tend to hurt and help them at the same time. I know that they have a relatively small doctoral student population (1,000 or less) and a small selection of degrees (5 or so I believe). I am a graduate of UOP and my degree has served me well (admittance into a top-tier graduate program and good job prospects), but they do have issues.

We have several students of capella, walden, ncu and touro on this board which I am sure will comment on their doctoral programs.

Just to add an additional comment, I have noticed quite a few full time professors at Strayer (where I work) with Ph.D's from Capella (our provost has one) and Walden.

 

Our own rating system

I think UOP has a lot of a recognition, but when you ask which is both recognized and has the best reputation, I would say Walden. As an NCU student, I hope NCU will be at the top of this list someday, but the truth is that nobody that I know of (not counting online discussions like this or in NCU's discussion forums) has even heard of NCU. I struggled a bit deciding whether to pursue my doctorate at Walden or NCU. Now that I have been with NCU for a year, I can't tell you how glad I am that I chose NCU over Walden but it has nothing to do with Walden's reputation. NCU is a better fit for me and less expensive.

 

If someone told me that I had the choice of attending any of those schools, tuition free then I would choose Walden. I do not know that it is a better school but I think it would be a better school for me.
Jack

 

If I could do any distance program "tuition free," I'd have done CTU or UMUC's DM program. If I was going to do a PhD program, I would have LOVED to have pursued Walden's PhD in public policy.

I have no complaints about my PhD at NCU though, and I didn't like Capella at all. I never really looked at Touro, so I can't comment on them.

 

I agree with you, and I can't really point to a specific reason why.

I think it's because Walden flies under the radar screen, and isn't really known as a "distance" school.

 

I have seen PhD's from Capella and UoP teaching for Troy State University, both undergraduate and graduate programs.

 

At the doctoral level, the only meaningful rankings are by department or field of study.

It is extremely common in the doctoral world, residential and distance, for schools to have some extremely well regarded (i.e., high ranked) departments, some average ones, and some with a less wonderful reputation.

At the time I was seeking a doctoral program, there were dozens of opportunities in communication, but all the 'big guys' were at three schools, Illinois, Stanford, and Michigan State. State may not have been wonderful in history or physics, etc., but a doctorate in communication would have had a top ranking if anyone was doing rankings.

In the distance world, the faculty is still a major factor. During the 7 years I was doing marketing for the Edinburgh Business School (which became the largest program in the US), we heard, over and over again, "Harper Boyd is the #1 marketing professor and author in the US. Since he wrote your marketing curriculum and is available to students, that's good enough for me."

This is the old "studied with" phenomenon. If I say I "studied architecture with Frank Lloyd Wright," it hardly matters if I did it in a full-time residential program, a distance program, or an informal apprenticeship. We saw this when I was involved with Greenwich in 1990-91. If you wanted to study transpersonal psychology and dream research at that time, Stanley Krippner was one of the very big guys. His 'day job' was teaching at an RA university, but he also took on the mentoring of a few students each year with Greenwich, so at that time, in that field, Greenwich made sense for some people.

An issue: faculty move. At the time my wife was beginning her doctoral search, in her specific subset of philosophical interest, Yale was the #1 place, along with Pittsburgh. Harvard and Princeton of course have fine school reputations, but for getting a teaching job in her areas of philosophy, much less valuable. And then, in something of a coup, a significant subset of the Yale faculty moved to Vanderbilt, and that suddenly and unexpectedly moved to the top of her rankings, and that's where she went. A few years later, some of those moved again (to Notre Dame), and Vanderbilt would have dropped in her ranking, if she was just starting out.

So in your specific field of study, Mr. or Ms. 60A, who are the faculty at NCU, Capella, UOP, Walden, and Touro that you would be working with, and how are their reputations and what have they written and how are they (and thus the department) regarded by other schools, and so on.

You will find a number of organizations and individuals who publish rankings of PhD programs, again by field of study, not the entire school. http://www.phds.org/rankings/ is one of those. I have no experience with their usefulness or reliability, nor do I know if they consider on-line programs. Perhaps someone else here does.

 

Bad libertarian, bad.

 

Agreed. If it ain't coerced it's kewl not kewlo(marca registrada).

 

I also voted for Touro...

 

What do you mean by social promotion policies and why are you against them?

 

Dr. Bear's comments on the importance of the faculty is right on the money, as is his observation regarding the fact that different departments and disciplines within the same university will have different reputations. In my discipline (instructional technology), Utah State University and the University of South Alabama have some of the best regarded programs in the country, even though they are not regarded as "Tier 1" institutions by US New & World Report. As Dr. Bear states, it is because these programs have faculty who are well known in the field. When Michael Simonsen moved to the Department of Instructional Technology & Distance Education at Nova Southeastern University, the reputation of that program went up considerably.

Judging by my personal experience of how doctoral degrees are perceived by colleagues at a number of higher education institutions, I would rank Walden and Touro UI on top, followed by Capella, U of Phoenix and then NCU. Since Capella is currently graduating the most number of doctorates and they are starting to show up among college and university faculty and administrators, Capella's recognition is growing. U. of Phoenix suffers in academia because of its business and marketing model, which is hated by most "traditional" colleges and universities (mainly because it is so successful). I rank Northcentral at the bottom because it is so new and realitvely unknown and there are not many NCU PhD grads among the tenure track faculty.

Over the years, I have probably seen more Union PhDs working at universities than any of the other ones mentioned above.

 

I agree with Dr. Piña on the acceptance of the degrees listed above for gaining positions in academia. For positions in industry and government, I think Northcentral comes out on top simply for the reason that, of the universities listed above, the Northcentral name sounds the a lot like a traditional B&M university that no one has ever heard of. Hiring managers and human resource departments usually check to see if the university is accredited and that is usually as far as it goes in the verification of a university. If a university name sounds like a traditional B&M name, it will less likely be questioned or identified as an online degree for industry and government positions. So, unless your degree is from a well known school, the Northcentral name sounds as good as the next no name university.

IMHO…

Walden University – the name just sounds odd
Capella University – according to Merriam-Webster, a Capella is “a star of the first magnitude in Auriga” – huh? Any Trekkies out there?
University of Phoenix – their overzealous marketing has made their name sound bad
Touro University International – the international part of the name makes them sound like a foreign university
Northcentral University – sounds like a small B&M university that no one has ever heard of (and we all know there are plenty of traditional B&M universities that no one has ever heard of)

 

Although your impression regarding each school’s name may have some marketing merit, I struggle with using the same as primary criteria for evaluating a school’s reputation and degree recognition. Degree mills have cool names too, but that does not establish a better reputation or degree recognition than legitimate and established schools with quality programs. It simply suggests they operate under more of a façade and project a false impression than it does anything about the school's, substance, credibility or reputation.

Accordingly, I would be very careful to rely on the sound of a school’s name when making assumptions on how its reputation is, or will be, perceived by industry or employers. In the long run, a school’s approach to education, substance, faculty, quality of programs, quality of graduates…etc. are ultimately far more reliable indicators of reputation and degree recognition than the name. Thunderbird – Garvin School of International Management is a good example. It has a very odd name, but an awesome program and reputation.

The name of a school may trick some or enhance the impression surrounding its credibility or substance in a few cases and for a short time, but it is the quality and substance of the school and students that will establish its reputation and degree recognition within most industries and with employers; at least in the long run.

Tom

 

I would never recommend choosing a university based on name and I have never chosen a school based on name alone. In fact, I have never chosen a school based on name period. I can honestly say that, of the five universities listed above, I have considered them all at one time or another. I ruled out Walden, Capella, and UofP because they are all too expensive. The choice then came down to Touro and NCU. I chose NCU over Touro because, for me, NCU costs less. I don’t recommend choosing a university based on the almighty dollar, but since I have a career that doesn’t require a doctorate, earning a doctorate is more of a personal goal than a professional one and for that I don’t need to go in debt.

The bottom line is all of the universities listed in this poll are RA and offer DL degrees. For hiring purposes in places other than academia, I would say that each of the universities listed above share similar reputation and degree recognition – in other words, an unknown reputation with little [if any] reputation. I’m not putting any of the universities listed above down, but the choices are no name university #1, no name university #2 … There is nothing wrong with being a no name university. My wife graduated from a small no name B&M university that is highly regarded. If an employer had to choose between her school and NCU, I think NCU would come out on top simply for the name. Face it, most employers in industry and the government are not going to research the reputation of a university. It’s more like, “Is it accredited? Yes, next.”

The only time a degree is going to stand out is if you have a degree from a well known school. None of the schools listed are well known with the exception of UofP which is mainly known for their annoying advertising. This is why I believe, of the five universities listed above, NCU has the best shot in terms of utility for an industry or government job. It is possible that NCU could resort to advertising practices that could give them a bad name but at the moment NCU hasn’t resorted to this yet.

 

Doesn't it just give you the impression of a bunch of Transcendentalists sitting around a pond?