Columbia Southern University...online? DETC accredited

Anyone have any experiences with Columbia Southern University....it is a DETC accredited online school with reasonable tuition of $125/credit minus 25% at this time for finishing in a prescribed time frame and maintaining a 2.0 avg...they even have interest free loans....I have an AAS in Bus. Management and and an AAS in Registered Nursing and I am finding that I am dead ended without the Bachelors degree...the Bachelors in Business Administration looks good...any comments on the pluses and minused are appreciated.

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Joules

 

I have no experience with the school. If you do a search here on "DETC," you'll find a lot of discussion about that accreditation. It boils down to risk of reduced acceptance at graduate schools and HR departments.

If you do a search on "Columbia Southern," you'll find four threads about this school.

 

From my survey of about 335 registrars last fall:

Percent of registrars who always or almost always accept regionally-accredited residential degrees: 100%. Who never or almost never do: 0%

Who always or almost always accept regionally-accredited non-resident degrees: 70%. Who never or almost never do: 9%

Who always or almost always accept DETC-accredited: 29%. Who never or almost never do: 38%

 

Thanks for the input...how bout some sugestions from anyone on regionally accredited schools that offer reasonable credit fees($125)and total online education programs for us busy individuals.

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Joules

 

Hello Joules,
Try Pacific Western University, they offer complete distance learning degrees from Bachelors to Doctorates in diverse disciplines. It has been mentioned that this particular institution is ahead of its time. Currently accredited by the Hawaiian accreditors.

Good Luck,
H. Bains

 

1. Hawaii does not accredit schools. It allows some unaccredited schools to operate if these schools meet minimal operating standards.

2. State-approved schools are routinely rejected by admissions officials, and are not at all comparable to accredited schools.

3. It is either naive or deceptive to recommend such a school to anyone, particularly someone looking to earn an accredited degree.

4. Pacific Western deliberately avoids California's regulatory activities--such as they are--by running many of their degree programs through a Hawaiian address, despite the fact that they're a California school.

5. Pacific Western has been operating without accreditation since the late 1970's. It is hardly "ahead of its time."

Other than that, welcome to the board.

Rich Douglas

 

Rich:

Thanks for following up...There are so many opinions out there....I guess I must stick with Regional Accreditation...just wish they were as reasonable in price as the DETC schools.

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Joules

 

Hey, don't reject Columbia Southern, or other DETC-accredited schools, necessarily. The 29% acceptance in the academic world is vastly better than whatever is in third place (would you play Russian roulette with a ten-chamber gun and 3 bullets?), and I'd be confident that acceptance in the business world would be significantly higher. (We'll finally get some knowledge on this next year from Rich Douglas' doctoral reseach.)

If there is any properly accredited university that has a policy of accepting credits or degrees from Pacific Western University, I am unaware of it.

 

Or enroll in an COSC, TESC, Exelsior type program. Overall your cost may end up lower than $125/credit and all 3 of these are regionally accredited.

 

And with special assessments of licenses and certifications it can get much cheaper

Mine was 50 units for the assessment fee of $150.00

Dan

 

Um... that is from COSC

 

Thanks for all your input...everyone.



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Joules

 

Interest free loans? They're probably offering them through the school and not through federal loan programs. Am I correct? Are there any RA schools that offfer interest-free loans?


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Sam C
www.uci.edu
UCI 2002
[email protected]
Confusion is just the path to insight and knowledge

 

I referred to an old thread from last March. Bruce said as a reply on Columbia accreditation:

"Yes, but both AJU and Columbia Southern have *very* questionable histories, which, IMO, taint their legitimate acreditation.

Bruce"

Can anyone comment on this sentence. Hope that Bruce is around to say wht he meant.

Their program looks OK and their accreditation and fees puts it in a good position.

Hisham

 

IIRC, both schools claimed accreditation by unrecognized agencies until their DETC accreditation came through. In CSU's case, up until the day before.

The claiming of accreditation by unrecognized agencies has no other purpose than to fool people (students and their employers). Even people with enough insight to ask "Is it accredited" often don't know what they're asking. Academically speaking, unrecognized accreditation is the same as no accreditation at all. In fact, it serves no legitimate purpose at all.

One of DETC's accreditation requirements is that the school under consideration operate ethically. In both of these cases (along with at least one other), the claiming of spurious accreditation seems to have been ignored, and accreditation granted. That, I believe, is the reason for the comment in question.

It is not known how valuable a degree from a DETC-accredited school would be to you. Recent research suggests a much lower level of acceptability in the academic arena. (Many, but not all, find degrees from such schools unacceptable as credentials for entering their own degree programs.) It is not known how acceptable such degrees are in the workplace. It is suspected that they are better received in employment circles.

Rich Douglas