It appears that Argosy awarded 652 doctorates in the last year. Is this a record? http://www.ncahlc.org/index.php?option=com_directory&Itemid=192&Action=ShowBasic&instid=1961
That number seemed extremely high to me but once I thought about it, it made more sense. 652 doctorates in 10 programs on 16 campuses. That's 40.75 doctorates per campus and 4.075 per program per campus. That's not a bad figure compared to other institutions but may still be a bit high for a DL program. Compare it with the following (i just pulled some random universities): UOP @ 70 in 4 programs Capella @ 499 in 7 programs Arizona State @ 389 in 59 programs. Univ of Arizona @ 395 in 88 programs Oklahoma State @ 177 in 42 programs Ohio State University @ 664 in 100 programs
I believe the real question will be how many were awarded via their DL program versus their brick and mortar program. Richard
I don't have hard numbers, but would like to point out that Argosy used to be several campuses of a professional psychology school, who merged with the mostly-DL U. of Sarasota. I, too, suspect that a great many of the doctorates were awarded via classroom-based study.
An Argosy "campus" is typically a suite in an office park, right? That's not exactly the same thing as Arizona State. Argosy awarded 652 doctorates. Google scholar produced 589 hits for "Argosy University". Arizona State awarded 389 doctorates. Google scholar produced 214,000 hits for "Arizona State University". My impression is that despite producing doctoral degrees like mass-produced commodities, Argosy can't really be called a research institution.
Strawman argument. No one said it was. Fascinating to see someone posting in a DL board, bemoaning the lack of B&M facilities in a school. News flash: Argosy doesn't have a football team, either! (Of course, some would question ASU's after their late-season collapse in 2007.) Strawman argument number two. No one said it was. I agree with the point, but it is utterly irrelevant to the topic.
Argosy also focuses more on DBA and MBAs than undergraduates or PhDs in hard sciences (e.g. engineering, medical). It is not surprising the mass production PhDs that they have.
Is there a minimum number that qualifies? The reason I ask is that "Harvard University" returns 1,800,000 to ASU's 214,000 which might imply that, using the same standard, ASU isn't much of a research institution. Of course, "Oxford University" returns 2,280,000 which might imply that Harvard University isn't really much of a research institution. "Duke University" returns 691,000 so that must mean that they are 3-times more of a research institution as ASU. I'm thinking that this measure alone isn't a very valid measure of institutional quality is it?
I wrote: An Argosy "campus" is typically a suite in an office park, right? That's not exactly the same thing as Arizona State. My point was in response to the suggestion that while awarding 652 doctorates in one year seems high, it might not be so high if it's divided among 16 campuses. I believe that you yourself pointed out that most of these aren't DL degrees. But even if they were DL, the number is still awfully high. For comparison, here's some numbers from the NCA/HLC site: Number of doctorates awarded in last year: U. Mich. Ann Arbor 761 U. Minn. Twin Cities 751 U. Illinois Urbana 689 Ohio State 664 Argosy U. 652 U. Wis. Madison 648 Purdue 566 Capella 499 Michigan State 478 U. Chicago 398 U. Arizona 395 Indiana U. Bloomington 389 Arizona State 389 U. Colo. Boulder 310 Wash. U. St.L. 303 U. Kansas 301 U. Nebraska Lincoln 245 Wayne State 187 U. New Mexico 181 Okla. State 177 Notre Dame 160 Kent State 124 U. Denver 100 Bowling Green 95 NM State 79 U. Colo. Denver 81 U. Wyoming 59 No. Dak. State U. 41 I wrote: Argosy awarded 652 doctorates. Google scholar produced 589 hits for "Argosy University". Arizona State awarded 389 doctorates. Google scholar produced 214,000 hits for "Arizona State University". My impression is that despite producing doctoral degrees like mass-produced commodities, Argosy can't really be called a research institution. It's relevant to me whether or not mega-scale production of research degrees is accompanied by any other signs of academic productivity and intellectual life.
Another metric that I use is the number of faculty members that work full time with a doctorate from a particular institution. I did a search on the word "DBA Argosy" and found quite a bit of full time faculty with this credential. Argosy is not Harvard but it seems to work for a lot of people. I did a search on "PhD Capella" and found also quit a few but not as many as Argosy. If I had to go with my google search, it seems that Argosy graduates have more chances of landing a faculty position than Capella's. Also, Argosy is not exactly an "online" institution since the DL DBA is not available at all campuses, some DBAs actually attend face to face classes. In any case, 600 doctorates a yeas is just crazy, I teach at a University with about 40000 students and we only graduate about 3 or 4 PhDs in Business every year.
One of Argosy's specialty areas seems to be producing clinical psychologists. These seem to be practitioner-oriented Psy.D. programs and MSA/HLC seems to be counting them as doctoral as opposed to 'first-professional' degrees. Argosy kind of reminds me of California's Alliant, which has a similar name and model. (Argosy absorbed the American Schools of Professional Psychology while Alliant absorbed the California Schools of Professional Psychology.) See this ancient thread.
And who cares that the DL DBA is not offered at all campuses? So long as a DL DBA (or any other online program) is offered at at least one campus, it isw essentially available to anyone who might want it
I've answered my own question. According to caspar.nsf.gov (a great source for educational statistics!), NSU graduated 1,521 doctorates and first professional degrees in 2006 (757 doctorates and 764 first professional). Notably, the site doesn't list Argosy or Capella. Apparently, the standardized list of school names from the National Center for Educational Statistics must not have them on its list. Looking deeper - For 2006 at NSU: Doctoral Degrees 11 Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services - 46 13 Education - 432 19 Family and Consumer Sciences/Human Sciences - 49 40 Physical Sciences - 1 42 Psychology 69 44 Public Administration and Social Service Professions - 4 51 Health Professions and Related Clinical Sciences - 83 52 Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services - 73 First Professional 22 Legal Professions and Studies - 261 51 Health Professions and Related Clinical Sciences - 503
