The Big Three: Compare and Contrast

Based on many posts that I have read going back a number of years it appears that there is a widening gap between the Big Three of distance education insofar as quality and ease of navigating through degree programs.

Do the changes in Excelsior date from its transformation from a state school to its status? What about TESC and COSC? Any other observations or comments?

 

I know nothing of COSC, but I can speak first hand about TESC and Excelsior as I am enrolled at TESC and my wife is enrolled at Excelsior. In our experience, both schools are comparable in terms of ease of navigation through the degree programs, customer service, etc. Excelsior's fees are lower than TESC and its liberal arts programs are MUCH more liberal than TESC, especially because it allows arts/sciences as well as applied professional credits to be used as arts and science electives. Excelsior seems to be a far superior choice for those students looking to fit a tremendous amount of "hodge-podge" credit into a degree plan. TESC wins in terms of being able to insert free FEMA and/or NFA courses into its degrees, either as electives or as part of the major, without cost. TESC wins again in terms of having the superior, more academic sounding name, but that's trivial in the whole scheme of things. I like that both accept ACE approved courses from any source, and I REALLY like that Excelsior has taken the extra step of adopting an appeals process for NA credit transfer. I'd like to see them, as well as TESC, take the next step and actually accept NA credit outright.

Pug

 

I contacted all three and excelsior was the most flexible. The service was not the greatest but my short experience with TESC was much worse. CCSC was very eager to help but the price was a little steep compared to excelsiors military options PLUS the whole no majors allow thing which was very important to me. With TESC I had problems with turning down their military option, because if i took it there would be a residency requirement. Every time I would call I would tell them that I am in but I dont want the option and every time they explained that it was a good deal and I needed to do it. anyways Excelsior Rules, Go Globes!

 

Isn't that poll actually the Big Four?

 

How does UoP fit in?

 

I know UofP, they are the furthest thing from the big three

 

COSC is the best - it is that simple. Best price, best service, best option, best policy to accept technology credits greater then 10 years old...THE BEST. Guess who I voted for??

 

The UoP option was placed there to gauge how much anti-Big Three sentiment there may be among people who enrolled in the other main 100% DL bachelors program. I should have explained that in the opening post. UoP naturally costs more and people complain that it is run more like a for-profit business than a school but many people apparently find it more ______. [convenient?, challenging?, flexible?, something?]

 

They're actually the biggest of all; perhaps even bigger than the other 3 combined.

 

If we look at it from what "The Big Three" are granted that title for - they are assessment colleges, that's what they are most famous for and why they come up so often.

They are a place where you can send transcripts collected over the years and maybe add a few courses/exams and complete a degree. Offering their own coursework is a relatively new function and not what gained them fame. Very often, they are far from the best choice if one is starting from scratch.

As assessment colleges - they can't be known for quality of instruction. The quality of instruction is only as good as the school you did the coursework at. As an example, let's say I take 120 relevant hours of coursework through Harvard, UC Berkeley, and UNC-CH (classroom or online) and then transfer those hours to Excelsior, TESC, and COSC (UoP won't accept all 120) -- which of those three can be said to have the highest quality? The quality of the instruction at all three would be exactly the same - the instruction was exactly the same.

I can't speak to the actual instruction at any of The Big Three -- I only took one 1 hour online course through Excelsior and it wasn't very difficult at all.

UoP isn't in the same group simply because UoP exists to provide instruction while the Big Three exist (or did exist) to assess instruction provided elsewhere. It's an important difference; The Big Three are more than 100% DL, they have little to no requirement that you complete any of their courses in order to be awarded a degree. 100% DL programs are a dime-a-dozen now, 100% transfer is still a pretty narrow group of schools.

Just my thoughts.

 

It seems most people are addressing quality of student services. But, as the poll is not clear what it is trying to measure, I will comment on academic quality.

TESC is clearly the worst, allowing the least qualified students to graduate (no upper level requirement in the BA). In my opinion Excelsior is in the middle with COSC being the most stringent.

 

The "no upper division requirement" argument falls apart when analyzed objectively. Upper division courses, those 300 or 400 series, are supposed to be more in depth than 100 and 200 series courses, and should build upon the information learned in foundational courses at the lower levels. That said, many colleges today offer courses in the 300-400 series that are upper division in name/number only. Courses that begin with Principles of, Survey of, Essentials of, Introduction to, are all foundational courses, typically found at the 100-200 series level. But MANY colleges today list these types of courses at the 300-400 series level. I took Intro to Marketing (MKT-101) in my first year of community college, but Bellevue offers the same course as (MKMC-325) Basic Principles of Marketing. AMU offers (MK-300) Principles and Theory of Marketing and (MK-302) Principles of Sales. I could go on and on with a host of other universities. These are all 100-200 series courses that are being labeled as upper division, so I don't think TESC is doing anything substandard by allowing 200 series courses to count as upper division when other colleges are doing it all the time as well.

Other reasons I consider TESC of hgher academic quality than Excelsior, at least with regard to the liberal arts degrees:

1) Excelsior's Liberal Arts BA only requires 3 hours of english. TESC requires 6 hours (english 1 and english 2). I believe the academic standard for a BA would be 6 hours.

2) Excelsior's math requirement is satisfied with Colege Math or Math for the Modern World. TESC requires Intermediate Algebra or higher.

3) Excelsior only requires 33 general education hours compared to TESC's 60 hours.

Pug

 

I vote for COSC... They are inexpensive and have great customer service. They really worked with me.

 

You Can't beat Excelsior!

If you are contemplating going to graduate school, you can't beat Excelsior College's Bachelor degree in Liberal Arts!

I graduated Excelsior College in 1992 when it was called Regents College. My military education officer hooked me up because I had over 200 college credits and no degree. Unfortunately, every time I started a new school, they would only accept a limited amount of transfer credits. Regents College, now Excelsior took them all!

Since then, I have earned 2 master degrees from what I consider top notch schools. 1. Stony Brook University 2. Delta State University.

I'm sure TESC and COSC are also fine schools and have probably established relationships with the armed services.

However, I will always be grateful to my military education officer for pointing out the direction I needed to go at the time.

 

I would think that all 3 have good programs for the military...I know that TESC does.

Pug

 

I still get a lot of mail from readers, and I get the sense that more and more Americans are dealing with Athabasca University. I don't know the numbers at all, but I suspect we may have a different "Big 4."

 

I agree with this. When I attended Old Dominion University several years ago I was able to test out their undergrad Marketing, Business Law and Management classes (all 300-level) by taking CLEP exams. I also earned credit for a 400-level Political Science course by taking DSST Ethics in America.

 

Dr. Bear,

Do you think this is due to their 90 credit hour BGS program? If so, are US-based graduates of this program finding much success in the "real world" with 3-year bachelor degrees? Are they running up against any acceptance issues, both with graduate schools and with potential employers?

Fortunato

 

I voted for the University of Phoenix because they're not part of the Big Three and I am a smartass.