U.S. News' Sizes Up Online-Degree Programs, Without Specifying Which Is No. 1

http://chronicle.com/article/US-News-Sizes-Up/130274/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Unlike the magazine's annual rankings of residential colleges, which cause consternation among many administrators for reducing the value of each program into a single headline-friendly number, the new guide does not provide lists based on overall program quality; no university can claim it hosts the top online bachelor's or online master's program. Instead, U.S. News produced "honor rolls" highlighting colleges that consistently performed well across the ranking criteria.

Florida Tech did pretty well here (my alma mater for grad school)

Troy, UOP and APUS did well on engagement http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/bachelors-student-engagement-assessment-rankings

 

I was disappointed (and a bit miffed, actually) at a recent article that discussed the low return rates of the survey. Back in June, when U.S. News announced that they were doing the survey and were concerned that private sector (i.e. for-profit) institutions would not participate. I immediately sent an e-mail to the co-director of the survey and stated that we would be happy to participate and to please send me a survey. Well, I never received the survey and wonder how many others were in the same situation. Or, perhaps, U.S. News is unaware that there are others besides the dozen or so publicly-traded universities that make all the headlines.

 

I found it interesting that the rankings provided in the engagement link above listed NCU as #56 in student engagement. Not a great score, but I was surprised that they scored that well. It appears that this information is self-reported by the schools, so that could account for a more positive rating than one would expect.

 

At the graduate online level for business, they are 134 for engagement.
Northcentral University | Online Programs | US News

 

I'm referring to the #58 ranking for Student Engagement and Assessment at the bachelor's level on the same link you provided. But the graduate level ranking of 134 seems more consistent with my experiences and with others who report here. I can't imagine their undergraduate program being that much different than their graduate program.

 

In looking at your signature line, do I understand it correctly that you are working on an MBA and an EdD concurrently?

 

Well....I am still hedging my bets, I may end up doing both. I am currently enrolled at Aspen and am taking classes for an EdD (very interesting, actually). I could not pass up the 7K price of the EdD at the time. Plus, I want to finish what I started at NCU (I was ABD), so I have enrolled at UFS. UFS is making me do a field study before I write the dissertation, so they put me into an on ground cohort who is just wrapping up the MBA, However, the pace there is much slower. So far, I have only gotten a student number, and access to the student work area (very impressive, really). I have started to banter back and forth in Afrikaans with the staff. (Thanks to Google translator). I think the cohort is in a research class this semester, which UFS waived for me. I imagine the pace will pick up soon, but all I will need to do is to refine my Concept paper to the UFS requirements and to do the survey, which will be then used in my PhD.

So, technically the answer to your question is yes, but I will ultimately finish a PhD in Business at UFS and squeeze in Aspen if I can. This is not as strange as it sounds since my original dissertation deals with both business and education.

So far, I have had nothing but good experiences at both schools. Both are very stable.

 

Wow, impressive. I hope both work out for you. Keep us informed on how it all goes.