The President of the University of Limerick says that Walden University PhDs are not worth the money. New University of Limerick president discusses 'shocking revelations' - Limerick Leader (please add your limericks below)
In case I wasn't the only one expecting an actual limerick: There was an exec named Fitzgerald Great disdain for Walden he did herald He said "costs are shocking!" And he isn't just talking Since his uni's budget is imperilled
Maybe Des Fitzgerald should go off to the nearest pub and get snookered, because, as everyone knows, all Irish people are hopeless drunks. Oh, wait....did I just ignorantly generalize, and perpetuate a false stereotype? Kind of like Dr. Fitzgerald did?
Did I miss something? Where was the generalization? Is it not a valid opinion that Walden is too expensive for a school that is unranked? If I were at the head of an organization, I wouldn't want to pay out $980 per credit hour for a Walden degree either when there are cheaper, better options.
Speaking of stereotypes, if Limerick is Lace Curtain U then Fitzgerald is acting in the manner of some schools in your neck of the woods. Irish Ivy, so to speak.
I agree. Fitzgerald doesn't refer to Walden's tax status or any other category, he just says that's it's expensive and unranked, which... it is.
Well, criticizing another uni for budget problems in yours is... lame. Then on the other hand, saying that Fitzgerald "slammed" Walden is a bit of a clickbaity stretch, so...
It's true, isn't it? I think that Fitzgerald is on to something when he criticizes excessive spending at U. Limerick, including multiple lavish severance packages. (Would he have said anything if it hadn't already been in the media?) But all in all, I applaud that part of what he's saying. He might even be on to something when he criticizes the amount spent to fund two staff PhDs from Walden. That amount might indeed be excessive compared to the cost of competing doctorates from his own or other Irish or UK universities. But I think that he's starting to froth at the mouth when he says this: ""Those sort of degrees are not at the standard which I would like our students to see as being something they should aspire to, or our academics either... I don't think it's appropriate to pay for degrees that our own staff would not think is of any value. It's a legitimate university [Walden], but if you take the rankings of universities I would prefer to see staff going to well-ranked universities. The one in Florida is not a well-ranked university, so it's not a place I think people should be aspiring to go to". Obviously somebody on Limerick's staff thought Walden degrees were valuable if two of them did distance doctorates from Walden and the previous university administration saw fit to pay for it. Fitzgerald is obviously voicing his personal opinion. As for me, I think that it's foolish to base these kind of broad judgments on not-very-credible rankings produced by a university marketing firm.
The current cost is over $60,000. Do you think Walden is worth that much? Even if you don't believe the rankings, I think it's safe to say that Walden isn't a world class institution. If I'm going to pay for a doctoral program that accepts almost anyone and doesn't really produce any valuable research, then I want it to be cheap.
Not for me it doesn't. But, sanantone, the reason it's $60000 is there are people willing to pay that. And I'm not pretending to know their circumstances better than they do.
From my experiences asking people why they spent a bunch of money on an unranked school, they usually attended due to limited options or perceived limited options. They either can't get in anywhere else, or they didn't take the time to research other options. Of course, if your employer is blindly paying for it, then there is no incentive to be selective. However, I wouldn't be surprised if most of their doctoral students are taking out loans to pay for their programs.
I have spent more than a little time making fun of rankings and so it would seem wrong to then criticize a school for being unranked. For all I know, Walden may be unranked simply because they choose not to participate in the process. Beyond that I will say that a thing is worth what people will pay for it, no? It's a free-market idea, yes? All I know is that it costs more than I can pay. I would much prefer to get a UNISA PhD at a fraction of the cost.
Well, sort of. I take your point, but tuition rates in the U.S. are artificially high because of Title IV. (That wasn't really what you were getting at, but you said "free market", so....) Relative to Walden, I would too. But not relative to the University of the Cumberlands, which was 1/4 of Walden's cost, at least in my case.
Senior moment. I am remembering 40-odd years ago, my pen pal Bernie Turner writing that he was thinking of starting a school, and which of his top three name choices did I like better: Walden, Highgate, and Thoreau. John Bear Naming consultant
