Washington Post (22 Jun) on U. Phoenix

The Profit Motive

Quite good.

 

A good, well balanced article. But I'm suprised the paper didn't disclosure their own very extensive for-profit educational operations. (Or did I miss it?)

 

Good for them

Let's face it....someone other than UOP is making a lot of money off of our need to get a degree. The world is set up in such a way that if you don't have a college degree of some kind your choices are limited. My husband joined the army so he could avoid having to get a college degree. Now if he doesn't get a degree he can't get promoted any higher than his current rank. So in the end, we all need that piece of paper.

I went to a private all girls school growing up to tune of 12,000/year in the washington DC area. It was an Episcopalian school, prestigious, academically excellent and you better believe that the Headmistress had one gorgeous mansion to live in provided free to her by the school. If you think she worked there for no reason think again. She could have worked down in the district but she chose to work there. I wonder why? Let's face it....people have been making money off of education for years. You know what I got....a highschool diploma...no different from the one down the block that my public school friends received. They applied to the same colleges I did and their free degree was just as valuable as mine...only mine cost an arm and a leg.

After highschool I went to college...another private all women's college in North Carolina. Very expensive. Lovely dorms and lots of social activities. My parents paid a pretty penny for that too. You better believe they were making money off of my 4 years there as well. You know what they gave me? A liberal arts degree that wasn't worth the paper they printed it on. I wish I could have returned it and gotten my parent's money back. It was useless in the job market.

Now I'm getting a masters degree through...GASP!....University of Phoenix. I'm paying a nice lump sum for that one out of my own pocket. They are making money off of me the same way brick and mortar institutions have been since I started first grade. And I say...good for them....they are providing me with a valuable service...more valuable than any of the LIVE schools I attended. I am getting a degree that I can use. I am doing it at my own pace and in my own time. After spending 4 years sitting through lectures that were nothing more than a rehash of the text I am even learning more than I did at my real live prestigious undergrad college. UOP isn't taking advantage of me. They are making money off of me and I am getting something valuable in return...I'm willing to pay more for the flexibility. I'm willing to pay more so I can do it on my own time schedule and not deal with babysitters etc. while I go to the local college.

This is America....we live in a capitalist society....UOP has come up with a great way to make money and help people at the same time. If you ask me that is smart.

 

Re: Good for them

Though you can buy the education, you can't buy reputation, that will take some time.

 

You are right about that. Reputation makes a difference but think about the zillions of colleges that are out there that you have never heard of before. There is a University of everywhere.....Unless you are going to go to Harvard/Yale/Princeton or one of those top name schools, it is just another name in a bowl. You may even think that your school is well known but often it is only well known in your state. I was an undergrad in NC and the school I attended was highly regarded in the state of NC but step next door to Virginia and no one could have cared less. Ever heard of Meredith College? It is a ritzy college in Raleigh but go 6 hours down the road and nobody cares......As far as I'm concerned if it is accredited that is what matters the most. You have to look at what your field of interest is though. I know a lot of people who just need a piece of paper to get into their field or up their salary and that is where I am right now. No shame in that.

 

Re: Good for them

Hi Armywife

I am glad your choice of U of P is rewarding. There are some issues for prospective students to be careful of.

There is nothing wrong with making a profit while providing a service. As you point out, it really is the foundation of our society. There is, however, something wrong with gouging. That, to me, is what U of P does. They seem to provide the bare minimum in actual education while charging as much or more than traditional "High Quality" private schools.

There are numerous public and private schools that provide a better education while charging substantially less. They do so while providing just as much flexibility as U of P. TUI, Eastern Oregon University and Troy State University are just three examples out of hundreds.

What U of P does do very succesfully is market extensively to many people who are not aware of other better suited choices. Many of these people never take the time to research which school is best for them.

The difference, I hope, between a public high school education and the private one you received is in the depth of education not the utility. This is also what a liberal arts college degree is all about. Learning to question and think. Education and utility are two distinct attributes.

Again, I am glad you found U of P rewarding and worthwhile.

 

<lol at myself

Hi Holly

I just noticed your tag line. I am in the process of enrolling in a BA in Psych. at a local private college, Marylhurst University, that seems comparable to the one you graduated from. As you point out, locally it is pretty well known but go north to Seattle or east and no one will have heard of it. Class size averages 9 people and tuition for a private school is cheap. My employer is paying for most of it so it basically is free to me. I am doing it to prepare for grad school and for the educational experience. In any event congrats on your up coming graduation and potential further studies.

 

A breath of fresh air

Hi Holly

What a breath of fresh air your post is! You strike two blows with one swing - at the sanctimonious purveyors of old style education with their copied traditions of campus life - and believe me the players in those games know all about making money for themselves and funding a soft working life - and for the liberating influence of no frills campus inputs for mature adults determined to succeed by their commitment.

Campus universities in the traditional (European mould) - leafy quadrangles, parkland buildings, ritual and processions, complete with the students in mortar boards as in the heading above (a complete anachronism, long since dispensed with in the UK where it started some hundred years or more ago) and an aura of assumed gravitas and authority - were and are designed for the education of a highly privileged minority of the sons of gentlemen (daughters took longer to get in on the act) around the 1800s.

I do not know enough about UoP yet to pass judgement on it but I am impressed with what they are doing. You are so right about the traditional universities making money - that they then spend it on non-education (except in the broadest sense of life experience and social interactions) activities and their life styles of those who get into it is not material, except for those who pay for it.

Now, if you take away from Phoenix its inexpensive campus infrastructure, adjunct faculty, and go completely DL, you have something with which I am well familiar. All strength to your elbow in your efforts and good luck!

Those that do not understand the adult requirements of the generation you are from can only throw aspersions, which like the basis of their (unresearched) assumptions on how people learn, soon disolve on examination, even soft ones.

 

Re: A breath of fresh air

I agree whole-heartedly Professor Kennedy. Yet, I still don't quite understand what you have against standardized tests (clep, dantes, etc.). Your statements in this post seem to support the opportunity for those who failed to buy into the rah-rahs and the go-gos of the traditional campus. Yet you seem to support a school basing most of their grades on participation and attendance all the while disparaging schools that base the whole grade on a proctored,normed test.

Could you please clarify your position Professor Kennedy?

Thanks,
Tony

 

My optimism

I do not know enough about UoP, other than a few press features and I will look back over previous postings here on UoP having jumped them on my first pass. It was Holly's posting that raised UoP over my horizon and it was her statements that struck a chord with me.

What I said was not an endorsement of UoP or its pedagogy, as the Washington Post piece is a typical competent journalist's feature article, not an educational analysis.

I have never endorsed 'attendance and participation' as worthy of a single grade point in an exam regime. People learn differently and whether they attend lectures on campus, stay in the library or away from it, read books or just fool around in the opinion of faculty and the writers of university statutes, is of no consequence to their exam performance, in the strict sense that different mixes of inputs produce outputs and it is the outputs that matter from the mixes that adults (not ra-ra children) freely choose. Faculty are only competent to measure outputs. each adult person is the best judge of their own interests (after Adam Smith).

If we are to discuss these issues perhaps new thread should be opened, as one shot across the path from the Carpathian Peasant is more than enough for me - to be implicated in a Shanghai charge is a petrifying experience which I would rather avoid it a second time.

 

I agree, Professor. The nonpareil universities are not so and students can only benefit from competition.

I believe that the "highly privileged minority" provided the funding for more serious study while obtaining for their spawn their finishing school educations. In modern times we've shifted to the state the funding function so as to "democratize" the awarding of finishing school degrees. In so doing we've democratized the professorate sinecure. And the apparatchik sinecure.

Competition from DL schools? Let the games begin!

 

You didn't because the author didn't. But it should've been mentioned.

I also enjoyed the article's balance and thoroughness. It reinforced my appreciation for Phoenix, as well as my concerns. Phoenix has the opportunity to be the first stand-alone nontraditional school to gain a national reputation--good or bad. I hope they don't blow it; that would hurt the whole field.