Please offer all opinions! Cost Liberty 17k NCU 25k Liberty is NATE and offers an en-route Ed.S. which would be an additional 3k or so pay while I continue on to my Ed.D. I'm leaning heavily toward Liberty but I wanted to hear opinions. Thanks!
My personal opinion is that I would choose the Brick and Mortar school over the online school. At least when you graduate you can go to the campus and buy a tee shirt!
Have you looked into Northeastern's EdD? It's amazingly reasonable.. but getting more competitive to get into.
I think that anytime you can get the degree you need from a B&M school, you will be better off. In your case, there is no question. Liberty is cheaper and it will be more useful for you. I doubt that your degree or transcripts will say anything about it being earned online. So you will be able to avoid the prejudice that some people have against online degrees. NCU is great, I'm working on a PhD there currently. But Liberty will be better for you, no contest.
If you are from the south then Liberty will help you out. They have a great name and fair prices. I vote Liberty!
Thanks for the opinions. I also found out that Liberty offers intesives during the summer which are basically 1 week courses on campus. I have the option of taking 3 of these while completing the Ed.S. and they are generally taught by the same individuals who teach the Ed.D. courses. I was set to begin classes at Walden in September but the cost is substantially lower at Liberty and it seems to be more credible in this area of the country (South).
I'm not succeeding in wording this how I'd like... For me, the religious tone of Liberty was a turn off, as is their most recent honorary degree recipient, Glen Beck. However, there are a large number of people that view those as positive things, and I'm glad there are institutions that meet such criteria for a wide range of learners. Look at price, reputation, how things are scheduled, entrance requirements, residencies and costs to get you there, workload, faculty, dissertation criteria, student retention and graduation rates, overall educational philosophy, mission of the organization, what your goals are, textbook costs, etc. You've listed two very different programs with two very different delivery methods from what I remember about Liberty. There are a number of low residency programs, and some of them are quite reasonable. Grand Canyon's program is really intriguing and was my second choice school. If you are a Florida resident, UF's programs are reasonable. (Out of state, not so much.) Search for the EdD thread and you can find a lot of options. Depending on your goals, there are a number of reasonably priced DETC accredited EdD degrees as well.