Thinking about NCU

Being able to live anywhere while being an online adjunct is a double edged sword. When will the online universities start hiring PhD's outside the US for a third the price since the adjuncts can work from anywhere?

 

It is already happening, one of the schools that I work for is hiring its own graduates and many live in Africa and Asia. Salaries are not being reduced but havent been raised for the last 10 years. Why raise them when people in Africa are happy with the salary?

It is a risky career path and for this reason left it as I knew things were following what happened to the IT sector.

 

NCU offers a great quality of education, it's just as good as any other online school. There are members on this board who have a very low opinion of the school, but most of the world outside of online message boards has no problem with NCU. There are many NCU graduates in the workforce who have successfully used their NCU degrees to further careers.

However, if you want to improve your chances of finding work as an adjunct, it might be wise earn a degree from a traditional, brick and mortar school. This is not because NCU is bad, it's because there is prejudice against degrees earned online in the academic community. I firmly believe that a degree earned from NCU is just as good as a degree earned anywhere else, but not everyone agrees with that assessment.

 

I cannot comment on the quality but I meant that it is an unranked school. It is very popular in this forum but not many would know about the school.

The issue is that if someone doesn't know about the school the first thing they would do is to google the school. The first thing that comes out of google is "Northcentral University is an online university".

As online Universities are relatevely new, many would have the idea that the school might not be legit or of low quality although it might be a great school.

As I said, if your employer is paying for it and all you need is a legit degree to adjunct on the side, the school would serve you well for most of the cases. People hiring adjuncts normally do not look to closely at the school and they might just check if the school is accredited (NCU is accredited). If you were to apply for a competitive tenure track position at a major research University then the school might be looked down due to its unraked status

 

I like the school because of the self-paced nature of the program. If there were 100 other self-paced schools out there I might not have picked NCU, but it is almost the only one on the planet. If you want to start a course, just call them up and enroll. The entire process takes about 1 hour and you will have access to your degree plan and your first course's syllabus.
I don't think there are any schools that can compete with that level of customer service.
If you don't like a class just call up and transfer out. The advisors are extremely easy to work with. I have made numerous changes and they never gave me any attitude and enacted most changes within hours.
The customer service cannot be beat. I know this flies in the face of popular opinion on this site, but that has been my experience. The people I have worked with at NCU have been much more responsive than TESC or my local USF.
They are for profit so they should be customer focused than public schools.

 

Well put...we have one heck of a time attracting students to our accounting program - I believe that many students are not ready to deal with the math and critical thinking that come with the discipline.

 

At one point, adjunct teaching was a big part of why I wanted a master's. Given the feedback in this thread, though, I might have to pursue a doctorate at some point. . . :: sigh ::

The thought of "distance teaching" from anywhere held great appeal to me, though. My wife grew up in Mexico, and there's a very nice lake region near Guadalajara that has an expatriate American community. For a bit, the pipe dream was to adjunct from there. . .

 

Peter,

I think you finally realized the business model of online education. The idea to make you believe that you need to get a doctorate so you can grade a bunch of canned assignments. If you buy the idea, then the schools will get your 50K so they can sell you a doctor paper so you can grade papers for 1.5K a pop.

I don't think that even a master's is required to do the job. However, how can the online schools justify their high tuition fees unless they have an online teacher (really a glorified marker) with a PhD?

The business model is simple, just keep people investing in credentials that they don't really need so they can boost a resume. As people see that everyone is getting them, they fear that they will not be able to compete in the future so they keep investing in more education.

The business model keeps inventing credentials just to keep the business alive (e.g. DBAs marketed as professional business qualifications). However, how long before the market realizes that you don't need a DBA in Marketing to sell cars?
Some people have talked about the possible collapse of online education in particular the one offered by for profit schools, I believe that it will happen sooner or later.

If you are planning to retire soon, I think you can still profit from an online doctorate to work from Mexico. If you are planning to retire in 20 years, I feel that before then you will not see too many people eager to do these online programs.

 

For what it's worth, the professor teaching my current class at Colorado State-Global (online) received his PhD from NCU. Say what you will about online or for-profit schools but in my opinion, a doctorate could be earned on the moon for all I care but if it's RA, it is completely credible. My professor seems to be a subject matter expert on the course topic, provides great feedback, and in his profile, even explains that he received his PhD online. When you read it, you get the impression that earning a doctorate online is more impressive than in residence.

 

You see, that would be my initial take as well. But from reading posts here as well as elsewhere, you’d almost think you’d need an AASCB DBA to scrub floors at a place like CSU-- and it just ain’t so, from what you’re saying.

Mid-40s with young’uns-- I don’t see myself retiring real soon. I did, however, at one point bounce around a modified version of the Mexico adjuncting pipe dream-- maybe take a sabbatical of sorts, move to that lakeside community for a couple years and adjunct while the kids are in junior high-- put them in a private school there. That would fit in OK with the timeframes for an implosion of adjunct wage levels as mentioned.

I’m not entirely sure I subscribe completely to that scenario of adjunct wages imploding, though. Yes, more people will be earning more degrees and there will be more competition than before. But I also think market forces, accreditor expectations, etc. might limit the extent to which these schools can under-pay. We’ll have to see what shakes out.

 

I think the safest path would be an AACSB accredited doctorate from a solid school. NCU was a good option 10 years ago when only few schools were available.

NCU might not even be there in 20 years from now, online schools with little history are fragile and vulnerable to slow economy and trend changes. There are some other more solid online schools, I believe Walden has a much stronger presence and history, they might be able to adapt better to trend changes.

The Nova DBA is closer in price to NCU now, it is not 100% online but I believe that the residences add credibility to your degree.

Nova has greater chances of achieving AACSB accreditation because they have full time faculty and more research presence than NCU.

I think that online adjunct positions will be available in the future but requirements will become more strict. There is a trend towards AACSB accreditation and publications even for adjunct positions.

 

All,

I have made the plunge!!!!NCU it is. Now I solicit your expert opinions on which way to run..DBA Organizational Leadership or DBA I/O Psych. I am familiar with both as I've touched them in Grad and Undergrad, but as a probable career practitioner, which may get me to my goal...Deputy Department Head or the #2. I prefer to avoid the bright lights and profile of being "the guy". I am far more comfortable behind the scenes making sure everything is good to go. Thoughts Please....