Is anyone else concerned about the "BA in 12 months" story on the front page of this site? I am worried that it presents the casual passerby with exactly the stereotypes that many have about DL learning: even if it's accredited, it's the easy route. In full disclosure, I am very critical of schools offering full degrees or large amounts of credit through testing out. I am sure people who do it work hard to pass those tests, and many would not be able to pay full college tuition. Still...testing out of 123 credits does not mean that person went to college, and that's what a BA should mean to me. Anyway, that's not the topic here. Take my opinion for what it's worth - I don't mean to put anyone down.
This is a common philosophical discussion that comes up, and I think it's a misperception that a lot of people have. Fundamentally, as someone who has done HR consulting, as well as hiring a lot of people over the years, the hiring managers and HR people I've talked and worked with are concerned about one thing, and that's the ability of the employee being hired to do the job they are being hired to do. One of the things that a college degree (hopefully) conveys is that the person who possesses it has strong analytical and critical thinking skills, the ability to read and interpret complex subjects and materials, and apply that in a practical sense. Certainly, a college education isn't the only way someone can acquire those abilities, but a college degree serves as a simple "entrance bar" that filters out those who probably do not have the abilities one would acquire in college. The exceptional people who do not have college degrees, but have equivalent ability, usually know how to work around those requirements and can get interviewed and hired anyway, but the degree is a remarkably effective determinant of the level of critical thinking and ability to learn required for many jobs in the workplace. Charter Oak, Edison, and Excelsior are all clear that, when one does a degree by exam or portfolio, one is not earning a degree through their programs for new learning and study, but rather for documentation of the equivalency of college-level knowledge and experience they already have acquired through other sources. So, in the case of Roger Habeck, we have someone who had 40 years of adult-life experience in various jobs that clearly exposed him to a lot of knowledge and information, and gave him much the same education that he would have received had he gone to a 4 year college after high school. The CLEP and DANTES subject exams are normed to evaluate knowledge, analysis, and critical thinking skills typical of what one would have after taking a course in the said subject area at the college level. So, honestly, what is the difference between someone who took a college class and passed it vs. someone who gained the same knowledge via another route, and documented their knowledge through an exam? Likewise, nearly every college and university in the country -- including prestigious schools like Harvard, Brown, Princeton -- will accept a certain score on the AP exams and grant credit in lieu of taking courses in those subject areas, so how is that any different? Finally, we have schools like Ohio University - Athens, a well-regarded bricks and mortar school, that will allow students to take the final exam for any distance course they offer, and grant credit equivalent to having taken that class. One can earn an entire degree at Ohio U that way, with no reference that it was earned via DL. Ultimately, I guess it depends on what the value of a degree is supposed to represent. If it's supposed to represent "Hey, I spent 4 years with my ass in a seat in a classroom, writing papers and taking tests, and I got a degree for it" then an exam-based degree clearly isn't equivalent to that. On the other hand, if the degree is supposed to represent that an individual has a broad base of knowledge in a number of different areas (the "breadth" of a liberal arts degree) combined with a deep knowledge in a specific subject area (the "depth" of a concentration or major), would not tests specifically normed to evaluate that level of learning do the same thing? If so, then why should it matter when or how that learning occurred? My own experience in hiring is that the people who have done exam-based degrees can often be more self-motivated, simply because they had to be organized enough to plan the degree, prepare for the exams, and take and pass them, plus jump through the hoops necessary to graduate. Kids who graduate high school and go to a 4 year college right afterwards may be able to skate through with little thought, work, or self-motivation, depending on their preexisting level of ability and the academic rigor of the school. All in all, I don't think anyone is comparing Edison, Excelsior, or Charter Oak to Princeton or Brown or Yale, so let's compare apples with apples. If an individual with an exam-based degree can get into, and do well, in graduate school, or can get a job requiring a high degree of analysis, critical thought, and informed decision making, and his or her performance is equivalent to, say, an individual from a lesser-known state school somewhere, what is the difference between the exam-based degree and the classroom (or distance) based learning program?
Well, let me just say that I agree with how you feel, and have wrestled with the ethics of this issue, in fact, that is one of the main reasons I moved away from Excelsior when looking toward my Bachelor's degree. Many of the exams are way too easy, and others can at least be guessed at enough to pass without having actually done anything or learned anything. For myself, I have taken several and probably still have several more to go. If it will save me both time and money, it's the practical thing to do. Knowing myself, I not only learn well through these exams, but retain most of the information and am able to actually use it to either make connections or for simple recall. Heck, I remember more about Sociology from the CLEP that I took than several people I know who are recent B&M grads who majored in it. I mention ideas such as the dramaturgical perspective, trained incompetance, or frustration-aggression theory and I get blank stares from them. What in the world did they do in school? Also, honestly, I have been unimpressed with the reading comprehension, critical thinking and even background knowledge of most of the holders of Bachelor's degrees that I have ever met in my life. It is clear that credit by exam doesn't guarantee learning, but neither does taking classes, apparently. I am aware of dozens of horrible interpreters who have bachelors degrees (in interpreting, even!), yet I also know dozens of great interpreters who hold no degrees at all. Guess who get better jobs with more money? You guessed it, the ones who don't deserve it, and probably shouldn't even be in the profession. But, heck, they have a degree! I have concluded, again, after much wrestling and soul searching, that a degree from one of the big three, as I have just earned, certainly have their legitimate place in the world. It is just that every degree and every person need to be look at on a case-by-case basis. Many people use mostly transfer credit, both B&M and online, to complete their degrees with them. Some people only do tests and learn a lot, or learn nothing at all, along teh way. Others find the cheapest, most corner-cutting methods with the least rigor to get their degree... but then go on to excel in graduate school. Or fail at life. Whatever, if anyone wants to know what I learned for my AA degree, just take a look at my transcripts. You can't fake French and Spanish.
I've heard this stated by many people, but I've also heard that apparently the exams are *not* easy to pass for the "average" high school recent grad. They are easier for people who are older, or for people who are at the top of their high school class, but the same can be said for plenty of non-rigorous RA colleges and universities. I COMPLETELY agree with this. And it's not limited to people with bachelor's degrees from mediocre schools, either. I've had Berkeley and Princeton and UCLA grads that have worked for me who, I swear, didn't seem to have even a basic ability to synthesize data, or to generalize knowledge from one situation to another. On the other hand, some of the most brilliant people I've met have no degrees at all, or graduated from non-rigorous, unremarkable state schools in states not known for educational quality. As I said before, I think that in general, a college degree does imply some baseline of ability, but I really don't think there's much difference between, say a Generic State U degree and a Charter Oak or Excelsior degree. From my own limited experience, there does seem to be a certain reliability in hiring someone who has attended but not necessarily graduated from a highly selective or Ivy league school over someone that's never attended college, but I could see that simply being vetted and accepted by a selective school probably is an indicator that someone has a certain level of ability.
