Why choose DETC?

My guess is the agents' reputations are based on their performance, reliability, honestly, courage and so forth. If your peers respect you it has little or nothing to do with your credentials. If you're good at your work and respected people will be glad to honor your credential. If you're a goof then you can dimish the value of any high-brow credential (Andy Bernard's character on The Office illustrates this well). I once worked at a department where the entire organization was waiting for the the best candidate for a new position to finish his BS, any BS, so they could legally promote him.

 

I don't think a person wakes up in the morning and decides I will go to a DETC accredited school.

The person based on their needs, budget, goals, etc. evaluates and applies to number of universities.
Some have competitive selection process and very hard to get in to. Others may have a more flexible student admission policy.
In the end they make a decision and for some who require only RA or RA with some specialty accreditation they eventually select such a program.
For another who likes the school, the way they present the material, the fact that it has recognized accreditation and that it reasonably priced may seal the deal.

What I love in our country is the freedom that we have to choose, no one is forcing us to go only one way or another. Will some use their GI bill toward NA degree, they do so a lot.
Some NA Universities I think its their bread and butter, they advertise heavy in the military circles.

Also there are opportunities to correct, change and further the education.

Lets say I study toward BSIT or BSIS NA degree and realized that I need the same degree but it has to be RA.
So I enroll in one of the dual accredited universities such as WGU, APU, AMU, Ellis University and get max credit transfer allowed. Then complete with in a year the RA degree.

There are fields as specially in private practice when one sells his skills were degree becomes a part of selling strategy.

Universities sell their professors in a way. Law firms get better customers when they have on board Lawyers from top schools etc.
As I mentioned earlier when my wife went for her job interview and the lady interviewing her asked her so your masters degree is from National University
with this tone, then it followed are they accredited? Where are they located and the look on the face of the interviewer was one of " what the F is this school".

My wife earned her Masters from National University, Anyway she came home and told me I think I should have gone to UCLA or something. On Friday that week she got a phone call that she got the job .
In the end it wasn't the credential alone but her attitude, experience and other factors that made the hiring manager to hire her.

 

An interesting thread, many great posts.

One point that I haven't seen made is that there are many thousands of RA schools. There are about one hundred DETC accredited schools. Most anything offerred at one of these few DETC schools is going to probably be available at an RA school. I believe that the much smaller DETC population is part of the reason that DETC degrees have lower utility. An example of this is that it took THECB (Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board) years to accept DETC degrees as legal to use in Texas.



Here's my subjective summary of this thread.

- DETC degrees have utility but less utility than RA.
- I haven't seen anyone make a convincing argument for choosing DETC accredited degree over an RA accredited degree. I have seen plenty of good arguments that someone's DETC accredited degree will serve them as well as an RA degree. I hope that this is true into the future and wish these people well.
- I have seen what I consider some good arguments that DETC is demonstrably inferior to RA for accreditation. For example, we used to like to tout AMU as an example of a DETC school that was at par with RA schools, now they are RA! and the only example of a DETC accredited school moving on to RA. Another example, DETC accredited schools that were actively misleading students by claiming bogus accreditation.

 

biased

Your question is biased from the begining; you have already made up your mind that DETC is inferior regardless of school. In some circles they may consider anything outside of harvard or yale to be inferior, other circles may consider MIT or CALTECH the only way to go. My point is if accreditation is of such great importance, then you have already made up your mind and regardless of my reason DETC is and will continue to be inferior to you. With that beign said, my only concern was US DOE accreditation/validation; since I am military I needed my tuition assistance to pay for classes, most gov't agencies accept both ra and na, the are a few DETC schools that are well established in MY circles such as columbia southern, andrew jackson, grantham and american sentinel to name a few. There are a few publications specific to military and civilian education that rates schools on level of education and military support/flexibility NA schools are usually listed without bias on same lists as RA schools.

So if DETC does not work for you, so be it. We have a difference in opinion based on our influences, experience and education.

 

Its a critical time I think for DETC to take action now.
As increasing number of RA schools offer RA DL programs and making DETC less nitch or unique.

This is why now questions like this tread are asked.
Bills remark about the future use of DETC degrees is very valid one.
The recent move to add Doctorates is interesting.

Dr. Rich Douglas suggestion that DETC assume specialty accreditation leadership role instead to institutional accreditation is very good one. Maybe it can maintain both.

 

Over on the "TAFT DBA" Thread, our very own Rich Douglas had this to say:

Rich Douglas
Registered User Join Date: Feb 2001
Posts: 8,054

Quote:
Originally Posted by emmzee
That's probably true; if someone is a business guru of some kind (doing speaking gigs, writing books, etc) then a DETC DBA might be a nice add-on, letting them use the Dr title.

Rich Douglas states:
I suspect it would have even wider utility than that. In my peer group--generally considered senior management but not executive--we see a lot of people with doctoral degrees. Some are in their professional areas while others, like me, not. But I'm convinced having a doctorate is extremely valuable at this level--and for getting here.

Link:
http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?t=33504#post327977

I don't agree with Richard on many issues related to DETC but I do respect his opinion and his ability to see both sides of the equation. DETC serves a market niche for non-academic students, and in particular, business professionals, Richard understands this.

DETC is new, it's progressive, we aren't going to see DETC disappear anytime soon, let's agree that this story will continue to evolve, probably for the betterment of students who are embracing DL and making it a mainstream, viable choice.

 

It all seems useful to me...the good bad and ugly remarks show the variety of attitudes toward the subject, which should be part of the DETC decision process. It's amazing that this topic elicits such strong emotions.

 

A quick story regarding my only experience landing a teaching position at the local college ($ 150 million budget per year).

I went to a Christmas party for a professional organization, talk turns to teaching and the lady next to me asks what I'm doing, "nothing, I had to retire at a very young age due too much wealth". She ignored that comment and asked me what my background was to which I replied that I worked as a Corp Eng. for a very large business known worldwide, I have three degrees, Econ, MBA and Eng. She perked up and asked me if I would consider teaching at the local college, taking over from the current RA PhD U of Western full-time Professor.

She wanted to replace this PhD Professor (from a great school), with me, an Engineer with a 20 year old economics degree! I said fine, I would consider it as teaching does sound interesting. I thought nothing more of our conversation until I got a call a few days later from the school director. I went to a meeting, was offered the job teaching economics full-time, never handed in my resume, or mentioned where my degrees came from, nothing. The college director told me that they were on a mission to replace all of their current university professors with "real world" people who could relate to actual business applications on more than a theoretical basis. They were getting rid of all of them. Interesting.

In the end, I passed on the job offering, for now, my plate was pretty full at the time but I'm interested in teaching part-time at the college level and might enroll in a doctoral program, possibly a DETC one if I can be convinced that this degree is applicable to my circumstances. So far, no one has convinced me that a DETC degree is inferior in any way when it comes to landing 99% of job opportunities out there today. As I have stated before, your degree is worth, at best, 15% of who you are, nothing more in non-academia.

 

SIMON: Although the general arguments as to whether RA is superior to DETC is moot IF the individual can achieve THEIR educational and professional objectives at significantly less tuition at a school which is congruent with their expectations and goals. The bottomline does not hinge on general beliefs regarding the superiority of RA degrees but on each prospective student making an assessment of THEIR educational and professional needs, goals and objectives leading to a determination as to whether an RA or DETC will best meet their criteria.

 

Your experience above is very insightful and right on mark especially at certain advanced stages of individual's professional and career development. We are not solely perceived or evaluated on the accreditation status of our degrees but based on our professional and personal development and maturation as well as the quality and content of our professional experiences. Whereby an RA degree may have been in our best interests to obtain at an earlier stage of our lives, a DETC degree may serve us very well at another stage in accomplishing our objectives.

 

Good luck with your decision. I hope it works out for you.

 

Excellent post. It captures reality quite well. Please note the one section I've highlighted above. NA degree useful in most situations. (My thesis research confirmed that.) Lower utility in some situations. (Ditto.) Good quality program. (No one disputes that possibility.) Won't do you much good in getting admitted to a lot of doctoral programs. (Yep.)

While there might be an "RA or nothing camp," I'm not in it. I'm in favor of DETC-accredited schools. I'm just against people who blatantly ignore the limitations involved while posting about them.

 

My point exactly. You can have a terrific degree from an outstanding program and see it rejected categorically without anyone looking past its accreditation and into its quality.

Of course, would such a graduate want to work in such an unenlightened environment?

 

This is an assessment without any assertions/observations to support it. In other words, an unsubstantiated opinion.

This isn't true, as I demonstrated in a very thorough survey of 278 HR professionals. Acceptance of degrees from NA schools was lower than RA, both before and after descriptions of each were provided. The differences were huge and statistically significant.

Anecdotally, we often see situations where employers won't hire people with degrees from NA schools, nor will they pay tuition reimbursement for current employees to pursue them. Enough to matter to any one person? Perhaps or perhaps not. But the situation is very real. Let's hope that changes and that people run into it as little as possible.

 

I agree completely, Bill. Nice summary.

 

Most of the critics of DETC accreditation focus not on the quality of the schools it accredits--although there is some room there to criticize. Rather, they focus on the lessened utility of such degrees because of DETC accreditation (vice RA). Different argument.

 

The fact remains that DETC is evolving in its level of credibility and viability as an accrediting agency evidenced by its recently embarking on accrediting doctoral level degrees. The accrediting of DETC doctoral degrees offers a very attractive alternative to many prospective students due to its much more reasonable tuitions compared to the inordinate financial commitment expected from a number of online distance RA degree programs. In addition as more students graduate with DETC doctoral degrees it is not far fetched to assume that the recognition and status of DETC degrees will continue to increase and enable many to achieve their self-determined objectives.

 

This is an assessment without any assertions/observations to support it. In other words, an unsubstantiated opinion.

278 HR professionals? Like it really represents the millions of companies out there. Like I said, in the real job market nobody seems to care one way or the other if your degree is NA or RA accredited. The only people who seem to be making it an issue are those with an agenda.

No matter, DETC is here to stay and is putting a lot of finanacial stressors on B&M schools, many of which will fold, unless they tap into what consumers are already accomplishing through DETC and other DL type programs. More and more NA graduates continue to fill out the job ranks, as we speak.

Looks like your "RA Humpty Dumpty" isn't faring so well, Rich.

 

Mr. DETC - "My son is going to be a surgeon. I hope that he can be just as good at the job as your son!"
Mrs. RA - "Your son isn't even in High School, yet. My son is finishing his residency at a reknown hospital! Your son will never be a better surgeon than my son! He won't even be half as good, I bet he fails out of medical school!"

RA has been around for a long time. DETC hasn't been around anywhere near as long. They've (DETC) hit some rough spots out of the gate. (Accreditation of some suspect schools, and such.) It's going to take time. DETC has a lot of growing up to do. A lot of learning and expanding. Mistakes will be made, and hopefully will addressed in a viable manner for its continued (and improved) existance. Who knows in the long run if they'll be around 10-20-30 years in the future? I'll say it once again. It's going to take time for DETC to grow up. Hopefully at some point it will be able to step out of RA's shadow and shine on its own, but only time will tell.

One thing to remember is that over the next decade, there's going to be turnover in both the business and academic world. The old guard will retire or die off, and maybe give an opportunity for people with a broader view of the world to step in, and lead the new guard. Which may open the doors a little wider for business and possibly even academic acceptance for DETC, but until forward motion occurs, really, you're all tilting at windmills.

I like DETC and hope they're able to get to where they need to be. I've seen several DETC programs that really interest me (and my wife is currently working on a degree through AJU if for nothing more than to get her mom off her back about not having a degree.)

 

Isn't that self-contradictory? If somebody's DETC degree serves them well, then there's your probable answer for why they chose the program. Question answered.

But something kind of subtle is happening in this thread. I notice that you wrote "a convincing argument for choosing a DETC accredited degree". That's an abstract way of putting it. It no longer seems to be asking for explanations of individual cases in which particular DETC programs are chosen, but rather for an account of a new hypothetical generalized case in which DETC accreditation is what's being selected, without attention being paid to the particular programs. And as I've argued in previous posts, that most likely never happens in real life.

This whole thread might illustrate what philosophers call a 'pseudo-problem', an illusory conundrum that arises as the result of a mis-conceived question.