Ashford loses accreditation

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by agschmidt, Jul 10, 2012.

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  1. graymatter

    graymatter Member

    Thanks for sharing the link, Caldog. Wow. I have to wonder however if those in similar positions at online universities would say the same thing.
     
  2. Julie1014

    Julie1014 New Member

    In a recent USA Today, there is a huge, full-page ad for Ashford.
     
  3. Tireman 44444

    Tireman 44444 Well-Known Member

    As well as the comments section. Wow. Just wow.
     
  4. Michael

    Michael Member

    I'm working for Ashford right now, and it's my only income. I surely hope they don't lose their present accreditation.

    Their retention rates wouldn't be so low if they would stop accepting illiterate students.
     
  5. NMTTD

    NMTTD Active Member

    If they spent just a small fraction of their profits on admission tests, remedial classes, tutors, academic quality, more instructors, and proper training for their financial aid and advising departments, then they would likely have higher retention rates. If they actually paid attention to, and enforced, their plagiarism policies, if they stayed on top of students who use improper grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and if they didnt force people to use their "Ashford specific" ebooks at $75 a pop, they would likely have a lot less complaints and problems. All in all, they have shoddy academics, virtually non existent ethics, and sub par teaching and administration. Somewhere along the line they forgot they are suppose to be a school. All the commercials in the world wont help their issues.
     
  6. Maxwell_Smart

    Maxwell_Smart Active Member

    To do all of that it would mean a whole new school with a practically all new staff!

    ... maybe you're on to something, lol!
     
  7. graymatter

    graymatter Member

    How is this any different than the charges levied against other online schools (for-profit and otherwise)?
    As adjunct faculty, I would say that my experiences with Ashford have been that they are more together than some other programs. #justsaying.
     
  8. Maxwell_Smart

    Maxwell_Smart Active Member

    ^^^ The biggest difference is that those other schools aren't currently on the hotseat with a regional accreditor just releasing a report that says the school is failing miserably to meet the requirements on every level of its operation, lol.

    Agreed. I mean, Ashford would have to be at least more together than, say, the Clayton College Of Natural Health, or Rochville University...

    ... on second thought, not necessarily...
     
  9. CalDog

    CalDog New Member

    IAO critical of Ashford

    It's bad enough that Ashford is in hot water with the regional accreditors.

    But it's getting worse. Now, even the International Accreditation Organization is turning up the heat:

    So the IAO thinks that Ashford was too focused on profit, at the expense of academic quality. That's harsh.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 23, 2012
  10. airtorn

    airtorn Moderator

    You know it is bad when a fake accreditor starts pointing out your flaws.
     
  11. graymatter

    graymatter Member

    Update: Received an email tonight that the next two courses I'm scheduled to facilitate for Ashford have been canceled.
    It is of note that I was immediately scheduled for two the following week though.
     
  12. Anthony Pina

    Anthony Pina Active Member

    Oh no! Not the highly prestigious IAO!! Whatever shall they do? Next thing we know, the World Association of Universities and Colleges and the Accrediting Commission International will weigh in ;-)

    I am currently reading the WASC accrediting team's report (a friend of mine was on the team). Ashford apparently was doing quite a few things right, but there were just too many red flags.
     
  13. recruiting

    recruiting Member

    Ashford is going to be fine, they have some admin things to work out and some "seasoned" professors to hire, however they have enough money to make it work. Money has a way of making these things go away...

    Ashford did not lose their accreditation either. Like another poster stated earlier they just did not get the additional accreditation they were seeking, that is a BIG difference. The person that wrote that article should be fired.:saevil:

    My wife freaked out about this situation when she found out. She got her Masters there in 2010.

    The for profits need to be kept in line though, my wife is Army and they did market heavily to her in the beginning, almost pushy. She did say that she enjoyed the instruction, and liked MOST of the professors. The issues she had was that some instructors were not responding to student questions like they should, and that made her upset. But since there are over 90K students to a handful of instructors I can see how this would happen.

    It's true that they have some house cleaning to do and more staff to hire, but I think they will magically be OK in the end. I hope :wizard:
     
  14. CalDog

    CalDog New Member

    Bridgepoint Education stock (BPI) was trading at $20-22 in July, then collapsed to the $8-11 range after news about the accreditation broke. It's currently trading at about $10.

    The discount implies that investors see the risk as quite significant. The markets currently seem to view Ashford's chances of maintaining regional accreditation at around 50%.

    If you think that Ashford's chances are better than that, then this would be a good time to pick up some BPI stock. On the other hand, it might be worth noting that Bridgepoint's CEO and CFO seem to be selling off their BPI stock as quickly as they can.
     
  15. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    It would be great if Ashford could fix their issues and I'm all for it. But money shouldn't be the deciding factor in how this gets cleaned up, it should be about quality.
     
  16. Anthony Pina

    Anthony Pina Active Member

    Interesting how things get reported and repeated. I have the WASC accreditation team's report in front of me and nowhere does it say that Ashford has 90,000 students. Here is a quote:

    "At the time of Ashford submitted its Self-Study (Fall 2011), the Clinton Campus enrollment was 973 students and the San Diego online division enrollment was 73,623 students. [Required Data Exhibits, Dec 2011] The University offers 74 undergraduate degrees and six graduate degrees (2010-11 catalog). The self-study report indicates that Ashford University employs 56 full-time faculty at the Clinton Campus and seven full-time faculty in the online division administered from the San Diego Campus. An additional 36 full-time faculty have been hired for online division since December 2011."

    The articles also fail to mention that, in addition to the small cadre of full-time faculty, Ashford had 2,458 adjunct faculty at the time of their self study and about 2,600 at the time of the accreditation team visit.

    The team found that Ashford did quite a few things right and well, but that there were some large red flags, such as the huge number of admissions and recruiting staff (10 times that of academic support staff) and that the institution's massive attrition rate (53% of incoming students dropped out) demonstrated an institution that was focus on getting students in and far less focused on giving students what they needed to succeed.
     
  17. mcjon77

    mcjon77 Member

    I wonder whether or not Ashford is also seeking national accreditation as a backup. On one hand, it is less valuable than regional accreditation AND will make it more difficult for students to transfer credits to RA schools. On the other hand, at least they could keep receiving federal loan/aid money, which is their absolute lifeblood.
     
  18. CalDog

    CalDog New Member

    Perhaps "Fall 2011" is just a little bit out of date. Remember, this is an institution that is noted for aggressive recruitment.

    Bridgepoint Education released its Second Quarter 2012 financial results earlier this month. Among those results:

    Now that includes University of the Rockies, not just Ashford. Bridgepoint didn't break out the number for Ashford specifically. But UoR is a relatively small, graduate-only institution -- College Navigator puts their enrollment at only 1,810 for Fall 2011.

    So based on BPI's reported results as of mid-2012, the 90,000 number for Ashford seems totally plausible.
     
  19. CalDog

    CalDog New Member

    Bridgepoint's own numbers show that they spend more on marketing than teaching. For Second Quarter 2012, the biggest cost item on their financial statement was $78.6 million for "Marketing and promotional", as compared to $65.4 million for "Instructional costs and services".
     
  20. CalDog

    CalDog New Member

    In July 2012, Ashford issued a statement about their accreditation issues, which included the following:

     

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