Ashworth College now part of the National Transfer Network

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Poptech, Feb 5, 2015.

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  1. Poptech

    Poptech New Member

    I have been helping seomeone with selecting an online college and one of the main concerns with considering NA schools like Ashworth and Penn Foster is the inability to transfer your credits easily.

    I recently noticed that Ashworth College is now part of the National Transfer Network which I had not heard of before. This allows your NA credits to seamlessly transfer to some RA schools.

    The following schools guarantee* acceptance of Ashworth College Associate Degree credits:

    American Public University (RA)
    Norwich University (RA)
    Southwestern College (RA)
    Western Governors University (RA)


    Columbia Southern University (NA)
    Harrison College (NA)
    Henley-Putnam University (NA, RA under review)

    * You must be an Ashworth College Associate Degree student in good standing, with tuition paid in full, to qualify as a transfer student through our partnership arrangements in the National Transfer Network.
     
  2. Poptech

    Poptech New Member

    Upon further investigation it appears as if Ashworth originated the program.

    Ashworth College Launches Knowledge Transfer Blog

    Anything that simplifies transferring credits is an improvement in my opinion.
     
  3. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I've corresponded with one of Ashworth College's people about it. Yes, they did set it up, in part because CHEA dropped the ball by letting HETA go dormant.
     
  4. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    @Poptech

    Nothing is much different. It's up to the student to find out what schools will accept his/her credits. Many schools accept Ashworth's credits though.
     
  5. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    I don't know about Norwich, but the other RA schools already accepted credits from DEAC-accredited schools.
     
  6. Poptech

    Poptech New Member

    Yeah, it looks like the HETA (Higher Education Transfer Alliance) website has not been working since 2013.
     
  7. Poptech

    Poptech New Member

    That can be a lot of unnecessary work and anything that helps simplify this process is a great idea in my opinion. For a new student this can save them a ton of money on their associates knowing they can easily transfer all of their credits to an RA school with no hassle. Even after I spent time helping them do some research on this it was not all that clear as many RA schools required the NA credits be ACE approved. This gets rid of all the guessing.
     
  8. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    That may be "easier", but not necessarily better, and the work is not unnecessary at all, or even real work. It's fairly simple really. You find a school you're interested in, you contact them and ask them if they accept Ashworth credits. Done.

    It's just what a student is going to have to do if he/she is interested in schools other than the small list of official Ashworth partnerships, unless they don't mind limiting themselves.
     
  9. Poptech

    Poptech New Member

    That is fine for someone who has a specific school in mind but for others they may simply be more interested in cost with the ability to transfer to an RA school.

    From my research those considering schools like Ashworth and Penn Foster are largely concerned with cost. I see being able to get an associates for as low as $2910 at Ashworth (since you get the 4th semester free) and having the option to transfer that to RA schools like WGU or APU as a win-win. I do not see that as limited at all but money in the bank.

    I was actually going to have them consider Penn Foster over Ashworth because of ACE but this neutralizes that argument.
     
  10. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    WGU and APUS have been accepting NA credits and degrees for years. All one would have to do is do a Google search and come across a forum like this. Being limited to schools like WGU and APUS is limiting. There are a lot of degrees WGU does not offer, and maybe someone doesn't want to attend a 100% online for-profit like APUS. APUS has a wide variety of degrees now, but there is still the chance it won't have the degree in which someone is interested. There are some more options now. One can complete an associate's at TESC for less than $2,000 utilizing CLEP, DSST, ALEKS, etc.
     
  11. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    @poptech

    When talking limits, I'm referring to things like school prestige. While WGU and APU run fine programs I'm sure, there are certainly schools with higher prestige levels and far greater notoriety. If that doesn't matter to the student, then it's really not an issue of course for them internally, but externally others may have an issue with it (employers, etc). Generally, an employer won't have a problem, but some schools have bad reps to where their very name being spoken is probably going to have your resume thrown into the "do not hire pile", so to speak.

    The other thing is, from my own experience and reading those of others for many years now, I think it's best to have a number of schools in mind before even going into this. It's just a concept of not putting all of your eggs into one basket.
     
  12. Poptech

    Poptech New Member

    Maybe they have but this makes it easier to find out. Considering Ashworth only offers 15 associate degrees in the related fields of Criminal Justice, Business, Education, Healthcare and Technology I hardly see the multitude of majors offered by APU (43) in addition to WGU (22) as limiting. If someone wants a school with a campus then they can choose Southwestern College or Norwich University. It is not like TESC has much of a "campus" - I know as I have been there. And not everyone wants to utilize CLEP, DSST or ALEKS.

    I have found the whole debate over for-profit vs non-profit as completely overblown and have found no legitimate reason how this trumps accreditation except with academic snobbery. My only issues was how some for-profits were more expensive than non-profits, in which case it is cheaper to go to a well-known state school and get better name recognition with your degree.
     
  13. Poptech

    Poptech New Member

    @LearningAddict

    I would argue that prestige is largely limited to the Ivy League schools and that most people do not know the difference between NA vs RA schools, let alone the alleged "rep" a school has or not. If this was ever an issue in an interview all you would have to say is your school is recognized as accredited by the U.S. Department of Education. Since this can easily be verified off their website I am incredibly suspect this would ever be an issue.

    I have read a lot of anecdotal talk here that I equate to fear-mongering with regards to employers potentially not hiring someone because of their school being online-only or NA. The problems with all of this is you do not see empirical evidence where this is a legitimate issue. I would bet most people including most employers would think NA is better than RA because the would "National" sounds more impressive than "Regional", right or wrong.

    The irony in all of this is I had a family member who worked in HR for a multi-billion dollar corporation and the senior hiring manager was making over a 100k with a degree from UOPX.

    I agree on not putting all your eggs in one basket but also believe that having 4 options for RA transfer solves this issue.

    Personally the people I deal with are more interested in a low cost accredited degree without utilizing standardized testing like CLEP, DSST or ALEKS.
     
  14. Poptech

    Poptech New Member

    Strange but I believe I have two comments held in moderation and I am not sure what is triggering that.
     
  15. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    Saying you graduated from University of Phoenix or DeVry is going to draw some criticism. There are a number of schools with a poor public perception, warranted or not, the perception is there for some.

    That's still true in many cases, but over the past decade employers have started to catch up, and from time to time you will see jobs posted where it specifically states that a candidate needs to have graduated from an accredited institution. Sometimes it only says "accredited" some are adamant that it be "regionally accredited" some say "nationally or regionally accredited".

    There is studied evidence for it. I believe John Bear has done some work in this regard.


    It happens. Some employers look past public perception, and if they do that to get a good candidate then that's great. That's what judging people individually should be about. But the reality is that not all employers think this way.

    If those 4 schools have the programs that individual student wants, then yes, but those 4 schools are unlikely to fulfill all the needs of all the many students who will be in this boat.
     
  16. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    I agree that most private employers don't know the difference between RA and NA. I've even seen some ask for a nationally-accredited school. Obviously, they don't know what they're asking for. The top universities in the country aren't NA, and I'm sure they wouldn't turn those down. I also agree that schools like Devry and University of Phoenix generally have a bad reputation. One could find anecdotal evidence of someone being very successful with a UoP degree, but I'd rather take my chances with attending an unknown school if I couldn't get into a highly-ranked school. I have come across many people who erroneously believe that UoP is unaccredited.

    Prestige does not only belong to the Ivy Leagues. There are many non-Ivy League colleges that are highly-ranked and well-known. Within fields, professionals often know which schools are the best and those often aren't Ivy League schools. A Big 4 accounting firm will know that an accounting degree from UNC is impressive. They are one of the top schools in this field.

    In my field in my state, RA vs NA does matter when it comes to earning higher levels of certification because the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement does not recognize NA degrees. There are also a few police departments I have come across that will only give educational incentive pay for RA degrees. I know of at least two departments that require 60 credits or an associate's degree from an RA school. The public sector is more likely to know the difference between RA and NA. Also, I was shocked to see that one agency would not give educational incentive pay for "internet degrees," but that is a very rare case.

    I can guarantee you that those four schools will not meet the needs of all students. They do not cover all of the degree programs that a person could possibly want.
     
  17. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    ALEKS is not standardized testing. They offer self-paced courses at $20 per month. ALEKS is often used in remedial math courses at colleges. Straighterline is another option for those who don't like CBEs. Ironically, Straighterline has more partner colleges than Ashworth.
     
  18. Poptech

    Poptech New Member

    Why are some of my posts still not showing up from the other day?
     
  19. Poptech

    Poptech New Member

    Maybe with these two but they are also incredibly overpriced so I do not believe they fall into the discussion.

    Asking for a "regionally accredited" degree in the private sector is almost non-existent.

    I did some simple job search queries and just like I thought this is only an issue with the public sector and almost entirely with colleges and universities.

    "Regionally Accredited" = 3,893 Job Postings (almost entirely colleges and universities)

    Out of 3.7 million job listings that is 0.1% of jobs explicitly requiring a "Regionally Accredited" degree.
     
  20. airtorn

    airtorn Moderator

    The moderators have lives. Give your posts a little time to get through moderation. Your post are moderated because you are new here and moderating new users greatly cuts down on spam.
     
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