Alliant International University DBA program

Discussion in 'Business and MBA degrees' started by felderga, Sep 2, 2019.

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  1. felderga

    felderga Active Member

  2. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

  3. felderga

    felderga Active Member

    That's funny and no I'm not advertising for Trident. Alliant is a completely separate and different for-profit that has just started its own DBA program that is ABCSP accredited. It grew from the former US International University.

    For the record as of this moment I am planning on enrolling in Trident's DBA program this October. Sorry I just couldn't do Liberty (First they wouldn't grant me full transfer credits for courses that I took at U of Minnesota that were clearly similar... Second of course was my previously mentioned disdain of Falwell Jr.).


    Anyway Alliant isn't a bad deal if you sign up and can get the grant as the cost will be just around $30K. And yes it's regionally accredited.
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2019
  4. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    Lol.. I must have confused both schools because they are both shady, for-profit schools with "International" in their names.
     
  5. felderga

    felderga Active Member

    Please provide proof of these schools being shady... All schools will have complaints including Liberty.
     
  6. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    I have had complaints of my own at Liberty so I won't dispute that part.
     
  7. newsongs

    newsongs Active Member

    As a graduate of Alliant (formerly USIU) in Marriage, Family and Child Counseling, I can say I appreciated my studies there. This sounds like a great program at a very reasonable cost.
     
    felderga likes this.
  8. Steve Levicoff

    Steve Levicoff Well-Known Member

    The statement part of your post is quite correct. In fact, I have never seen a school, regardless of its accreditation status, about which there have not been “complaints.” Some people will whine about any school.

    But the notion of having to prove that the schools under discussion are shady is irrelevant. Of course they are shady, de facto, based on the following principles:
    • They are for profit. For-profit schools are not only intrinsically evil, they are the spawn of Satan.
    • They are, in some cases, accredited by DEAC. It goes to show that mickey-mouse schools are accredited by mickey-mouse accrediting agencies.
    • They are, in many cases, “online universities” that do not have a brick-and-mortar presence at all. The phrase online university is an oxymoron, period. And, in many cases, they are not even universities at all according to the traditional meaning, offering programs too limited in scope to qualify them as universities.
    By the way, all of this includes your own alma mater Columbia Southern University, which Wikipedia describes as “a private, for-profit, family-owned institution that specializes in online education.”

    There are, as always, exceptions to every rule, including the ones I have listed here. I will not name them because I will not openly endorse any for-profit, DETC-accredited online so-called university.

    You can, of course, argue about any point that I have raised here. But I cannot be bothered participating in such an argument since none of them apply to me. I don’t presume to be perfect – I am simply, like Mary Poppins, “practically perfect in every way.” Get over it. And now, I shall laugh at the rest of you.

    (What? Are you people taking me seriously again?)
     
  9. felderga

    felderga Active Member

    it
    Nah...Steve not taking you serious again....but I will engage in debate just for the fun of it.

    I can be a snob and turn my nose to many of the legit for-profit schools but I'm not. I too have degrees from top brick and mortar schools like UC Irvine, UCLA and Univ of Minnesota all of which I'm proud to call myself an almunus (except UCLA Football team sucks right now but I will save that for another discussion board). I'm also not shame to have earned a degree from Columbia Southern nor will I be shame to add a doctorate from Trident, Capella or even Alliant (all of which are regionally accredited). If I could do a doctorate at a top non-profit school for a reasonable price that didn't disrupt my current lifestyle then I would be all in. There are a few non-profits that I peaked my interest but there isn't a many difference in those schools curriculum and for-profits that I have mentioned. Remember these schools fill a need mostly for us working adults. Truth be told online programs offered by most middle of road regionally accredited brick and mortar schools don't differ at all from many of the for-profits online only universities. Even online courses offered now offered at many top universities have started to become stale generic pre-packaged modular education that can be re-used with each passing semester.

    Now I do agree there are a bunch of shady schools including some even operating under DEAC accreditation that should be red flags. While Columbia Southern shouldn't be confused with its Ivy League namesake (just kidding) it does not however fall under the "shady classification". Yes it's DEAC and was founded as an online institution but it has also expanded to now include a regional accredited university (Waldorf University that is based in Iowa) as part if its family.

    Bottom line I'm not going to join in become a for-profit hater just for the sake of it like many who have commented on post in this forum. Truth be told what major non-profit university today isn't looking to make money. Universities are businesses and need to stay profitable as well in order to maintain their existence as unprofitable programs disappear all of the time at major universities. You need to stop hating just for the sake of hating.
     
  10. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    Quite simply, these are opinions that are being presented as facts. Furthermore, they are not even widely held opinions.
     
    heirophant likes this.
  11. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    To be fair, that was how Steve usually states his opinions. Most of us here learned to separate his pompous pomposity from his undeniable knowledge and experience in the field. For example, he was proven correct on Argosy, and have a good claim on being correct on WLC.
    As for his opinions, they are not that uncommon. I find it funny though that most people who would agree with Steve will be equally quick to label all of his own degrees both "online" and "Mickey Mouse". Did you know that Union doesn't even HAVE a football team? Mickey Mouse!
     
  12. felderga

    felderga Active Member

    I beg forgiveness as I wasn't fully aware of Steve's resume and writings on Christian Diploma Mills. Nonetheless I'm not ready to throw every DEAC or For-Profit school under the bus. Fact of the matter is if public and non-profit privates institutions could make college more accessible and affordable many of these for-profits would be out of business. But I'm glad he is a crusader fighting to protect the consumer.
     
  13. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    When I took my degree from the University of Leicester, the program I did--Doctor of Social Science--required only one day on campus--and no other time on or off campus where students and faculty meet. That one day was the thesis defense, and it really was unnecessary to be there in person for a 1-hour meeting.

    That's it. No other required seminars, colloquia, etc.

    The fact that there was a traditional university behind it all was immaterial to the students in my program, as far as the degree program and process went. No connection at all. How is that different from an "online university"? I can't see the distinction.

    When I did my Union program, we had to complete a 10-day entry colloquium, 3 5-day seminars, and 10 "peer days," where the learning was created and conducted by students--no faculty. That's it. Zero time required "on campus." (I've never been to Union's "campus"--administrative offices.) Those in-person sessions could just as easily be done virtually. There was no material difference between the Union process and a fully online doctoral program. (The technology wasn't present when Union was created, but it certainly is now.) Union doesn't have a traditional, residential program.

    I've never attended a for-profit school. But I did work for one. I was appalled by what I felt was an irresponsible approach to admissions. (Fill in all the traditional complaints here.) But I was impressed with the academics. If you did the MBA, yours was as good an rigorous as any other. So I have mixed feelings about the for-profit aspect of it. Schools sit in judgment of students and, sometimes, have to fail them. Does that conflict with their profit motives that are supported by enrollments, not drop-outs? I think it's not as simple as assuming this conflict. It didn't exist where I worked--the academics were never, ever under any pressure to pass students in order to retain them. I think it is too simplistic to judge a school by its tax status without really knowing what's going on under the hood.

    As for DEAC, I'm not convinced it is a poor accreditor. For a very long time, no school had ever gone from DEAC accreditation to RA. That was significant to me, indicating that DEAC was a haven for schools that couldn't get RA. But that's changing.

    With a few exceptions, I don't hear a good argument for taking a degree from a DEAC-accredited school; in almost all cases, there are RA alternatives that are as accessible and affordable. Some narrow academic fields, perhaps, and certainly professional doctorates. But getting a bachelor's or an MBA? Lots of RA choices out there that don't come with the potential limitations.

    But I have no interest in criticizing someone for pursuing or having a degree from a DEAC-accredited school. I have no reason to think it would be justified.
     
  14. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    Isn't this thread about an unusually inexpensive DBA program? And isn't the whole point of running a business to provide goods or services that other people freely choose to buy and to make a profit doing it?

    Hiring somebody who opposes the idea of profit for a leadership position in business seems a bit "unclear on the concept" to me. That includes faculty positions in business administration.
     
  15. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    I think it's a mistake to start loosely throwing around insults about schools simply because they are for-profit. The idea that a school is "shady" because of their name is ludicrous and I can only hope he is joking.
     
  16. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    It's always been strange to me that the idea of for-profit school is demonized, yet people have no problem getting up every day and going to their for-profit job and cashing the paycheck from said for-profit job, or receiving medical care from a for-profit medical facility, or shopping at a for-profit store. After all, there are non-profit alternatives to each. Interestingly, in all of those situations people actually judge for-profit businesses individually unlike the blanket way that they judge for-profit education.

    The other part is the mistaken idea that non-profit and for-profit schools operate so differently. Sure, the ways they bring in money can be pointed to as a difference, but the point being missed is that they both have to bring in money. They both need it to survive and enrollments still matter to a non-profit. Otherwise, without students there would be no point in operating and nobody would be stepping up to fatten those endowments either. Then you look at the salaries of some of these officials at non-profit schools. You can only have those with a huge pot to draw from. Some of the for-profit schools that are discussed have just enough money to keep operating and certainly can't pay out million and multi-million dollar salaries. Considering those things, some of the criticisms people have are misdirected.
     
  17. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    I think the difference is that a university has to sit in judgment of its students and the for-profit aspect threatens (theoretically, anyway) its ability to do so by creating a conflict of interest between that responsibility and being paid by those same students.

    Yes, not-for-profit schools have to take in revenues as well. In fact, I used to defend the for-profit schools because I felt the only difference was their respective tax statuses. But that isn't true. A not-for-profit can raise funds without having those conflicts (through donations, grants, etc.). But more significantly, it doesn't have owners/stockholders to satisfy. A business has one goal: to increase the wealth of its owner(s). Period. When it cannot do that, it shuts down. Well, students in the pipeline can get hurt when that happens--see ITT Tech or any number of other for-profits that closed, slamming shut on their students (often with non-existent or inferior teach-out processes).

    I don't condemn or shun the for-profit schools, but I do raise this difference and suggest that it is a significant one. And I doubt if there are serious differences in educational quality between for -profit and not-for-profit schools accredited by the same agencies.
     
  18. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    You missed the whole point where I said I confused Alliant with Trident because they both have "International" in their names. Who said they were shady because of their names?
     
  19. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    This is what you said in post #4

    "Lol.. I must have confused both schools because they are both shady, for-profit schools with "International" in their names."

    So tell us then why they are both shady. You've been asked twice now and have yet to answer.
     
  20. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    What's surprised me over the years are the times when one school of a specific tax status moved in ways that would usually be attributed to a different tax status. For instance, after a brief inquiry one non-profit constantly sent me messages and follow-up calls trying to get me to sign up. I did the same with one for-profit and there was no such pressure. At one non-profit, the school hounded me over tuition on a regular basis to the point that arguments started (I didn't owe what they claimed, it eventually got resolved). At another for-profit they never bothered me about tuition at all. At one non-profit the administration never responded to issues, never tried to help me with anything, and I eventually began to question if there was an actual administration behind the school. At one for-profit I was able to speak to top-level administrators and get problems resolved in 48 hours or less, and one time I had a customer service rep assign herself to an issue I was having and she was updating her progress to me every few days until it got resolved. I also had bad experiences at for-profits and good experiences at non-profits, mileage always varied.

    I wasn't seeking a degree at all of the schools I took classes from, and I'd decided to spread myself out so that I could see for myself what the differences were. What I took from it all was that the way the administration of a school operates is paramount and makes a significant difference to the student experience. Having said all of that, if you were to call the admissions hotlines of any of the for-profit schools in my story you would get a hard and aggressive sales pitch like I did and some follow-up messages/calls if you give out any personal information, whereas calling admissions at the non-profit schools was a lighter experience with just one exception (although I've heard from more than one person now that Liberty can be pretty aggressive, too). For me at least, that was the point where I saw how a for-profit school approached enrollments in a hardline business manner that the non-profit schools didn't.

    This is the part that I came away questioning after attending so many different schools. If there is any significant difference, I never witnessed it. Unfortunately, the public is mostly convinced that there is a huge gulf between the two and that the for-profit side is substandard across the board. Whenever I go to other discussion boards and mention the negative experiences I had at non-profit schools it's always ignored followed by what is essentially a soliloquy of negative positions on for-profit education.
     

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