Problems with AIU

I did not know that, Chris. Thanks for clearing it up. I honestly thought it was just used to make databases for business's and was not used any more. I just so happen to be taking a Cobol class this coming term. I made it through assembly so I guess this class won't be that bad..

Best Regards,
Bill

 

I am glad that members of this forum are happy with the AIU program. I personally believe it is a very wek program and I also believe that it is a very expensive program.

The only benefit that I see is the option to get a degree very very fast - even faster than UoP.

Another interesting thing is that majority of the 5-week classes are 10-credits - Isnt that weird? I have attended many schools and have never ever seen any class worth 10-credits.

Imagine someone wants to see your transcript and they see 30-60 credits accepted as transfer to life experince and some other classes - and then they see tons of 10-credit classes.

I wonder why you guys are happy with AIU - is it because it is easy?

There are many other online Bach degrees but they have clearly stated programs and require 130 credits or more - each class worth 3-credits. Show me a link at AIU that shows their class structure - there isnt one. -

Good luck to those that are attending and are thinking of attending - but my view is that:

- you are paying to much for very little education
- you can get your degree very fast
- AIU is on its way to be seen as UoP

Again, I am not here to bash AIU or any other school, but to talk about my "view" of this or any other school.

 

onlinephd,

You seem to be very concerned with the credit-to-timeframe aspect of the degree. Do you think it is not possible to earn 10 credits in 5 weeks? I earned 27 credits in 13 days with CLEP and DANTES exams. Do they not count?

 

Someone did and now I work for the united states goverment . If its good enough for them it should be good enough for you! Unless you have some problem with them? They dont make it a point to hire unquailified people.

p.s

AIU does not except credits for life experience that only degree mills !AIU NOT A DEGREE MILL! like I said before everything you say is random irrogant unfounded remarks that make you look like a dolt! Do some reaserch first It might help !

 

Is it true many of the AIU 5 week classes are 10 credits?! I had a hard time with a 5 week 3 credit class, but agree that a 5 week 10 credit class is a total sham. A 3 credit class is suppose to be 3 hours a week x 15 weeks of CLASS time. An additional 6 hours a week x 15 of study time. That equals 45 hours of class time and 90 hours of study time. A 10 hour class would be OVER 3 x that (ie 135 plus 270 hours). That would be 80+ hours a week! Or over 10 hours + a day! It is clear that isn't happening at AIU.

CLEP and DANTES are a totally different issue because you are only measuring learning that has already taken place. Typically this is learning that has taken place over years not weeks.

 

IIRC the degree was more of a formality, and you had work experience that qualified you for the position.

 

DaveHayden,

I guess it would depend on your own personal opinon! I believe that testing is a good to way complete classes also! But I also know that some people only learn what they need to past the test and dont take the time to gain the mastery of the subject or learn atleast enough so that they uderstand the subject that they are testing out of with out using the books! I believe the clep and dantes are good tests if you approach them the right way and I would say the same for AIU. 10 credits is a lot for a subject I know but if you approach the classwork correctly you will do 3 times the work in research and reading! Alot of my class mates do read the recommended 3-4 chapters in class and do the additional research in order to make sure that we truely understand the principles and the concepts of what we are learning. So if you look at it in that context then we do more work in that amount of time that the average college student. I personally would'nt mind a couple more classes on the subjects I study at AIU but I dont believe I need them I believe that they would just make me better at what I do! I think that I could easily read a book and accomplish this task also thanks to the techniques I 've learned at AIU.

p.s

I believe the degree got me the interview the experience landed me the job ! I was ask numerous question about my degree and theey were thoroughly impress by the amount of work and reaserch that I accomplished in 5 weeks. If it was a formallity they were very interested.

 

I agree that 10 credit hours seems high still, you can't just put a formula to it I don't believe.

I had several classes in college that I never spent anywhere near 6 hours a week in study per class like psych, soc, and history classes. My nursing classes were all 9 credits or 10 credits per semester and I spent everybit of 30 - 40 hours per week either studying by myself, in groups, or doing research and writing care plans in addition to the lecutre hours and clinical hours which far exceeded the number of hours per credit, usually sat in at least 12 hours or more of lecture and clinic per semester, plus the labs, another 2-3 hours per week.

I think AIU and U of P both are way too expensive for what you get plus all the pressure you get from their sales people. They wanted 23,000 from me to finish a bachelors degree, I think it was about 47 credits total they said I needed for a bachelor's in health administration. And U of P was about 26,000 to finish a bachelor's in nursing, about 42 hours.

My son, who is a sophmore, will have to go 5 years to get just a 4 year BA because they have so many requirements at just the university level. He'll be in school 2 1/2 years just to get the general education requirements out of the way. He thinks it's unfair that I can take 9 tests and get a bachelor's degree. I think he's right, it probably is unfair, at least to him, and my pocketbook. But thems the facts. Whining about doesn't change anything.

Seems to me we all spend way to much times taking classes or tests that have nothing to do with the actual degree itself just because of system of education in America says everyone must be "well rounded". A lot of general education is a waste, IMHO, and is there just to fuel the system if the truth be known.

 

I am confused. 10 semester credits means you attended class for over 135 hours or over 27 hours per week for 5 weeks. Did that happen for all the 10 credit classes you took? It also means you spent over 270 hours or over 54 hours per week studying/programming/doing group projects. Did you do that for all 10 credit hour classes you took?

If you want to suggest CLEP or DANTES tests are too easy that is a totally seperate question from what an RA institution is required to accomplish in order to grant 10 semester credits.

5 week 3 credit classes are a streach, and I doubt ever equal a 15 week class. 10 hour 5 week classes are impossible UNLESS the student has no other responsibiliteis and studies for 10-15 hours PER day. It would be impossible to complete a 10 credit class and hold down a job or other responsibility at the same time.

P.S. I think your analysis is correct that the degree got you the interview and your experience and skills got you the job. You have a RA degree and should use it to your advantage. I think this thread reinforces what Andy has been saying about U of P and AIU on another thread. The for profits have a strong motivation to subvert the learning process and definately are in no way equal to the non-profits.

 

I am not sure why you guys are getting so defensive. There is also no reason for personal attacks.

All I am doing is discussing things about the school.

YES - there are 10-credit 5-week classes at AIU - actually majority of them are 10-credit classes. And NO they are not packed with material - they are not 5 chapters per week or so. They are one or two.

Talk what you want and defent what you like but these are facts.

AIU will get you a BIT degree - it is not a BSc or BA. I have never heard of a BIT degree before.

I am not familiar w/ CLEP or other exams but if they are admited at schools that is fine. I care about knowledge and AIU does not provide that.

Some remaining questions for AIU students:
- what is the per credit cost? -
- are there 10-credit classes?
- are there less than 10-credit classes? -

How will your transcript look if you decide to apply for an MBA program somewhere outside of AIU and at a capus university like UPenn, UMass, Harvard, Colorado State anywhere?

Wont it look weird that in your transcript you may have 10-13 10-credit classes. Wont it look weird if an employee asks you for your transcript and sees less than 20 classes in your entire degree program?

At least via CLEP and other methods you will have to take tons of exams to get your credits.

Conclusion:
I wont argue here - but if AIU makes you happy great. If you want to learn something and earn a valuable degree then look at other approaches. If you want to earn a quick degree and pay for it then AIU is the way.

 

One more thing:

You guys are getting all defensive because there is reason.
If AIU was a good school then there is no reason for you to get so touchy and feely - obviously you made a bad decision by going there. -

If AIU was legit - why dont they explain all on their website like every other US School ...here is an example:

DEGREE, REQUIREMENTS, CLASSES, CREDITS, COST/CREDIT.
B. Info Tech
Requires: 130 credits
List of Classes:
1. xyz - 10 credits -
2. xuu - 3 cresits etc etc

Cost/Credit: $ xyz
Something like that.

Why make it a black box -

Capella does it - why doesnt AIU.

Somehting to think about - right?

 

Hmmm...

A guy comes to the board with the screen-name 'OnlinePhD' and goes off on AIU saying his residential degree was much more rigorous. Later, he says Capella's program is more legit than AIU even though he has never heard of a BIT program before!

A distance learning critic with the name of OnlinePhD and knowledge of this board and other DL programs strikes me as...strange. What is the real story, I wonder?

 

Wow Ron - great post. Would you mind discussing issues instead of me - I am not single so you will have to look somewhere else -

my screen-name has nothing to do with AIU or Capella - when I joined degreeinfo i was interested to start an OnlinePhD program.

Reason why I like Capella, is that they have all their fees listed, program descriptions etc etc. Another cool thing about Capella is that they have a very good MBA program from what I can see - they even offers "SALES" classes which very few if any MBA programs in USA offer. It shows me that the CapMBA is a good program. btw - i am non-CapMBA student-

 

Fair enough

For what it's worth, you have my apologies. I did wonder if you were a Capella guy busting on AIU.

R

 

DaveHayden,

I m not suggesting they are too easy! I am compairing the amount of time and effort that on puts into them and compairing the PROJECTED time that one is supposed to put into there studies at AIU. I could say a lot more but that woauld be a totally new discussion. Basically in a nut shell I am saying this ! No one knows exactly how long a person is putting into mastering there studies if thats what there trying to do they have a allotted time to complete the mastery of each subject and I BELIEVE thats were the 10 credits come into play. Also I am saying there are people out there who cheat and try to get by in residential as well as online schools (and believe me I have seen it all ). Those people that dont do the additional work and research that goes into mastering a subject and I believe that is where Online ,residentail and dantes an cleps are lacking people that by using cheat sheets and memorize them to take tests and obtain degrees.
Most college settings they dont assign 4 chapters of homework and if they are not expecting you to complete it in a week AIU does. Thats were the accelerated part comes into play. And becuse you are assigned more work it that amount of time thave average in the amount of time you would have had to complete at the land campus.
Most teachers I had in college assigned one chapter and a lab assignment which if listen carefull enough to the notes you really didnt have to read. I had a lot of six hour classes there and that school was land based and nationally ranked! I dont know how things are know but I was not a pleasent experience and I know a lot of people the very rarely decided to show up for the 2 classes a weeks got the notes from someone else studied the notes and passed the test . Do you think they should only get 1 1/2 credits even though the passed the class? Or does it not matter how long you are in the class but what you learn from it ?

BY the way what school did you goto DaveHayden? Was it excelsior?

p.s

I have attend both non profit and for profit and the differences and in all I have seen teacher that were horrible that at sometime did not understand what they were teaching well enough to explain it ! I have seen students that are there just there to get by. I have seen students excel agianst unbeleiveable odds in learning and classroom structure and I came to one conclution. It doesnt matter where you learn only how bad you want to learn! I believe that you can read multiple books and obtain the same skill level that some has in any degree program if that person has the drive and ambision to do so!

P.P.S anyone else reading

This is a great discussion ! I believe that we need to address the consern that people have with aiu if they have solid research to back up what they are claiming! Other than that they tend to sound like ramblings . I have not seen shread of proff to claim tha aiu cirriculum is not sound! I seen how AIU is in danger of loosing its regional acredditation. But I have seen praises of how good AIU is. I have seen many companies that have hired graduates.

But if you find anything that disputes the following or proof of AIU being a degree mill I would like to see it . Post it here.

 

codekiller -
i appreciate your honesty in your post.

i love this forum because it gives us the ability to discusses concerns with different programs and options.

i think that AIU has the potential to be a great institution, but i personally do not like some of the things that i mentioned before:

lack of cost/credit.
lack of displaying program structures online
lack of class descriptions

when i log onto the aiu-portal i must say that it is very organized and well done - but there are no 4 chapters per week requirements.

anyway - i think we beat this topic to death -

 

Hi Codekiller

I appreciate your post, but you are mixing together several seperate issues. I am not saying AIU or Uof P is a degree mill. The amount of work you explain was required of your course barely covers what is required in a 3 credit hour class.

Regional Accrediting associations say that a 10 hour credit class will have OVER 135 hours of class time and OVER 270 hours of study time to complete homework. Again in a 5 week 10 credit class that would be over 11+ hours a day for 7 days a week! Just the required class time would be 27 hours a week! If some one is saying because of previous experience they can do it in 8 hours day I would believe them. 4 hours a day for 5 or 6 days might cover a 3 credit class.

CLEP and DANTES are totally seperate issue. They are measuring prior learning that has already taken place typically over years not weeks. Again if you think they are too easy or too hard that has nothing to do with RA requirements for NEW learning.

P.S.
To answer your question, I have never been enrolled at the Big Three. I have completed an AA degree at a community college that included distance learning. In the classes I have taken it has been typical to have 2 or 3 chapters assigned per week this would equal 30-45 chapters for the class over a semester. I am currently in a residential BA program that has DL classes as an option although at this point all of my course have been traditional.

 

Could an AIU student confirm or deny the following questions?

1. Does AIU have 10 credit hour classes that last 5 weeks?
2. How many hours of class time and study time is required (suggested by AIU?) to complete the 10 credit 5 week class?
3. What percentage of classes have midterm and finals?
4. What other forms of evaluation take place?
5. What is the cost per credit hour for classes at AIU?

Thanks for your help clearing the air.

 

This seems too low. I recall a recent post stating that the nominal time input for a 3 semester-credit class should be targeted at 180 hours. So a 10 credit class would be a nominal 600 hours, or 120 hours per week (for 5 week class), which is 17 hours a day (7 days per week).

Too much for me! I'll take the slow boat.

 

Another benchmark that I sometimes consider is that a typical full-time student completes an average of about 1 credit per week during a semester. So based on this, 10 credits in 5 weeks should be about twice a normal full-time load.