SCUPS PhD's. Gone Again???

This is quite dissapointing to see. Although NCU and SCUPS are allegedly separate institutions, they share the same marketing and sales prospect lists? If students don't bite and enroll in NCU at a higher price, they pump the lower priced SCUPS degree programs to the prospective students? Of course, SCUPS is not accredited, but no worries mate; all coursework and degrees will transfer to their regionally accredited partner, NCU, which is where the student first inquired to begin with.

Again, IMHO SCUPS is using NCU’s regional accreditation for its own benefit and NCU is encouraging the same. Basically, they are the same organization operating directly and indirectly under NCA’s accreditation. Unfortunately, I see much of NCU’s behavior centered on making a buck and pumping a business than building and maintaining a positive academic reputation. As a for-profit, this makes the other legitimate for-profits schools look back bad too.

Giving contact information obtained from a prospective student’s inquiry to what is supposed to be an entirely different entity is wrong. If I inquire at school-A about a degree program, I certainly have no expectation that my information will be distributed to school-B (especially one that is unaccredited) without my explicit approval. Such marketing behavior looks millish and makes UoP look like a saint in terms of marketing tactics. But then again, I maintain that aside from the technical (legal) ownerships, SCUPS and NCU are really one in the same.

Tom

 

Hi. I'm interested in NCU. Would you rate Scups at the same level as with schools like Kennedy Western? What do you think of Kennedy Western?

 

Scups is above Kennedy Western then again there isn't much that isn't above KWU.

 

Hi LaRosa - The questions that you've asked are all good ones but they've been discussed rather often here. Rather than pulling an existing thread off-topic, it would be better if you'd start a new thread with your questions. You might also consider using the search function on the site or just scrolling through the threads as you wait for answers to your questions. Thanks,
Jack

 

Welcome to DegreeInfo LaRosa,

Please do a search for threads discussing Kennedy-Western and SCUPS. You see there is a huge difference. I am not a big fan of SCUPS, but KWU makes them look like Yale. Proceed with extreme caution.

 

This is an interesting point, since they have aligned their degree offerings, seemingly shared prospective student information, the DBA has been added to NCU, and some SCUPS credits are ostensibly accepted at NCU. Will the Psy.D. next be added to NCU? What about the J.D.? The subordination strategy appears to be ineffective for maintaining two separate entities in the future; the long term strategy seems to be to launder the SCUPS students and academic programs through NCU. By the way, this isn't necessarily a bad strategy for the students or profitability, but it is different than I previously understood. What about FERPA protection for student records between the two entities?

If it were my decision, I would elminate the low-utility bachelor degrees at SCUPS and maintain the medium-utility graduate programs, including the doctoral degrees that have been pulled. Also, NCU has some real possibilities on it's own, so why try to coordinate the two strategies. I don't understand...

My guess,

Dave

 

Dave,

My guess (opinion only) is that by design SCUPS can easily operate as feeder system and draw for NCU. The SCUPS bachelor’s is a low dollar, low admission standard, unaccredited degree program, and attraction for a large market segment of students. But what can you do with an unaccredited degree from SCUPS – not much, really. How many accredited schools will accept your unaccredited bachelor’s (or masters) degree or course credits from SCUPS – few, if any.

However, these students can seamlessly transfer their completely unaccredited bachelor’s (or masters) degrees and or credit for coursework from SCUPS directly over to NCU, and gain acceptance directly into NCU’s regionally accredited masters or doctoral programs – no problem…$$$>cha-ching<$$$. Indeed, such as design is a highly effective captive-audience/customer and ported-degree marketing and sales strategy to say the least.

Additionally, with profit as a primary objective, why should NCU bear the full burden and high cost associated with a regionally accredited undergraduate degree program for the vast majority of its undergraduate students when SCUPS can accomplish the same at a much lower cost and without any of the restrictions or guidelines associated with regional accreditation? A quick scan of NCA’s website shows that less than 10% of student enrolled in NCU are undergraduates, which in my opinion could be consistent with such as strategy.

NCU and SCUPS can further cross-sell or up-sell by sharing sales leads, information and referrals. Again, if a student doesn’t bite on the higher priced version, then NCU can pump the student or transfer the sales lead to SCUPS. Likewise, if a student can afford the fully accredited degree program, SCUPS can up-sell them to NCU.

From a marketing and business standpoint this appears to be a case and model of both vertical integration (forward and backward) and horizontal integration: Vertically integrated in terms of undergraduate and graduate programs as well as accredited and unaccredited levels; and horizontally integrated among graduate programs across both schools serving different market segments and operating within different regulatory environments. IHMO, the strategy and approach is a clever business 501 approach (impressive), along with educational profiteering (not so impressive).

Again, these are merely my impressions and opinion… the view and opinion of others may indeed vary.

Tom

 

This is an excellent point, Tom, one which I overlooked. It's a very shrewd strategy; I wonder if regional accreditation will change to deal with the use of "feeder" schools. For example, if SCUPS credits are good at NCU, why not credits from any similar state-approved school?

And consider this conflicting statement from the NCU website: "Students should be skeptical of any institution that makes unqualified assertions that its credits will transfer to all other institutions, or that it is accredited by some organization that is not recognized by the US Department of Education. Accredited institutions do not usually accept transfers from unaccredited schools or schools claiming accreditation not recognized by the US Department of Education."

I was looking for the statement on the SCUPS website announcing transferability of credits to NCU but I can no longer find it.

Dave

 

Rich, as my son would say........

Baaaaam!!!!

You nailed clambake2000 and he is now " outa here ".

As for me, I am still on my never ending search for a DL DBA.

Can't make up my mind although I continue to lean towards the Heriott Watt program.

I even printed an application so I must be making some progress.

I just can't seem to get those darned Autralian programs out of my head though.

NCU was a consideration at one point but every time I turn around I see a hint of skepticism (warranted or not) about the school so I pull back.

 

Hi Rafael - It seems that you've been away for a while. It's good to hear from you. Maybe it's not the program(s), maybe it's the timing. My own program is going poorly but I know it's not the fault of the program, it's just that I have too much on my plate right now. When it's right you'll make the jump.
Happy New Year.
Jack

 

Thanks Jack

Yes, it's been a while. Thanks for the welcome back.

I probably do have too much on my plate now with family illness, new business venture, part time teaching and a two year old
( not to mention the attendant problems of a 19 year old too ).

I am however, SO intent on my cousin not being the only one in the family with a Doctorate that I know I will eventually pick a program and run with it. I just have to feel good about the one I pick and not look over my shoulder at the woulda, coulda, shoulda type of thinking. I intend to pursue the degree to incorporate the title into my consulting practice. Thanks again for the advice.

By the way, I just picked up a new client who got her Doctorate at age 64. I am not sure from where but I really hit it off with her and she told me to do it when the time was right and not to worry about getting too old. I am now 48 so I worry a little about it.

Thank God for DL or I would never be able to do it.

 

Re: Thanks Jack

Well, I'm somewhere between your age and your client's age. Perhaps there's still hope for us, eh?
Jack

 

Tom, very keen insight into the feeder issue. Would this be considered a problem for other schools?

It is quite an interesting strategy. Definitely good from the cost perspective.

 

Glad to have found this thread as it sheds a little light.

I had looked at NCU recently but never followed up on it and just this week I got an introductory email from SCUps giving a brief overview of the graduate programs. Oddly, the signature was from the Director of admissions of NCU, with NCU's phone number, address and website. I read it again to make sure I was not confused from lack of sleep (been a loooong week) but there it was.