Online diplomas are trash

But it is a standard. Some have even suggested that it is the "gold" standard with regard to business education. If that is the standard to which some (including myself) have decided represents the minimum for high quality education, then relatively speaking institutions not meeting that standard are sub-standard.

Some here would like to suggest that the quality of education is the same across all RA institutions. That is clearly farcical except in the sense that a NA/RA degree is a means of satisifying the minimum employment requirement for jobs requiring college education or perhaps meeting the entrance requirements of graduate school. While we expect all RA degrees to meet these requirements (with some exceptions) saying that this is the same thing as quality really assumes that everyone respects the same standards. Clearly this is not the case.

 

I have never heard anyone suggest that education is the same across all RA schools...it's not. Nor is the quality of education the same across all AACSB schools, or NA schools, or any other broad generalization of schools. That's a ridiculous notion. The quality of education has less to do with the accreditation and MUCH more to do with the school, the program type, the teacher, the assignments, the follow up, etc. I've taken courses from unaccredited schools, NA schools, RA schools (AACSB and not), brick & mortar schools, distance ed, etc. By far, and I mean BY FAR, the most challenging and most rigorous was Briercrest College, a NA school. Briercrest had outstanding materials, outstanding interaction with the students, extremely tough standards, great teachers, etc. On the other hand, I'd rate LSU, an AACSB school, as only fair. Brigham Young, another AACSB school, I'd rate as Good, but not great. Penn Foster, a NA school, I'd rate as Good...along the same lines as Brigham Young. So, it's ridiculous to make sweeping generalizations that attempt to link quality to accreditation type. If you were to suggest that an AACSB degreewould be preferred by a tiny fraction of employers that actually know something about accreditation, I might agree. But that has nothing to do with the quality of the degree...only its utility.

Pug

 

He's definitely talking about Strayer. I worked in Arlington for 5 years in military education and we had an NVCC professor that had a vendetta against Strayer because they accepted ITT and Parks College (non-RA) credits.

Not my words btw.

 

Ivy league MBA's are trash:

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/4886.html

Ha ha!

Sorry, couldn't resist!

Seriously, who cares what Professor Gary thinks. It took him 5 years to figure out that the school was in Arlington rather than DC.

Susanna

 

Can you name one ratings survey that shows that Briercrest is equivalent or better in quality than LSU or Brigham Young? Or, are you suggesting that people make up their minds about quality by taking courses from every institution they are interested in? Do you have an AASCB accredited degree?

 

Good points Pug, I agree 100%



Abner

 

Then I ask the same questions to you that I did to pugbelley.

 

Exactly... and the unfortunate part is that the elitist has the mindset that the other 4,300+ business programs are substandard because they lack that accreditation... and they, for the most part, base it primarily on rhetoric. They never take into account the critical factors that make a program great; things which have very little (or nothing) to do with accreditation. I doubt that all of the AACSB accredited programs are great, and I also doubt that all of them are better than programs that don't have AACSB accreditation... of course they could be, but no one can know that for sure... it's a no-brainer concept.

It would be a safe bet to say that many--if not most--of our best and brightest business professionals never took a single business course offered under AACSB accreditation. Yet, somehow, companies still hired them and they turned out okay.

I just laugh at the elitist... their nonsense is entertaining, but sad at the same time.

 

This fellow certainly has some weak arguments. But can we take a minute to look past words like "trash" and consider his observations? I share some of his concerns.

1. Little or no library resources - this is a big concern. Graduate education is, in part, defined by the literature that students are exposed to. Far too many schools use single undergrad textbooks in MBA courses. This isn't graduate work.

2. Unproctored exams - I'm waiting for somebody to get their dog through an MBA program. The lack of proctored exams is a concern that on-line schools need to act on.

3. Pressure for grades is a serious problem. Student friendly schools cross the line when they push faculty to give out easy grades. As an adjunct the easiest policy is to give everyone an A. It happens all too often. I know of one shool that has raised their "honor" level to 3.85. Why? Too many instructors give all A's. And if you dare to give B's, you'll get slammed by students.

4. Open enrollment - I'm especially concerned when I see students attend an open enrollment undergrad program and then go on to attend an "open enrollment" MBA program at the same school - and that employ a fair number of their own graduates. Inbreeding can certainly lead to problems. As for open enrollment - I know of some on-line programs that make admission to their MBA program an automatic for all the school's undergrad graduates.

5. Andy's own opinion - I see far too many students that are math shy, and expect to earn an MBA without working numbers. Certainly "soft" skills are important. But numbers (in accounting, finance, statistics, and operations) are real. I constantly hear students complain when they are asked to work with numbers. My feeling, quite frankly, is that if a students wants to earn an MBA he/she has to do numbers. Telling me that "I don't do math" is unacceptable for a person who wishes to "master" business administration.

Regards - Andy

 

Re: Re: Online diplomas are trash

1. You could always visit a nearby physical public library, or a University/College library. The schools in my area will allow anyone to use the library, and all they require is a daily guest pass which is free... I do it all the time.

2. Not every school offers unproctored exams.

3. From the info I've seen, the dropout rates for online programs are enormous. It may be possible that many of the people who stick around are simply dedicated enough to put forth the work necessary to achieve good grades. Now of course, much of it could simply be the product of a school being soft on grades too, I admit... but, with all of the online dropouts I don't think this creates any imbalance. The first week of my online program, 15 people dropped out. Sure, the fact that we had 11 assignments due week 1 had something to do with them dropping out, but you know what? Too bad for them. They were obviously lazy and not ready to work. I say good riddance to them.

4. I think the dropout rate balances out the open enrollment situation. You may get a class of 50 and 36 of the people are idiots, but chances are that by Week 6, only 20 people are left anyway. I think its a situation that controls itself at many schools.

 

Re: Re: Re: Online diplomas are trash

Let's see --- if all 14 of the non-idiots (50-36) stay with the class, that still leaves 6 idiots in the class. I believe that school needs to review their selection standards.

 

LOL. I can't disagree there entirely. However, even Harvard and Yale has their fair share.

I feel that even though a person may not be very bright, just showing up and working hard is commendable. Repetition is of course a big part of learning, and even they can learn just by putting forth the effort. They more than likely won't beat out the better student's GPA's, but we often find people who weren't the smartest and didn't have the best grades having success after College.

 

<<Little or no library resources - this is a big concern. Graduate education is, in part, defined by the literature that students are exposed to. Far too many schools use single undergrad textbooks in MBA courses. This isn't graduate work>>

I suspect that most accredited online schools have pretty substantial library resources.

For instance, Capella uses online aggregated databases that provide full text access to many (most?) peer reviewed journals. In psychology, its access to journals is pretty impressive and far in excess of any but the most gigantic physical library (I doubt that many libraries subscribe to ALL of the APA journals, for instance).

It also subscribes to WorldCat a listing of most library collections in the United States. Learners can get books via interlibrary loans from this. In my own experience the turnaround was reasonable (a week or so).

They also have some sort of affiliation with Johns Hopkins libraries, but not sure of the details.

And they have a staff of librarians to assist learners. These folk were quite helpful. For instance, I needed a seminal article by John Bowlby (published in 1944). Now, very very few libraries in the United States are going to have a collection that includes a British Psychoanalytic journal from WWII. I requested it and within a couple of days the article was emailed to me as a .pdf.

This kind of approach is likely to be the wave of the future, for both B&M and online schools. This is evidenced by the WASC's accreditation guidelines that were changed from requiring on-site library facilities to 'making library resources available.'

Regards,
GME

 

No, I can't. Surveys typically group schools into tiers and "judge" them against others in the same tier...tiers that are almost always based on tradition and tuition The type of survey you are requesting simply doesn't exist.

No, I do not have an AACSB accredited degree. I am a top executive in a DC based property management and development firm. My primary colleague in the firm holds a PhD and is a part-time, adjunct professor at a local AACSB university. (I mention this only so you have a background of my experience when it comes to the business world...so that you may know that my opinions on this issue are not arbitrary, but are based on verifiable experience). In my position, I get to interview, hire, train, evaluate, and fire, Regional Directors and top managers. I see their resumes and then get to see how they perform on the job. Over the years I have seen no difference between graduates from "top flight" schools when compared to those from "run of the mill" schools. In fact, some of the best performers over the years have been those with only an AA degree or no degree at all. I'm not suggesting a degree isn't necessary, not at all, but I am suggesting that a degree is not a reliable indicator of performance or skill. In the same way, the school where a degree was earned is also not a good indicator of skill, knowledge, performance, etc.

My assessment of school quality is not based on surveys, but on personal experience, as is my assessment of employees that have worked for me over the years, each earning their respective degrees, if they have one, from a variety of institutions. You don't have to accept my account.

Don't get me wrong, I am not knocking AACSB, not in any way! You are clearly very proud of your AACSB degree, and you should be, but to suggest that all AACSB schools are superior to those that that are not AACSB is a preposterous notion.

Pug

 

I think this whole thread is a bit silly - and reminds me a bit of grade school (My dad can beat up your dad type arguements).

I think Thomas Stanley (Millionaire Next Door/Millionaire Mind) has firmly established that college education and GPA is hardly indicative of net worth (with the exception of law and medicine...but even then with caveats).

Given that we're talking about business degrees - it may be prudent to realize that GPA and school tier has far less to do with one's financial success than the basics; living below ones means, prudent investments, etc...in short, business. Of course, that is the distinction between theory and practice.

As one respondant in the Millionaire Mind put it 'I got a 2.01 GPA. If they had paid me dollars for grade points - I would have had a 4.0...but I was too busy making money.'

Well said IMO...and speaks volumes towards the utility of a 'checkbox' degree rather than trying to draw dubious lines in the sand (regarding DETC, RA, AACSB, Ivy League).

And for what it's worth, I don't recall Stanley ever discussing AACSB as being statistically significant. Of course, I could be wrong. And to be fair, I am making the assumption that those in business school are interested in making money...which may or may not be the case (again, theory vs. practice arguement).

Greg

 

Re: Re: Online diplomas are trash

This is a very good point. Possessing a variety of quantitative abilities is/was the traditional hallmark of the MBA. I too have heard students push back on the need for quantitative skills, which leaves me wondering what they hoped to learn by earning an MBA that they couldn't have gleaned from reading the WSJ each day.

Dave

 

Re: Re: Re: Online diplomas are trash

Online libraries are becoming a good way to overcome the problem of lack of libraries.

The issue is the saturation of MBA programs. Not only online schools but also B&M schools are making easy to get an MBA.

Many schools are starving for students so they drop proctored exams, math courses, GMAT requirements, time, etc in order to get that share of the market.

I have seen many B&M schools offerering online MBAs and their websites clearly state "enroll today and start your MBA today". Many schools just need you to fill up an online form, pay 50 bucks and you are in.

This is not an issue for online education but for MBA programs in general.

As for the math skills that Andy mentions, I have seen many "Executive MBAs" that almost drop completely their stats, management science courses with the argument that these programs are for those in top executive positions that don't need to get their hands dirty.

So at the end of the day, getting an MBA degree is really a matter of just having the cash for it.

 

Sounds threatened to me

Wow if those are his only concerns no problem. He's insane. It appears as though he's one of the many who are angry that online opportunity has afforded others to earn the degrees we have, and that makes certain people feel threatened. He seems like an attack dog salivating; most certainly someone who feels intimidated or as though he's losing power due to the sheer number of graduates online schools are producing.

Im the co-author of Make Money Teaching Online, and I have done a substantial amount of research to dispute claims such as this.

Danielle Babb, PhD
www.teachonlinebook.com
www.commissions-at-risk.com
www.drdaniellebabb.com