NY Times: article critical of U of Phoenix

Interesting Blog post about the article

Just ran across an interesting blog post from Peter Klein, Ph.D. (UC-Berkeley - now teaches at Univ of Missouri) that I thought was interesting. You can read the full blog post here, but I've provided an excerpt below.

Blog Post URL: http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2007/02/12/the-university-of-phoenix-and-the-economic-organization-of-higher-education/#more-669

 

My bachelor's degree is from UoP and I'm now doing grad work at Penn State.

The UoP was more rigorous by far. I haven't seen (yet) any difference in the quality of the education.

Frankly, I preferred the format of the UoP online to the PSU online. The ancient Outlook based system actually is more user-friendly than the Angel system used by Penn State.

Where UoP needs to get its act together is in the marketing. As an earlier poster said, they need to knock it off. They are watering down their reputation unnecessarily. A good reputation will enroll students, not a high pressure sales person. A person goes to school because they value an education, not because they are "sold" it.

 

Very true. Annoying pop-up ads and pesky telemarketers are not the way earn prestige.

 

Speaking of annoying telemarketers, I gave my info to Boston College (which is slightly prestigeous than UoP) some time ago re their DL Crim Justice Master's program, to largely get the information.

I keep getting calls from them-- from an obviously Indian-based telemarketing room. They still persist despite telling them to bugger off numerous times!

 

You mean Boston University (big difference to us Bostonians).

The BU online CJ program is contracted out to a private company, who no doubt uses another contracted telemarketing company. I believe the University of Cincinnati does the same thing.

 

You're right-- mea culpa. Is the actual teaching contracted out, or just the marketing, do you know?

 

IIRC, the actual teaching is contracted out to a company in Florida.