Ashworth College --> Ashford University

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by jortiz17, Aug 25, 2010.

Loading...
  1. jortiz17

    jortiz17 New Member

    Hello!

    I've been researching this forum for the past couple of days, soaking in the available information in like a sponge.

    I understand fully the difference between nationally and regionally accredited schools, but I would always enjoy some additional feedback from the community.


    A little background:

    I'm 21 years old, and have attended a local community college for a couple of semesters within two majors--Computer Information Systems, and Criminal Justice.

    Both of my parents have stricken ill a few years back, making it difficult to maintain this path, and has such I have basically flunked out/stopped attending.

    Bills are catching up, so I had to pursue a full time job, and have about $8,500 in student loans to repay.

    I have approximately 12 credits within the Computer Information Systems major, and only 6 within Criminal Justice, and flunking everything else hence the large debt(lol).

    This made me realize a B&M institution isn't really for me, as time constraints and other issues seem to not be working in my favor.

    I have searched on here and have found Ashworth College which is DETC accredited. It looks to be a fairly good online college, does anyone else have feedback from this place?

    I am interested in a BA(Bad Ass, I mean Bachelor/Arts) Criminal Justice degree so I am able to obtain a law enforcement position such as Probation/Parole/Police,etc.

    Ashworth also seems very cheap--at only $80 per credit. It is hard not to click on it right this instance.

    Does anyone have a path they would choose? Now I understand that employers seem to discriminate against DETC accredited in terms of favoring regionally accredited. I have also found Ashford University, which is regionally accredited, and I have contacted them and they stated they do accept credits and Ashworth is on their "acceptable credit transfers list".

    Can anyone offer some insight? I plan on enrolling within the next week. Thanks!
     
  2. b4cz28

    b4cz28 Active Member

    If you’re going to go NA go with Andrew Jackson or Aspen U. I'm sure Ashworth is fine, but Penn Foster is cheaper. I think Aspen has a special and a payment plan. You can also call AJU and cry on the phone to them they will probably hook you up with a scholarship of some sort, there good folks. So if you have to go NA Aspen and AJU would be my top choices. As far as employer discrimination I don't think it will happen. Also you want a school that can put your loan debt in deferment and I know AJU can do that for you, not sure about Aspen but I read that Ashworth can’t do that.

    Abner- what was the under grad special that Aspen has going?
     
  3. tiffer

    tiffer New Member

    Ashworth is a good school if you're okay with the fact that it's not RA.
     
  4. rcreighton

    rcreighton New Member

    It appears that you do not have any of your general education classes completed yet. If that is the case, I would recommend getting as many of those out of the way as you can via CLEP and DSST testing. It is cheaper than any other alternatives that I know of and, if you really commit yourself to studying, you can get a lot of these out of the way in a relatively short time. From there, decide on a school in which you can finish out your core requirements. As you can see from my signature, I am very high on Ashford and their programs but, they are not the cheapest place around either. Ashford does have a liberal transfer credit policy as I had 65 credit hours transferred over to them when I first started there. If you transfer your existing 18 credit hours that you currently have, take a bunch of CLEP / DSST tests and transfer them over, you will be looking at a rather short time remaining to complete your bachelor's degree. Have you checked out Ashford's Bachelor of Arts in Social and Criminal Justice? It may be too general of a degree for you but I thought I should mention it anyway.
     
  5. Casey

    Casey New Member

    And, almost all of their A.S. Criminal Justice courses have been ACE reviewed. I don't think Ashworth has had their courses reviewed.

    In my opinion, ACE recommendations plus DETC accreditation make Penn Foster the better choice.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 25, 2010
  6. TCord1964

    TCord1964 New Member

    What are you implying? The people at AJU are pushovers for a sob story? I'm not sure I would call any college and "cry on the phone to them." What kind of scholarship does a school give you for that? The Diaper Rash Memorial Scholarship?
     
  7. redpo2583

    redpo2583 New Member

    detc

    I went to pennfoster college and now i am enrolled at ashworth college. detc colleges worked for me. i am a law enforcement officer in ny and make over 90k a year. i will not knock detc as it worked for me, i will continue on detc degrees .
     
  8. ShotoJuku

    ShotoJuku New Member

    PFC is a better option....overall.
     
  9. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    I would always recommend RA over DETC, and there are a ton of undergrad CJ programs available online or via DL. Check the links in my sig file.....some are broken, but a quick search of the school's website will get you to the program page (yes, I will get around to updating it at some point).
     
  10. TonyM

    TonyM Member

    Great DETC School!

    I worked for Ashworth for a time and thought it was a great school. It hires big shot scholars to write its courses and uses master's level paper graders who follow the writer's grading system, so there is good quality control. Its courses are self-paced, which adds more flexibility (no deadlines) than the normal semester-based programs. If you're fine with DETC and can learn on your own from a book and guide then Ashworth is a good choice.
     
  11. Randell1234

    Randell1234 Moderator

    You can always take a few CLEPs and get an AA in CJ or something like that from TESC, Excelsior, or COSC. Faster and cheaper. You can CLEP out of the rest of your Associates degree in under 2 months if you have the drive. Just a thought.
     
  12. Ian Anderson

    Ian Anderson Active Member

    Randell's great suggestion is one you should look into - at Excelsior you could use your existing credits as electives towards an AA in Liberal Studies then later a BS in Liberal Studies.

    Also check out DSST exams
    http://www.getcollegecredit.com/resources.html#factsheets

    What are your career goals?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 31, 2011
  13. Ian Anderson

    Ian Anderson Active Member

    Oops - I missed your stated career goal in your first post.

    Excelsior has several options for a CJ degree
    Excelsior College - excelsior.edu
     
  14. rmm0484

    rmm0484 Member

    LOL!!!:biglaugh:
     
  15. ryoder

    ryoder New Member

    Definitely do the CLEP/DSST thing. This is very important because these credits can be done at your pace, cost less, and are considered RA equivalents. Those same credits, done at an NA school, will never transfer to an RA school and once you are NA, you cannot go back. You will never be able to do an MBA at FSU or your local state school in the future. You would have to go back and redo the entire degree.
    If you finish a bunch of CLEP exams and still want to go NA, then by all means go ahead and do it but I would start with CLEP tests.
    I finished my degree at TESC this year after many years of just having a pile of credits and no degree and I did so with CLEP and ACE approved credit like a handful of Penn Foster courses that are ACE evaluated.
    Check out the ACE site and make sure that your classes are ACE approved prior to enrolling.

    It goes like this: RA credit, CLEP/DSST credit, ACE credit, NA credit

    Some schools are even pickier such as AACSB accredited business schools in that they will not accept RA credit from a non-AACSB accredited school to fulfill business requirements, but they will accept CLEP. Strange huh?
     
  16. mbaonline

    mbaonline New Member

    I would argue that you should go RA for credits unless you 100% know your career path and future plans. DETC may limit options in the future, but RA won't.

    CLEP and test first, then finish AA cheaply then move on to a BA degree school.

    Community colleges are really a good way to get cheap distance credits towards the first two years/AA degree. And they transfer better than DETC credits.

    Check your local CC for the cheapest rates or try Clovis in New Mexico, which is reportedly very inexpensive. Your College Search Solution: Clovis Community College, Clovis, New Mexico

    For your bachelors, you might look into state universities in the area in which you live. Also American Public University is a good option. American Public University System - Official Site

    Best of luck!
     
  17. MoreEd

    MoreEd New Member

    I hope this posts materializes... I'm obviously not a spammer or troll :)

    I wanted to go with Penn Foster initially myself, but decided to go with Ashworth because it had the Psychology degree program I wanted, and it was directly responsible for my promotion. It turned out to be a good move. The learning materials were much higher quality than those of the RA school I attended online, and honestly the tutors were far more competent at Ashworth than the Professors I had at the RA a few of which I'm convinced had diploma mill degrees, lol. I won't name the RA school I got the hell away from, but they are very well-known in this arena and it isn't UOP, let's leave it at that.

    I have lots of certifications, and a couple of credit bearing B&M Diploma's (one RA and another issued through a Government program), and after having also gone to both an RA online school and an NA, it confirmed what I already knew; it all comes down to the materials and the instructors, and if it's self-paced it comes down to the materials and the school's support system. There are some NA schools that are far better than RA schools in terms of materials, quality of instruction, quality of instructors, support, and vice versa of course. Even though the norm consensus is that it's RA over NA (and I wouldn't attempt to fight against that), that too really has many variables since either channel won't be a fit for everyone for a variety of reasons. For me, the common RA structure is no longer ideal for my situation because my career is far too busy to adhere to a set schedule now.

    I'm intrigued by schools that have dual accreditation (is there a list of these types of schools?), and I plan to go on to one for either my Bachelor's or Master's at some point. In my mind, if you have an NA degree, a dual-accredited school would seem like a logical choice to make sure your valid work won't be rejected during transfer of credits, and you'll have the future flexibility you need. Further, as much as I understand and can agree with the suggestions to go and stay on the RA path with utility reasons being perhaps #1, the bottom line is that cost is an issue for lots of people nowadays and an RA degree typically costs more from my own observations--a lot more in some cases--though I've been surprised quite a few times by the pricing of some NA schools. From my view, if I can get a degree for a fraction of the cost and then find a school that will take the credits for me to move up to a higher degree it just makes better sense to do that instead of racking up more large debt in a time where most of us can hardly afford to do that.

    Most employers don't know the different between NA and RA. Many don't even know the difference between accredited and unaccredited in the sense that they wouldn't know based on the name of the school alone. This is a big reason people with fake degrees get hired all the time. Hell, most people going to NA's and RA's don't know the difference, and most people don't care. The employers that would be particular about NA or RA are usually doing it because someone at the top decided to make a big deal of it, and everyone below doesn't know that it's being made a big deal because they don't realize that it even matters at all. The HR Manager at my company told me while recommending Ashworth, that all they cared about was that the school was accredited.

    There are a number of RA schools that do accept NA credits (I saw a very long list that I think the DETC or some organization in favor of the DETC made public like 5 or 6 years ago(?). Sure, maybe the list is not thousands of schools or maybe not even hundreds, but there are more than enough that do. All of the RA's I attended or contacted about this told me they accepted NA credits and they either limit the amount for transfer to a certain number (usually about 30) or they accept them all as long as they fit the program structure. You just have to ask the school you're interested in and see what you get.
     
  18. SurfDoctor

    SurfDoctor Moderator

    Here's why your posts don't show up right away: http://www.degreeinfo.com/general-distance-learning-discussions/35100-new-users-ask-where-did-my-posts-go.html It's not because we think you are a spammer or a troll. Once you have made a specified number of posts, yours will show up right away; it's an automated thing. Keep it up, we are glad to have your input. Sorry for the particularly long delay in this one showing up; looks like none of us were online today or last night.

    I agree and have been saying the same thing for a long time around here. However, I wouldn't go so far as to say that most employers don't know the difference between accredited and unaccredited. Also, there are certain industries that tend to focus on the specific accreditation of one's degree, decision makers in academia and the financial sector tend to notice and care about the pedigree of the degree and many hiring decisions are affected by this. Most other industries fit to what you are saying. Experience and the ability to do the job effectively is valued much more highly than the school one's degree originated from.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 16, 2012
  19. MoreEd

    MoreEd New Member

    Heh heh. Yeah, I was being tongue-in-cheek with that one :) I figured there was a minimum post requirement before auto-modding is deactivated.


    You're right. I meant that many employers don't know off-hand whether or not a school is legit without some sort of investigation just because of the sheer number of schools out there, and then some are still fooled after investigation because these diploma mills set up fake accreditation bodies and degree verification services. The hiring departments don't know to check the proper sources so they just take it all on face value because it looks kosher to them. It's sad to think about all the people who are still getting by Recruiters and HR departments with fake degrees from Almeda or Rochville, but the company's have to take part of the blame for not investigating properly since it's a pretty easy thing to do nowadays.

    When I first came to work with my current employer I was supposed to be in a different role, but they put me in the Head Recruiter's job since the regular Head Recruiter was on long-term disability and my intended role wasn't fully prepared for me yet. Any time I found a fake degree on a candidates app I would send the rejection form to HR for processing along with my little investigation so they could be aware of the game. One guy had 6 fake degrees on his resume and had the nerve to talk about all the hard work and dedication he gave to get them, lol. Although, I'll give him a little credit for respecting the level of Ph.D and only buying fake AS's, BS's and Master's degrees. Ya gotta tip your hat to that kind of integrity...
     

Share This Page