why these three colleges have bad reputations (includes UofPhoenix)

The most sure-fire way to get an assertive school to stop calling you is to enroll in their program. So, the fact that you enrolled in SNHU is likely, at least partially, a reason why you didn't experience them being overly assertive.

CTU never bugged me. Of course, by the time I called CTU I was ready to pull the trigger on enrolling. So there was no need to sell me on anything. I called to enroll. Compare with when I called American InterContinental University, however, where I was still unsure about the whole "online college" situation and they called and berated me multiple times a day with an admissions rep telling me that I was being "lazy" and that I "didn't want to succeed in life" and, at least once, telling me that he would leave me alone if I was "content to be a loser for the rest of my life." This was all before AIU was placed on probation by their accreditor for, you know, that exact sort of thing. Still, I have no doubt that the calls from AIU would have ceased promptly upon me enrolling (sometimes which, btw, I had intended to do but began to have second thoughts when they started doing things like calling random numbers on my base trying to have me "paged" and, on one occasion, calling the emergency number for the officer of the day at my "A" school to locate me after close of business).

Things have certainly improved. But things have also changed. Back then UofP required that you be at least 21 to enroll (I think they also let you in if you had at least x number of credits). It was very clearly a school for working adults who wanted to earn their degrees. And, by all accounts, they serve their nursing and education population well. I've not heard a single bad word from a UofP MBA who was actively working in a professional level job at the time they enrolled. One of the reasons that these schools have a bad rep is that they then branched out into the younger and poorer demographics and began promising some of their programs as a means to escape poverty. That's a very different proposition than helping a mid-level manager get the Masters s/he needs to get a promotion. Still, that doesn't mean their product or structure is "bad" it just means that their business model got overly optimistic. There are very few academic (read: non-vocational) programs which can actually pluck a person out of poverty and place them on solid footing regardless of the profit structure of the university awarding those credentials.

 

When i was considering Walden back then i was 23 and i was told i had to be 24 to enroll. I never understood why though. I'm 25 now

 

Completely anecdotal stuff here, but my brother in law, who has no college degree and is a successful entrepreneur (not Bill Gates, but millionaire or just about there) went to UoP about a decade ago, to get that degree he'd never completed (his dad is a retired prof with three degrees, so he was trying to please the father and finally get a degree). He attended UoP for a couple years, but was absolutely amazed at the sheer incompetence of his classmates, he said they were "idiots", and finally dropped out after carrying group after group in the group projects UoP (and most biz schools) are so fond of. He finally dropped out when he realized UoP had absolutely nothing in the way of practical knowledge to offer a successful businessman.

 

That's a very good point, the fellow almost certainly has a genius-level IQ, is an indefatigable worker, an obsessive autodidact, and was already making solid six figures by the time he arrived at UoP's satellite program in his city. I'm not sure the intellectual firepower of Dartmouth Tuck B-school students would've satisfied him.

 

I was already very successful before I decided to return to the classroom. I was a senior executive with 25 years of experience behind me, was earning six figures a year before bonuses and knew that a degree would offer me nothing in the context of career advancement. However, I wanted to finish a degree to set an example for my children, for my subordinates, and felt that it would strengthen my bio in the eyes of new clients. I chose to major in leadership (rather than business) because I was interested in the social and psychological aspects of business. I completed the BA at Bellevue. A few of the students were not very good, but others were quite competent. The group projects were a bit of a drag, but being teamed with lazy and/or incompetent people was still a great experience because that is precisely what happens in the real world! In the real world, we have to deal with many lazy and incompetent clients, co-workers, government officials, subordinates, etc. I found the entire experience to be so helpful I decided to also earn a graduate degree in performance management, also from Bellevue. I found this degree experience to be even more rewarding. Though there were still students who were not quite up to the same level as others, the overall competence and drive of the group was far superior to those at the BA level. I learned a ton. The material, if you take it seriously, gets your mind working in a different way than it once did. It definitely did so for me. Today, I am the president and co-owner of the firm. Would that have been possible if I never returned to the classroom? Yes, I probably would have ended up in the same place, but I am undoubtedly a better leader, a better manager, and a more competent business professional as a result of my educational experience. Even if you are already successful and don't "need" a degree to advance your career, I would encourage continued education. It doesn't have to be a complete degree, but there is always something to learn, or some different way you can apply your existing skills, or some spark that may be created in your brain while learning in a group environment, etc.