Aspen University

That's not the point. The point is peace of mind.

Can Jan picture being defensive about an Aspen degree? Rueful in the choice made? If so then the mission, as stated, will not have been accomplished.

 

Jan,

I received a BSBA from Aspen University in 2007 and it has served me very well. No issues in getting jobs and no issues from HR people. It is accredited and they were happy.

The people were great, teachers where knowledgeable and helpful. If a NA doctorate would serve my needs, I wouldn't hesitate to go back there.

I have spoken with a person on this board that is in the middle of his Doctorate in Comp Science. He said there is a lot of writing assignments, but other that, no complaints.

Regards,
Michael

 

Michael, thanks for the feedback.

Would it be possible to connect me with the poster who is involved in the Computer Doctoral Progam. It would be greatly appreciated. Jan

 

Some brand-new financial news about Aspen here: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/aspen-group-present-two-upcoming-120000896.html

Stock Quote: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ASPU?p=ASPU

BTW - Aspen stock is at 19 cents, which is a high for quite a while. Was around 14 cents when I last looked, a couple or three years ago.
And no, I've none to sell you. Call your broker. :smile:

J.

 

Michael, I appreciate your feedback.

I was wondering whether it would be possible to connect me with the doctoral student at Aspen who you spoke with. I would like to obtain his impressions of the program, faculty and curriculum. Thanks, Jan

 

Reality Check

There have been many people on these boards who have taken the party line, “If it will meet your needs, then it’s okay…”

Bullshit. There will still be people who will laugh at you for choosing Aspen. It’s a for-profit school located in a high-rise building in downtown Denver. You can see the building by looking up the address at maps.google.com and choosing the satellite view. Want to know who else is located there? Here’s a partial list: https://www.dobsearch.com/business-lookup/view.php?t=1472851422&searchnum=237759999590&sessid=qf0k4f6sj33hrdn61t82srd076

What kind of offices do they have in this building? One or two rooms? One or two floors? I’ve got no idea, but I’d rather err on the side of caution.*

As for its accreditation, there are many (like l’il ol’ moi) who think DETC is mickey mouse. Fine for accrediting trade programs, but doctorates? Give me a break.

Bottom line: This is a for-profit school, located in an office building, yet purporting to have many schools under the university label. Call me old fashioned, but if a school calls itself a university, it had better have some freakin’ ivy on its hallowed halls. And be non-profit.

Yes, I realize that there are bad non-profits, and even grant that I’ve found a few credible proprietary schools (and no, I won’t name the few of which I approve). The fact is, though, that we rarely ask credibility questions about regionally accredited non-profits, whereas we always seem to question for-profits, even when nationally accredited. (Yes, I know, I’m an “RA or the highway” guy.)

Recommendation: Look at what some of the college review databases have printed from students, both good and bad. Start at Aspen University Reviews - Online Degree Reviews and Aspen University Reviews - Is it a good college?. Yes, you’ll find satisfied students and grads, but you’ll find plenty who are much less than satisfied.

And don’t put too much credence in Aspen’s article on Wikipedia. It reads straight through like an advertisement – possibly written by someone with ties to the school.

There are many people who know nothing about accreditation and don’t follow the profit-versus-non issue. But then, there are many who do. Whether you will run into one of us professionally is a crapshoot, but we’re out there. And we laugh at schools like Aspen. So there. I’m going to go laugh some more.
___________________

*Disclosure: When I scoped out my doctoral alma mater, they were located in the Provident Bank building in downtown Cincinnati. They had not yet bought their own (rather impressive) buildings in the Walnut Hills section of the city. But they had two entire floors at the Provident. How do I know? Because I actually visited them and sat down with an admission person at Union over a year before I applied. Indeed, I would never enroll in a school I had not visited personally. Take heed.

 

His user name is TheTick900 you can try to contact thru IM

 

You're right Steve. I can't get involved in a tuition debt, especially at my age, that can amount to over $80,000 which does not include text book purchases and traveling to residencies.

 

Thank you Michael for the contact information. Jan

 

Steve, thanks for your insights.

I was already aware of the fact that Aspen University occupied some space or floors in an office building in Colorado as well as a corporate office in New York City. I'm not surprised by this finding and am certain that there are other DETC schools that occupy similar settings.

The bottomline is that DETC accredited this school, including its unimpressive setting, which obviously means that this school is providing a level of education that meets the standards and criteria promulgated by the US Department of Education!
In addition, the fact that I'm at an older age, involved in private consultations and will not be receiving financial assistance as an employee of a company, means that I don't have to be as concerned regarding not attending a regionally accredited school that occupies an impressive edifice. Iwill be paying out of pocket and will not benefit career wise from obtaining this doctorate from a regionally accredited school.

 

I am a graduate of Aspen. The school had a very good reputation and I enrolled when David Lady's predecessor (I forget the name) was president. Then Lady was installed as the President and I felt the quality of the school shot up even more. When he left the school-- for reasons that I do not know, but suspect it was because others as Aspen wanted to cash in and Lady wanted the focus to remain on education-- I had a feeling it would go downhill quickly because they hired an internet marketing guy as the school's president. That spoke volumes about the direction the school was moving in. It used to be a pretty active school on this board at one time, but once they moved in that direction, it seemed the talk stopped. Their stock was worth pennies at one point and the best they could offer to try and separate themselves from all the other for profits was to offer monthly payments. Big whoop. Other schools do that already.

Would I enroll again? Only if the leadership of the school was made up of educators, not internet marketing guys. They don't even offer an alumni discount if you want to return for a second degree, there is no newsletter, no outreach to alumni. It feels like one of those "we got your money, you got your degree, now go away."

I would explore other options. It's hard for me to believe they are making money. Their nursing program is respected, I think. That is probably what keeps them afloat. I check here every so often and always prepare myself for the day I see a thread here titled: Aspen Closes Down. It would not surprise me.

 

Heriot-Watt DBA with a thesis in leadership? Anyone know the cost of that DBA?

 

Gbrogan, I hear you clearly. I too noticed that the CEO's selection for this position, as stated on Aspen's website, was "...due to his track record of success in managing early stage and growing businesses, his extensive knowledge of the Internet marketing industry and his knowledge of running and serving on the boards of companies". What is very obviously omitted from this description is the absence of any substantive academic experience or focus on the primary mission of any educational institution;, providing a high quality academic experience for students.

 

I've been attending since the end of 2012 and not sure when Lady came and went. To me the biggest change into the quality and rigor of the program started happening in 2014 and have been ongoing since.

A lot goes into stock price and it has nothing to do with the quality of education. Most of America is unaware of the school and they need to market so that the public has an awareness. SNU, UOP, and Grand Canyon all market like crazy in my area and that is what their growth is fueled by, not academic quality of their programs. Schools that are not established can't rely on starting a football team to make them popular. Most of society identifies IVY league as of high quality and presitige, but it's curious on why people settled on a sports league, maybe a bit of good marketing, you think.

I see the change as positive. Academics is changing rapidly and educators with antiqutaed methods of running brick and mortar schools don't work for online learning. A CEO who understands Internet marketing clearly understands that your public persona is important. If you look at the negative comments made about Aspen, this is what they seem to be fixing. No feedback or slow responses from teachers, turning in plagerized papers and receiving an A, etc... All of these seem to be fixed in my opinion. Even the negative comments about financial aid, which seems to be fixed with the schools self funded payment plan. So no waiting for the federal government, state, banks, or whoever dispurses funds to pay.

Established schools have the luxury of living off their brands. An online school is better served with a marketing department that understands how to market. This is a whole different ball game and educators just are not aware of how to build brands and establish presence. Also the President and educators have different roles and they don't have to be one in the same.

Under the new leadership the school has actually been growing. I believe in June/July they posted that they met their goal of 5000 students currently enrolled. Growth is a double edge sword. Don't grow and the school closes down, grow too fast and you're likely to be in the cross hairs of the establishments that you are taking students away from.

 

I think there is more at play here than we understand. For all we know, unions are lobbying congress and our presidential candidates to curb for-profits. For-profits are challenging the college and university establishments and they don't like it. First online versus on-campus was challenged, but once the established universities got on board it's no longer an issue. Next came the NA versus RA debate, then the larger NA converted to RA. Now it's the non-profit versus for profit. I think had Grand Canyon University been successful in converting to non-profit there would be something else to try and segregate the progressive universities from the establishment.

What I think is being challenged now is overall cost of education and non-profit for-profit are nonsequitors. You don't hear Penn State Masters ($930/unit) tuition being compared to Georgia Tech's Online Masters in Computer Science ($100/unit). They're going to compare Dakota State to UOP as that highlights their agenda.

I like to refer to the topics that people discuss and questions of credibility as the shark attack problem. When there is a shark attack this seems to make headlines as if its some worldwide issue that needs to be solved. But in reality it's such a small proportion that if we stack ranked the list of current social issues we shouldn't be wasting our time and attention on how to solve the problem of shark attacks. Same thing with credibility of NA versus RA or profit versus non-profit. Those are just distractions to what the real problem is, which is cost and quality of eduction.