Acceptance of DETC-accredited degrees: let's find out!

I disagree with your assessment concluding that Redman's voicing his opinion which opposes the majority view is combative. He has every right to express his perspective and beliefs without being labeled a troll in an attempt to devalue his position and discredit his observations.

Although Chip,as the Administrator and Moderator of this forum has every right to hold a perspective which obviously favors RA over DETC programs, it does create a conflict of interest in terms of providing an open environment in which posters can freely express their opposing beliefs without being under the threat of being banned or labeled as a troll in order to silence their opposition.

 

Simon, we've been through this. There's no conflict of interest, as long as people are respectful and stay on topic. This thread is not on the relative merits of DETC vs RA; there are at least 1,000,000 other threads on degreeinfo discussing that. This thread is discussing methodology and practical aspects of conducting a study to actually collect some more up-to-date data to discern what the actual acceptablilty of DETC degrees are in RA academia, and, possibly, among employers.

Please confine your commentary in this thread to those topics.

 

Interesting data Dr. Bear has presented from DETC. An 18% response rate is very low, and in my opinion caution is in order when interpreting results. There is a lack of data concerning RA acceptance of NA credits. The vast majority of students in this survey do not pursue transfer, and pursue their education for personal satisfaction. Since there is a low response rate, one may speculate that it is the satisfied students who have responded, and not the dissatisfied, and/or those who “underscore” the value of their education by not responding, as Bear comments.

However since we do not have data indicating reasons for the low response rate, it is again speculation assuming positive or negative attitudes concerning DETC education. The aging results are interesting if these results stem from the 64% response from 21 schools. However if the aging results represent the 18%, then once again it may represent inadequate data, though the population in general seems to be aging.

I consider Dr. Bears interesting survey proposal, an attitudinal survey of RA registrars. The relationship between attitudes and practice will still be an open question.

Another issue is that times have changed. DETC has now their own doctorate programs. One may speculate that DETC students now would prefer to continue with DETC schools, rather than apply to RA schools. On the other hand the question of RA transfer can be elevated to the doctorate level. What are the attitudes and data concerning DETC doctorate acceptance in the RA world. This issue has been discussed at length here on DI before.

Another issue (I am very unsure on this) what if CHEA changes their scope to DETC including (and thus accepting) DETC doctorates, how will this change the game.

 

I think it would be good to know also how well DETC or NA credit/degree holders able to transfer credit to foreign universities outside US and also graduate school admissions etc.

I think there is a % of NA graduates who are not from US and or planning to continue their education abroad.

I only heard of 3 out of 3 cases of NA graduates successfully getting in to UK schools.

 

Been away for years but I an opinion here. As a Regional Director for an evening adult program in an RA school in NorCal, I managed the recruitment and evaluation of hundreds if not thousands of prospective students into an RA degree completion program. Under no circumstances would they accept a DETC course, let alone a degree. They prided themselves on hold to University of California standards on courses and degrees, however they did evaluate work experience and technical training and converted some certificates and CEU's to college units...a practice I found interesting. There were even reference books for equivalencies....but nothing for DETC schools...zero credit. I always felt this was unfair but they would point students to challenge testing and proctored exams but never give DETC courses credit. The shame is many DETC programs are more deserving of credit that CEU's or certificates/on the job programs.

 

Sorry for the many typos...bad eyes and typing fast but as recent as 2005 my school would not accept anything DETC. The parallel was University of California acceptance standards. No DETC courses are accepted and DETC degress are totally discounted, neither credit nor degrees are accepted for matriculation. Things might have changed but that's how I remember it.

 

In re-reading this thread, I realized that I never addressed this issue, and I believe it is important to address, even though it is off-topic to the thread topic.

You're right. When I created the names for the various forums 9+ years ago, the raging debates were mostly on the value of unaccredited degrees vs. accredited ones, and the somewhat variable definitions of GAAP as it relates to accreditation. However, there have always been discussions of RA vs DETC in this section as well, and within the last year or two, these issues have become much of the focus when accreditation is discussed on Degreeinfo. While I've always thought of this section as encompassing all accreditation discussions, the title of the forum didn't really reflect that. So I've changed the title to be more inclusive of current discussions.

As I have said many, many times, and as is clearly stated in the "about us" section which is both posted here in the discussion forum as well as in the articles.degreeinfo.com section (written in 2002), DegreeInfo is not unbiased and has never claimed to be. We do not like fraudulent schools, we dislike schools that deceptively market themselves, and, because there is very sound data supporting the position, we believe that, all other things being equal, a non-US GAAP degree or an RA degree will generally have more utility, and therefore in most cases be advantageous over DETC degrees.

However, as with many other issues related to distance education, (and also as stated elsewhere repeatedly) my opinion and Degreeinfo's corporate position on the value of DETC degrees has shifted within the past several years, reflecting the increasing acceptance of those degrees. So while our older articles (which are being updated) are unequivocal in discouraging pursuit of DETC degrees in favor of RA, today the picture isn't quite as clear. There are still a lot of limitations to DETC degrees, but there are circumstances where it makes sense to consider one.

Well, first off, if that's your argument as to why we're biased for RA schools, it goes right out the window, because ELearners has a bunch of DETC schools in its roster, which we will eventually include in the schools that we accept advertising revenues from.

But more importantly, as DegreeInfo does continue to market more schools to help cover our costs (our bandwidth utilization and readership has tripled just in the past 3 months), this will never affect what I or the rest of the degreeinfo staff or mod team say about a given school, or affect which schools we talk about in the discussion boards. I think if you look at schools I've personally recommended or suggested, you'll find that none of them are our advertisers. (Excelsior was, years ago, but has not paid us in at least 5 years.) While I'd love for that to be different, the truth is, you will often find the best values in the schools that don't advertise, at least in part, because without the marketing costs, tuition can be lower.

We will always talk about and suggest the best schools, and the schools that offer the best values within the discussion boards. Schools that support us will be featured here or there in articles, or displayed in banner ads, but once our new database launches, just like the previous version we had in place, it will feature all distance learning programs we know of, not just the ones that help to support us.

Now... all that said, please keep this tread on the topic of evaluation methodoligies for acceptance of DETC degrees, not DegreeInfo's bias or lack thereof.

 

Just add that in the corporate world there is a greater acceptance of DETC. Universities are notoriously snobbish on qualifications, corporations are more interested in whether you can do the job or not. I think DETC degrees are increasing in market acceptance but brick and mortor universities will be slow to accept anything but RA credits/degrees.

 

Again, this thread is not for discussing people's unsupported notions of whether or not there is broad acceptance. It is for establishing criteria to actually research the topic. The acceptance of DETC degrees in the corporate world has been endlessly discussed (along with the detailed research conducted by John Bear and Rich Douglas some years agol) in other threads. Please confine discussion on that topic to those threads.

 

I know I'm late to the game, but my schedule just cleared for the summer, and I'd be happy to do whatever I can for the cause.

 

The criterion should include assessment of degrees at the bachelor, master, and doctoral levels.

 

I doubt I could be of use in this matter as I have no academic connections and no employer but myself, but I look forward to the results should this project come to be.

 

So did anything ever come of this, and if so, what?