American schools credibility measured against their tuition rate?

There is something that I don't quite understand though about the US education system in relation to the work field.

I saw that a few universities in Texas were pretty cheap with their tuition. Like 4000$ for an entire degree.
If schools like this exist, why do Americans prefer to pay 50000$ elsewhere then if you can finish a degree remotely from one of these cheaper schools?
Does the US work field automatically label online degrees as less worth than real-life campus attendance degrees?
What about University of the People. Would US employers be biased against the school once they found out their tuition is so cheap, if you were to apply for high positions with one of these degrees?

I work for a US employer and my Belgian degrees were accepted as is and I even sent the educational brochures with them, which mention the yearly tuition cost of 1200$ that we pay, and they weren't shocked or surprised or anything.
Had I been an American citizen, would an American company have raised their brow if I sent them a brochure mentioning that my undergrad degree cost 2400$ in total?
I mean, if American companies understand that European degrees can be had cheap, why are cheap US schools then instantly frowned on but not the European ones who offer tuition at same prices?
It's a tendency that I see a lot regarding American schools. Their credibility is measured against their tuition rate.

Aren't there any American schools that are dirt cheap and that still are highly respected to a same standard as the very expensive ones?

Some random shower thoughts I had.

 

Branding. There is a widespread belief that if you don't get into a top-tier school then you're automatically a failure. You didn't get into Harvard so you shouldn't spend $4k on an affordable local school because that's just a waste of money. While not everyone has this belief. or the inexpensive schools wouldn't exist at all, it does still exist. Employers wouldn't care about the tuition but they might wonder if the school isn't just a diploma mill because "you get what you pay for".

University of the People isn't bad because of its cost. It's bad because of "lesser" National Accreditation + a stupid name. It's only slightly above if this place were to become accredited and you were to put "DegreeInfo.com University" on your CV. It sounds fake.

European schools are (at least from certain countries) perceived as being better quality than US schools. Americans generally understand that European schools are (often) taxpayer-funded, so the price is lower even if it is not free. UK, France, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland are probably "the best" while degrees from other countries might be seen as inferior or equal at best. If you had a degree from a different university, you might not have found yourself quite so accepted.

Online schools have been seen as lesser than in-person schools because, to be honest, they historically have been predatory and near diploma-mills. That's slowly changing, though.

The best compromise between price and respectability that I'm aware of would be UMPI (University of Maine at Presque Isle). Their on-campus programs for HS graduates are the price that you would expect (as an American) for a degree from a state school. But they also have an online competency-based format that works out to $700/mo. This is geared towards adults who have a few college credits already and who have been working for a while. A few people in the other forum have already graduated from them in under 6 months. The school makes no distinction between degrees obtained online or on-campus.

 

I'm a Texan. Which 4-year schools charge $4,000 for an entire degree? Community colleges charge $2,000 to $4,000 per year.

Texas is not all that progressive when it comes to higher education. Unlike California, Texas is not as open to national accreditation or unaccredited schools. So, a degree from University of the People will be limiting.

Credibility is not based on tuition. A disproportionate amount of student loan debt comes from for-profit schools. Walden, Capella, and the now defunct ITT Tech are/were some of the most expensive schools, and they have poor reputations.

The expensive Ivy League schools have a high sticker price, but they also have generous aid, so debt is typically low for their graduates. I would argue that students who attend the more prestigious schools are generally less likely to have crippling debt because these schools have huge endowments allowing them to offer generous scholarships and institutional grants.

 

The U.S., for the most part, has three types of cheap schools.

1. Very expensive private schools that are so wealthy they often cover 100% of the tuition for the middle class and economically disadvantaged students.

2. Heavily-subsidized public schools, which are cheap for the same reason that European schools are cheap...taxes.

3. Bare bones schools that skimp on instruction and lab equipment, and students basically teach themselves.

 

Still can't get University of the People out of my head though.
If I get rejected for Gies' master program then I will apply to University of the People's MBA anyway I think.
As a European I have to take what I can get. Pickings are small.
Most US programs will likely dismiss my application anyway when they see that for my higher education diploma in business 7 years ago I ended up with a cumulative GPA of 2.33, which is a C+, which is bad.
I don't think universities care about the fact that your later diploma's mention higher GPAs. If the undergraduate one mentions a lower GPA you are cooked I guess.

I'm basically trying admission to any affordable program that I can apply for.

Out of 50 applications that I plan to hand in, I guess that sooner or later 1 will bite.
At least I hope so.
Otherwise I'm cooked.

 

Are you sure? I think you said elsewhere that it was a 73? According to https://www.scholaro.com/pro/Countries/Belgium/Grading-System that gives you a B. B clearly isn't the best but it's not a bad grade for getting into a school.

 

Cumulative GPA on my transcript mentions 2.33.
3.0 is a normal GPA for a school admission.
So I'm seriously under it.
My grade is 74% average.
But it's the ECTS system so could indeed be interpreted differently in other countries.
It's confusing that a GPA in one country leads to something else in another country.

 

I think this will ultimately leave you dissatisfied. If you set the bar so low that even you aren't proud of your achievement you'll ultimately feel as empty on the other side as you do today.

 

Probably because the schoolwork in certain countries is more rigorous or just plain organized differently than the work in other countries.

 

Oh I know I wouldn't be too happy with a master of university of the people. Especially because no one believes it's a real school. If you have that on your cv it will indeed look weird. But their bar is pretty low, so I'm keeping them as a '' last resort ''.
But not before I fought as hard as I can to get myself into a decent program.

 

Don't you have a Master Propios degree that was evaluated as an Advanced Bachelors? That should improve your chances of getting admitted into a decent graduate program. You will need a foreign evaluation anyway to have that converted over which that 2.33 will likely be something like a 3.16 equivalent here.

 

Hi, yes, it was evaluated by Naric as advanced bachelor. It's the MBA from Ui1.
I will likely have to need to also have it evaluated by ECE because Naric Belgium will likely not be accepted by American universities as a report. But ECE also evaluates them as regionally accredited bachelor's. In that case I would have a GPA of 4.0 because my master propio grades were all around 9.8 on ten.
But I will for completeness also provide them with an English translation of the Naric report. If an agency reads that another agency evaluated it as regionally accredited bachelor's they will hopely show confirmation bias and also evaluate it as such.

I don't want to have them evaluated by WES though because WES evaluates them as non-accredited master which would be a death sentence for admission.

I hope that the low GPA on my first degree from 7 years back will not cause trouble.
2.33 is a low GPA.
If you have candidates with a GPA of 4.0 why would you admit someone with a GPA of 2.33? I hope they recalculate it to US standards and that it equivalates a 3.0 or something or even a 2.67.

I have never hoped so hard that my admission to a program would be successful, like I'm rooting for Uni of Illinois now.

 

I would not provide the Naric report unless asked to do so. You'll just confuse the admissions people, decreasing the likelihood of not being accepted. Get your degree(s) evaluated by an American evaluator (ECE should be fine) and that's it. American schools don't care about the direct opinions of European academic qualifiers. If they did, you wouldn't need to get a WES/ECE/whatever evaluation.

 

IEE said they might evaluate the Master Propio as a Graduate Certificate which would be even better because it would show you had a 4.0 for 30 graduate hours of work and a graduate school would overlook the low undergraduate GPA which when they convert that probably would be above a 3.0. You will be fine. Worst case scenario would be you get accepted under probationary status but with an already 4.0 GPA at the graduate level provided IEE gives that equivalency, you would likely get full admission. They may even let you transfer some of the those hours from the Propio/Certificate into the program.