Ashford Accreditation Update

Belief and firsthand knowledge are two very different things. If I'm not mistaken, neither of you have ever actually attended the school.

I attended the school for an entire semester, didn't use most of the overpriced textbooks not because I didn't want to but because the lesson plans didn't even utilize them. I did very little actual work, and I mean it, but I still got a 4.0 GPA. How is that rigorous?

I watched as a Professor took poorly written papers (poor grammar, bad spelling, elementary logic) and pinned them to the class board as examples of what good papers should look like.

In one class, we were awarded points for introducing ourselves. Is that rigorous? Perhaps if I'd stayed longer I would've been able to receive points by showing a video of myself successfully tying my shoes.

The only rigorous part about Ashford University was dealing with its incompetent faculty. "Student Advisors" who advised nothing and whose favorite answer to every question was "I don't know", dishonest, rude "Professors" who couldn't be bothered to answer questions, ever... and management faculty who believed that apathy for the very people who keep them employed (the students) is a virtue.

One "Professor" who would never reveal where he got his BBA or Masters from (I'm convinced it was from a diploma mill) actually went to the trouble of changing my grades. Not correcting them, CHANGING them. But the idiot didn't realize that I was keeping saved webpage records, screenshots, and .pdf's daily just in case. I confronted him about it WITH THE EVIDENCE and he claimed he'd done nothing, but when I contacted Bridgepoint they confirmed that he did indeed change all of my grades to failing; they told me the dates, times, and prior scores, and confirmed his username stamp. This was yet another episode after he'd failed me on an assignment where I had all the correct answers with textbook proof and I simply asked him if he would explain to me how these answers were wrong. Apparently, providing clarification was--in his mind--beneath him. I was kindly associated with a number of students there, so I asked one to send me the paper she'd submitted. This student' paper had all of the same answers save for 2 that were wrong, but she received a passing grade with essentially the same paper I'd submitted! This "Professor" was obviously playing a game.

When I went to the "Dean" about all of this, all she did was stick up for this scoundrel, attempting--and failing--to double-talk me as if I'm some kind of moron whose supposed to just capitulate to her because of her PhD, neverminding the concrete evidence I had of what was happening shown both from me AND Bridgepoint themselves. Nevertheless, my grades were eventually fixed, and after my grades were fixed I withdrew.

Time passed and I was now long gone, but the "Dean" in her infinite stupidity decided to send me a "letter of reprimand", to which I responded in an explosion of chastisement that I'm sure she will never forget for the rest of her life. The fact that she had the gaul to submit that garbage to me was one thing, but the second fact that I'd ALREADY WITHDRAWN and was no longer a student at Ashford made her message beyond unacceptable. It coud've been considered harrassment at that point, and I did not let her escape without being taught a verbal lesson. Looking back, I should've filed a complaint with Ashford's accreditor.

After withdrawing and enrolling into a real school, I suddenly get a letter from Ashford's Financial Aid department with a bevey of charges that were totally inaccurate, meaning I was being charged a lot more than I was supposed to be. Of course, I'd kept records of all of the expenses in the same way I'd kept class/grade records. I spoke to the person in charge of this and she was unhelpful, rude, and dismissive. So I kindly presented the information by fax and email along with a legal threat and the contact information of my legal counsel which happens to be one of the largest Class Action-focused law firms in the country. After that submission, MAGICALLY it was all fixed in less than 24 hrs.

... but hey, if all of that's to be considered rigorous then Ashford University is at the top of the heap!

The sales practices are a separate issue. You can have bad sales practices and still have a great school, but Ashford is bad on both counts.

I'd love to believe that Ashford has improved since I left years ago, but evidence to the contrary continues to come up from students (past and present), faculty (past and present), and now a regional accreditor.

 

The sky is falling!

 

I guess the question I'd have relates to whether or not you've attended other online, for-profit schools so that you can make a comparison. While I don't have an online degree, I've written or facilitated for 7 different programs. I do not find AU to be on the bottom of that list. Or close.

One bad professor does not make a bad program or a bad university.

 

I now hold several degrees earned online since then. I've also taken classes at a number of online schools here and there as well. I'm not going to say all of my experiences at other schools were great, but none of them came close to the nightmare I experienced at Ashford.

And you may be a good Professor, a good course designer, etc., and obviously your experience with Ashford was great. But, just as your experience in that realm was positive at Ashford, there are others who've been in that spot who have a very opposite experience.

I also realize that while my experience was horrendous, there are people who've had wonderful experiences there. When dealing with any organization, it's always going to be a YMMV situation.

No, but there were 2 other Professors who were plenty awful, too. And, as I mentioned before, there were problems at just about every level of the operation when I was there, from admission to withdrawal and beyond.

If nothing else, we know that the program I was in was a mess because it had an obscene dropout rate, lots of quality issues which have become public, and it has--AFAIK--been dropped from their offerings.

 

You know of any other schools that are hiring online adjunct TAs?

 

Hmm. I've lived in both Colorado and Washington. Maybe I should move back. (lol)!

 

No. I don't work for any other schools that use that same model. I'm faculty, not TA.

 

My wife had a very different experience at Ashford, it was more along the lines of Steve's friend. I find that everyone has a personal reason for damning school they may have attended, or not (bandwagon?). I hear it all the time here, hell I've done it. Although the former stated that he was a student, no one actually really knows for sure who anyone is here and I am not here to question that fact directly. HOWEVER, even if it is true, and he was a student, his word is not representative of everyone's experience at Ashford.

I had different experiences with my classmates at NYIT (formally Ellis of NYIT). I had lots of issues with the Ellis of NYIT administration and student services when I was a student. Even after Ellis U broke away from NYIT and went off on there own to finally lose their RA, some STILL stayed with Ellis University and went on to graduate. It was love I guess.

On the other side, many of us in fact decided to stay with and be NYIT "only" students thus leaving our Ellis troubles far behind yay!! The big surprise was we STILL had many issue. So YES some problems remained, even with NYIT in charge. My experience with some of the Professors was that a few sucked and some were easier than others to deal with. On several occasions I got grades, both GOOD and BAD that I feel I did not deserve. My Military TA pay was still a mess after the split, that was until the VA started paying via The Voc Rehab Program the life was good. I could go one forever about issues I had with different schools. My point is, Ashford has it's issues YES, but from what I have seen (and been part of every night at home) it's just not that bad on the big scale. Business practices and greed seems to be the common denominator with the rash of the for-profits troubles.

 

That entire block is redundant since I and others have covered that thinking already. At the end of day, you don't know me, and I don't know you. You may not have been a student of any of the schools you have listed in your signature, but for me to expressly question it in even a subtle manner would be stupid since you've given zero reason for me to even come to the point of implying that you didn't attend those schools. By the same token, I've given you zero reason to even approach the implication that I didn't attend Ashford.

But this would indicate that you haven't been paying attention to anything that's been happening with the school, yet I don't believe that's the case since the information has been out there for a while now and it's been hard to miss.

My story can be removed from the discussion and it doesn't change the countless other stories of terrible experiences had by other students and faculty. Look them up, they're not hard to find at all. It also doesn't change what has been said by a regional accreditor (WASC) in their finding of the school's academic quality being substandard in many critical areas, in addition to substandard qualities in their overall administration; I'm not making it up, you can read it for yourself. This is a concrete fact; not an assumption, not a feeling, not an opinion, but a fact released from a reputable accrediting body.

Look, this is not about what just one former student said. The problem is bigger than that, and quite frankly I find the attempts by a few here to marginalize the schools problems as if they're just a few isolated incidents (or the implication that my situation was just an isolated incident) to be irresponsible given the public facts released about the school's problems. It would be a different situation if I were the only person involved with the school who ever had a big problem, but that's not the case in the least bit, and people need to stop acting like it is now that the 3rd party facts are out in the public.

And rather than trying to marginalize complaints people have had against the school, why don't we look at how the complaints line up so closely with the findings of substandard academic and administrative quality as found by WASC? Surely, all of these people (students, faculty, and A REGIONAL ACCREDITOR) can't be lying and therefore part of some massive conspiracy.

Ashford is just another For-Profit that got too big for its britches and put quantity of enrollments over quality of instruction and made sure to have a lot more admissions staff than instruction and advisory staff to keep the money rolling in. That's why they're in this mess now; those are not my words, those are the findings of a regional accreditor. Period, end of story.

 

And that was wrong to do somehow?

I never did anything of the sort.

On the contrary, what I see (and not just what I see but what has actually happened a number of times here) are people posting in response to my past situation in various ways to marginalize it or imply that it never happened.

Well, they could've gotten a good education, but they chose Ashford, so...

But you're right about one thing; people can certainly feel anyway they choose...

 

But I don't believe I've discounted anyone's experience. I've given my personal experience and also detailed the public experience of others who have attended the school, and in addition to all of that pointed out the very negative findings of a regional accreditor.

So since I've never said or even implied that "Oh you had a good experience with Ashford? You're a liar!" to anyone, I can only conclude that your view of me somehow "discounting" the good experiences of others is based on the fact that I've brought up the bad experiences of my own and the bad experiences detailed by others.

I wrote that subtlely in the last quote, tongue-in-cheek. As I said in an earlier post, I realize that people have had good experiences there. I've never once told those people it didn't happen or tried to convince them it didn't happen (which would be kind of crazy in the first place, lol).

But it's not like when I point out how easy it is to search the net and find some wild stories about Ashford from past/current students and employees I'm somehow negating the stories of those who had a positive experience.

I'd love to post about positive stories of Ashford but I don't have any...

... Maybe NMTTD has some? *searches... searches... searches* Nope, all bad.

Yes, but to be fair, only Ashford brings out the snark in me... well, most of the time anyway.

 

Ashford but I don't have any... ... Maybe NMTTD has some? *searches... searches... searches* Nope">