Cal Coast to begin three doctoral programs

And I offer none. Just research. I'm glad your CCU degree has worked out so well.

 

The RA state technical college I work for requires RA degrees for teaching positions, but for most other positions, including mine (IT staff), any degree recognized by the US ed.gov is acceptable. Many of the tech schools in Georgia only recently achieved regional (SACS) accreditation, with most being COE accredited.

I know that there are other regionally accredited Ga. technical colleges which do accept nationally accredited degrees for teaching positions. See here for one example: http://www.tcsg.edu/hr/tech_jobs.php?id=1567

 

What can a DETC-grad do that an RA grad can't? Spell "Rockefeller" and "fabulous". Couldn't resist.

 

A third >mispelling< means banishment from the honors program. Oops, there's a misspelling in this blog!

 

I don’t think you’ve answered my question. Has your survey asked these (or comparable) questions in this sequence:

1. Do you accept accredited degrees only?
2. Do you accept degrees only from …… acreditor?

Compare the responses between #1 and #2. BEFORE someone is asked question 2, they may never heard of accrediting agencies. AFTER you ask # 2, they’ll say, sure we want that, and the moon as well.

 

You’re making assumptions about a DETC survey that you know nothing about. Conversely, every time someone on this board makes any mention of DETC, in any context, you immediately come roaring in with your research results and discredit DETC.

 

AviTerra,

Preservation my friend, academia is, as we know it, failing to keep up with the times. They can't compete with DL, hence the desperation here. Let's face it, DL is best served by DETC schools, DL from many other sources is sorely lacking in quality and governance. Accreditation is not stemming the outflow of quality in many of these so called "superiorly, academically inclined" schools. Is there a study to go with this theory or is it just anecdotal at this stage? Who cares.

One thing I know, (as long as my spelling is correct), I have a very good argument here.

The real debate here is, "who is best served to deliver DL"? Is it the ill-prepared schools with too much on their plates already or the schools who solely focus on DL?

 

I'm not seeing Rockefeller listed on the DETC website; am I missing something? This seems to be a key item as Rockefeller's legitimacy seems to be carrying other DETC schools in the minds of some.

http://www.detc.org/search_schools.php?searchSet=true&category=A

 

7 out of 10 is C-, right?

 

LLOL: Literally laughing-out-loud! As though the fact that an RA school has a football team automatically makes it inferior to the mail-order school!

 

Rockefeller is not DETC accredited. The argument, as stated eloquently by BillDayson earlier in the thread, is:

I do think this proves that there are some non-RA schools that are considered good academic schools. But they are, as someone else said, anomalies. Could a DETC be considered academically equal to an RA school as far as their doctorate programs go? Sure; not on the basis of their accreditation, but on the basis of their research, faculty, standards, etc. Are there any current examples of such? Not as far as I know, but I may just not be aware of them.

Why is this necessarily the case? You're saying that a DETC school with hardly any faculty with degrees beyond the master's level and lower standards than a RA school (etc etc) necessarily still provides better DL education than, say, Harvard Extension? That is as ridiculous as saying that all DETC degrees are inferior to RA ones. I'm not saying that ALL DETC schools are lacking in good faculty or have lower standards, but I don't see what makes a DETC school better by definition than a RA school offering distance programs?

 

What are these statements based on? How do you know others are "lacking in quality and governance"? Do all schools have too much on their plate or have departments been created to handle the DL aspects in a tradional school? Where are the facts?

 

That is the case in the department I worked for at a research one traditional university. It was create to support distance learning students at corporate sites throughout Florida. I did some proctoring ( among other things ) in st.pete for our pinellas county students. Each site had it's own individual classroom. Distance learning students were able to interact with on-campus professors and students. We used blackboard, stream live video, use smartboard technologies for our on-campus and distance learning students, host international video conferencing with universities in Europe, accommodate international students using technologies like illuminate and much more. I'm not drinking the DETC Kool-Aid.

 

Hi MightyTiki -

You'd be wrong. WGU would not have gotten an ounce of my money if it wasn't RA, and honestly, the only reasons it got any of my money were three fold.

1. I will not go to a brick and mortar for a IT degree considering the cost and considering that IT knowledge devalues within a year or three to some significant level.

2. It was cheap and a supplement to my already existing undergrad from a brick and mortar.

3. It was fast (tying back to point made in item 1.) The cost/value analysis considering I was reinforcing my job with the degree and getting it done before the tech was old in the real world meant that WGU was a good fit. Tuition reimbursement being at 100% from my employer meant there was no loss on my end.

If I was paying for it, if it was slow, and if it was only DETC, you'd not see me in the program.

Thanks for thinking of me though.

 

Rockefeller U does not have "Regional Accreditation" (RA). Instead, it has a form of "National Accreditation" (NA). The point is that Rockefeller (and a few other graduate institutions in New York State) are well accepted in the RA academic community, despite the fact that they are NA (which is otherwise generally associated with less prestigious schools).

The best-known NA agency is DETC. However, Rockefeller's "national accreditation" is not from DETC; instead, it is from the New York State Regents and Commissioner of Education. This is the only state agency in the US that is officially recognized as an accreditor by US Dept. of Education. It is technically classified as a "National Accreditation agency", despite the fact that it only accredits schools in New York.

So Rockefeller is an example of an NA school being accepted as fully legitimate in the RA community. However, this does not necessarily mean that DETC schools will be similarly accepted, because while Rockefeller is not RA, it is not DETC either.

 

It is understood that DETC schools focus on distance learning. This focus does not imply that they are superior in serving distance learning students.

 

Can you say that authoritatively about someone else, what they know and don't know?

I've read several iterations of this survey over the years. What I said was entirely consistent with their methodology.

Not true. I've had many positive things to say about DETC over the years. But when people over-state the utility of such degrees, they can expect a response from many people, including (sometimes) me.

Here are some real facts to chew on:

a. DETC-accredited schools issue degrees that have a lower level of acceptability to both employers and to academic institutions.

b. There is almost nothing about DETC schools' program content or delivery methods that distinguish themselves over their RA counterparts.

c. The costs are not much of a factor; for every cheap DETC-accredited program one can find RA ones at similar costs.

d. RA schools offer DL programs by the truckloads, and have been doing them for longer than the DETC.

e. DETC's own survey shows a remarkably low level of acceptance of degrees from DETC-accredited schools. In comparison, there is no way an RA school's degrees would not be acceptable somewhere.

f. The posters wanting to change the truth about this situation are, primarily, students and graduates of DETC-accredited schools. Graduates of RA schools, on the other hand, have no dog in the hunt. Increasing DETC's recognition to be on a par with RA doesn't affect them a bit.

g. Only one (one!) DETC-accredited school has gone on to RA. (A couple of others pursued DETC and RA at the same time, with DETC accreditation coming much sooner. Hmmm....)

h. Finally, and here's the kicker: DETC solves a problem that doesn't exist. (Thanks to another poster for that term.) Anything you can get from a DETC school you can get from an RA school, with very few exceptions (if any). What's the rationale for even doing it?


If you're mad at these facts, tough. The truth hurts. If you're mad at the fact that these facts get pointed out, equally tough. But I'm not distorting a thing. And, yes, I know what the $!@%# I'm talking about, which is immaterial anyway.

 

This is uninformed. The number of RA schools offering DL absolutely swamps the DETC boat. A few dozen DETC-accredited schools compared to hundreds (thousands?) RA schools offering DL? And they've been doing it in a meaningful way for longer.

Why is it "best served by DETC schools"? What does that even mean? Can anyone point out any meaningful differences between DETC and RA in terms of instructional delivery? And governance? You're kidding, right? RA schools are not only covered by their regionals, they also tend to have governing boards. DETC-accredited schools are often proprietorships. Draw the pirate!

Is there even a single fact you'd like to present to support your contention?

Actually, you've offered no argument at all, just a bucketful of unsubstantiated opinions from an anonymous poster.

This is a gross generalization, and it is factually incorrect. RA schools focused entirely on DL:

Charter Oak
Thomas Edison State
Excelsior
Western Governors
Walden
Fielding
Union
NCU
TUI
JIU
AMU

I'm sure I'm omitting some.

Repeating a non-truth does not turn it into a truth.

 

Rich - You are my new hero! All of your points are facts and you put them very concisely. I thank people like you that educated me on the usefullness of RA versus NA accreditation before choosing my MBA program. Thank You!

 

a. No one is disputing that there is a lower level of acceptability of DETC degrees than RA degrees. The question is by how much. There is a lower level of acceptability of RA online degrees and RA for-profit institutions’ degrees than RA traditional degrees. The bottom line is that there are a number of fault lines in degree acceptance. You are fixated on one of them.

b., c., d. There are many DETC schools that offer exceptional educational experiences. DETC plays an important role in creating new institutions that bring more competition to the educational field, which in turn increases overall QUALITY. This is true in every industry.

e. There are no DETC degrees that are not accepted somewhere.

f. Therefore….. No one is disputing the fact that RA is more difficult to achieve than DETC. Again the question is the significance. As I mentioned in a., there are three fault lines: (1) RA vs DETC accreditation (2) online vs B&M (3) for-profit vs non-profit. There are probably other fault lines as well.

For some reason you are fixated on the first fault line. I believe that RA for-profits use this feature to distinguish themselves from DETC schools a lot more than traditional non-profits. I’m really not sure that fine universities distinguish between UOP and DETC schools.

I’m not mad at anything. I just find it curious that whenever someone begins a thread mentioning a DETC school, you keep coming on and repeat the same thing.