Charles Sturt University (Australia)

I really don't know why people get so hung-up about proprietary schools. IMO, all schools operate to make a profit, it's just that proprietary schools are more honest about it. How many billions is Harvard's endowment?

It seems to me that a proprietary school would be more responsive to a student's needs or problems, since the student in that case is *truly* a customer.

Bruce

 

The US for profits, rightly or wrongly, generally have a bad reputation for being degree factories. Obviously a "state" school from a commonwealth country is not going to be painted with this brush.

 

Good points, but what is the purpose of the degree? If it is to get a job (in academia or elsewhere), you have to wonder what the screeners and decision-makers are going to reach for to look up your school. (It is likely they will not have heard of either, but it is more likely that Sarasota will be familiar.) They will most likely reach for one of several guides listing schools accredited by CHEA- or USDOE-approved agencies. Sarasota is in those guides. Sturt is not. The employer is not likely to know that Sarasota is for-profit, or that they hassled you in the sales process, or how much you paid to get it, or how much you worked to earn it. And you may never get to a stage in the hiring process where you can explain the legitimacy of your Australian degree. You might get screened out far sooner.

All other things being equal, I would prefer to hold a degree from Sarasota than one from Sturt--although both would be quite credible. But things are not normally equal, and Sturt represents a fine option for some people. Cost is certainly one of those inequalities--unless you factor in the need to travel to Australia. There is still some confusion about the need to do so for the DBA program. I think it was "no" before but is "yes" now.

Rich Douglas, who isn't doing a degree with either school.

 

You have a "market" of people who want "legitimate" degrees with little work and, in many cases, at any cost (company subsidies). Often it is the proprietary schools that serve this market (vs the traditional schools which serve the market of people who want an education).

 

Putting too much meaning into the tax status of a school is a mistake. Both for-profits and not-for-profits have to do the same things. They have to run their schools, attract students, pay staff and faculty, collect tuitions, fund overhead and adminsitrative costs, etc. There is no practical difference between the two. Both may prosper or either may fail. The difference is in who gets the excess revenue. In a for-profit those go to the owners. In a not-for-profit they must go back into the operation. (I realize this is an over-simplification, but you get the idea.) Neither is immune to corner-cutting, either in costs, academics, or other standards. And the notion that the distinction is somehow made in the market itself--that not-for-profits are for those who want an education while for-profits are for those who just want a degree--is unwarranted and unproven. It is also uninformed.

Both types of structures support schools that will charge what the market will bear, and will meet the standards put forth by the industry. There is no difference.

Rich Douglas

 

That's why regional accreditation is so valuable, it serves as a benchmark of quality regardless of whether the school is "non-profit" (which I believe none truly are) or proprietary. You can't buy regional accreditation.

As far as cost, I think you won't find a huge difference between the tuition of a US RA "non-profit" school (Union) vs. a US RA proprietary school (Capella, Walden).

As I mentioned before, Harvard University (allegedly "non-profit") ranks among the highest tuition of any school in the world, yet their endowment is more than the GNP of many countries. If they are truly "non-profit", shouldn't they lower tuition considering the obscene surplus with which they operate?

Bruce

 

I agree with this, but either CSU or Sarasota are foreign for someone that lives in Canada, so I would stay with CSU since Sarasota doesn't provide to much advantage form me and its far more expensive.

One bad point that I found in proprietary universities in the US is that most of them don’t have research groups and don’t encourage faculty members to publish. In academia, the research aspect is very important. CSU has a credible number of publications in the business area for the contrary I couldn’t find any from a faculty member of Sarasota; this has a lot of weight for me.

 

I got the answer of my question that this University is recognise in US.

When you people say that this University is of not high grade what does that mean?

 

The best source for australian universities is the good universities guide
http://www.thegoodguides.com.au/

You have to pay a small fee (but it is worth it) if you want to see the ranking, Charles Sturt doesn't rate high in any criteria. USQ has a bit higher rank in prestige and very high for positive outcomes from graduates and graduate's salaries. USQ is the main competitor of Charles Sturt in DL. In the other hand CSU has a very wide range of programs compared to any university and it is one of the few universities that has PhD programs entirely on DL, USQ has only the DBA in DL format, its PhDs have to completed on campus (at least some residency). So if you are looking for a PhD 100% non-resident, then Charles Sturt is perhaps one of the very few options world wide.

 

Do you know if they do a Computer Science, CIS or related PhD?

 

1. All PhDs in Australia are what you call "DL" as they mostly do not have a mandatory redsidential componeent. This has been covered several times previously in other threads.

2. The good universites guide is but a guide - don't forget that. Instead of looking at who is in the ranking, look at who is not. You cannot generalise - schools differ due their faculties and their faculty. I don't buy it, I don't read it, and when excerpts are listed in Higher Education, I may read it and then I may not. There is far more to the differentiation of schools that the listing by journalists in a publication printed for sale at a profit.



------------------
Peter French,
MEd MAcc (UNE) CMA
Australia

 

Yes they do, if you give me your email I will forward you the document that I got from them regarding their PhD in Information Technology

 

All? Peter this is not true, at least this is what I got from USQ, UQ, Australian National, Melbourne, ECU. They have a minimum residency of at least 2 weeks or more a year for the business faculty, some, like USQ, need much more than this, for an australian resident it is not much but for someone in the US this is not really a 100% DL since two weeks in Australia might cost as much as $6000 US a year (if you don't have kids), plus you will have to give up your vacations. The only university that has "zero" residency requirement for the PhD is CSU, at least in the business faculty.

 

This same topic came up on the "Australian Prestige Guides" thread of 7-14. I reproduce my remarks from that thread:
**************

It's interesting that this listing, which seems to divide Australian universites into bands with the schools listed alphabetically within the bands, is basically a listing of universities by AGE, from oldest to youngest.

There are the 19th century foundations, plus ANU. Until well into this century there was basically one university per Australian state, with perhaps a second like UNSW in the larger capitals.

Then there were a group of roughly 1950's-1960's additions.

Then a new group started appearing in the late 80's and 90's, up to the present. Former colleges of advanced education or whatever they were called, upgraded to university status. Charles Sturt, So. Queensland and the like.

My feeling is that a lot of this is just a matter of name recognition. The newer and smaller places aren't as well known as the larger and older places. Just as in the United States, when asked to name "good" universities, people well say "I don't know... I guess..." and then produce a list of the 'usual suspects', the schools with high profiles.

It would be entirely different if you asked subject specialists about good programs in their research specialty.

But if you asked a LOT of subject specialists about a lot of different specialties, then statistically averaged the results, you would probably start to approximate the age/name-recognition list. That's because the older/larger schools offer a wider array of academic programs, being older and larger. So there is a greater chance of finding a productive doctoral level program in your specialty (whatever that is) at one of them.

Which is a VERY different thing than saying that research done at a newer/smaller school is necessarily of a lower standard because of the name of the school it occured at.

 

I agree. In fact, it is getting increasingly difficult to distinguish between public, private and proprietary schools. Many public and private-nonprofit universities operate high-demand programs at least in part for the money they generate. That's a major factor behind all the countless MBA programs. Many public and private universities are getting into distance education explicitly as a source of revenue.

This stuff is addressed almost every day on the Chronicle of Higher Education's distance education website. There was a story there a couple of days ago about how some of these schools have recently started reconsidering their DL ventures because the cash-flow has not been as high as originally anticipated.

I see both good and bad in it.

One model is demand (student) driven. It features greater engagement with the practical needs of students, and by implication with the business and industry that hire them. But it may tend to cut corners to satisfy student demand for quick and easy degrees.

The other model is supply (faculty) driven. It features an agenda set by qualified specialists who can stress what is valuable rather than what is popular. But it may tend to devolve into a series of hermetically sealed little protective fiefs, dominated by academic conceits and insulated from disturbing influences.

 

From the student point of view, I wouldn't go for a for-profit organization, not because they are bad, it is a matter of stability. Who knows if they going to be there in 10 or 20 years from now, I don't want to get stuck with a degree from a school that doesn't exist anymore or have changed its name to make it more commercial.

 

Is that why the University of Liverpool sells those cool little stickers to Trinity C&S graduates to put on their diplomas?

I think that Commonwealth universities are among the worst offenders in the commercialization of higher education. They market themselves shamelessly in Asia. Is that because they just want to selflessly help all those poor Asians, or because they see a huge market and lots of money to be made? The Heriot Watt MBA is apparently the largest MBA program in the world, with virtually no costs to run. But I'm sure that money has never crossed their minds.

As I just said on my last post, I have mixed feelings about this commercialization trend. But I think that it is an error to turn up your nose at American proprietary schools, while turning your back on Commonwealth schools doing the exact same things.

 

Hello RFValve,
Can you send to me the documents they sent to you regarding PhD in IT.
Thank you in advance
[email protected]

 

Many UK and European universities cannot recruit adequate students to their residential programs. They can get substantial revenues through their Off campus and DL programs offering in Asian countries. There are hundreds of those programs, from UK, USA, Australia, Canada, etc, offering in Asian and other countries. In short, they offer those programs for money.

 

As Bear reports, some 30 or so accredited schools go out of business every year. Obviously, most of these are brick-and-mortar and not-for-profit (the prevalent model).

Not very many accredited DL schools have gone out of business over the years. Beacon College, Prometheus College (candidate), International Graduate School (candidate). Beacon was not-for-profit; I'm not sure about the others. Any others that disappeared?

Rich Douglas