EVALUATORS TAKE A SECOND LOOK AT PURDUE GLOBAL AS CONTROVERSY LINGERS

https://news.elearninginside.com/evaluators-take-a-second-look-at-purdue-global-as-controversy-lingers/

 

It sounds like Purdue University - Global Campus is being treated not a real Purdue like Harvard University - Extension School is being treated is not a real Harvard.

 

Not a bad thing, IMO.

I recall that NYU treated its extension school students as transfer students if applying to NYU proper.

 

This is misleading.

NYU, like Columbia, Cornell, Harvard and many other schools, is not a single school. The University label applies as an umbrella over multiple schools and colleges.

If you enroll at Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, for example, and decide to transfer to their College of Arts and Sciences, you are applying as a transfer student. The ILR registrar sends transcripts to the A&S registrar and some courses will be accepted in transfer toward the new degree program and others will not.

The extension school issue is the same. They are separate schools. If you want to transfer into another school within that university, you have to apply for a transfer. It isn't a matter of transferring into the university "proper." The school is part of the university and follows the same transfer guidelines as every other school at said university. Those policies can differ from school to school. But if the University name appears at the top of the extension school diploma, it's still in the same university. People might not have the same respect for that school, but universities don't draw the lines that you're making it out to be.

 

It appears to be analogous to the University of California. UC Berkeley isn't UC Davis which isn't UC Merced or UC Riverside. They are all separately accredited and have their own facilities, faculty, programs and reputations. But they are all University of California campuses and their diplomas all say 'University of California' on top.

 

As is typically the case with these things, it appears to be a faculty labor issue. The AAUP (a faculty union) seems to be complaining that Purdue Global faculty have to sign over rights to their work product to the university as a condition of employment. So the AAUP demanded that the NCA/HLC examine the practice, alleging it is a violation of "academic freedom" (as defined by the professors, basically 'we can do anything we like') and 'academic freedom' is supposedly an accreditation standard. So the accreditor is doing that.

I think that there is just about zero chance of Purdue Global losing its accreditation.

 

I thought that issue had been settled with PG backing away from that requirement. I of course could be wrong.

 

I agree with Steve here, Harvard Extension and Purdue Global are different animals. Harvard Extension requires that courses be taken for the most part from actual Harvard professors, the same basic courses that those in, for example, Harvard College take. For the most part, same classes, same profs, same standards to pass and graduate--the only significant difference is admissions, and that near open admissions standard was employed by law schools for years and years to great effect. Harvard Extension has been a part of Harvard for over a century and has a long-standing tradition and some great alums. HES is legit.

Purdue Global is Kaplan with the prestigious Purdue name slapped on it. Maybe that changes over time, in fact, for all I know maybe that's already in the works, that Purdue will change the infrastructure and make PG a very legit part of Purdue. But for now, Purdue Global has the Kaplan taint, and is not comparable with HES; Harvard Extension is legit, and any snobbery that it's not real Harvard would be in my opinion born of jealousy ("How is it that these jerks get a Harvard degree for chicken feed while we paid $250K for our ABs?") or snobbery that comes from ignorance ("Well, tut, tut, it's not real Haahvaad, just a community college with the Haahvaad name slapped on it.")