Is a DL Doctorate a New Kind of Animal?

If DL degrees are inferior, as has been said in this thread, they will not affect the demand/supply of positions for B&M doctorates. They will become simply a lower form of doctoral degree, something like a super master's degree, which will not be recognized in positions that require a doctoral degree from a B&M campus. Your statement above supports this idea in the fact that companies like Intel will not pay for a DL doctoral program.

You can't have it both ways; you can't say they are inferior and they pose a threat of saturation, these statements are mutually exclusive. You cant say that an oversupply of McDondald's hamburgers will affect the market for filet mignon; if one is inferior, it will not occupy the same market niche. This is what I have been saying all along; if DL degrees are inferior, that's OK, they are still a worthy accomplishment.

 

I agree. Similarly, if McDonald's oversaturates the fast-food market by opening too many franchised locations, this will probably not affect more upscale restaurants. But that's not the point. The point is that too many McDonald's franchises may be harmful if you have invested in a McDonald's franchise yourself.

If you plan to invest in an business doctorate from an online for-profit school like Capella or UoP, then bear in mind that these schools are working hard to attract as many new students, and to issue as many new doctorates, as they possibly can. If they issued 250 DBAs last year, they hope to issue 350 next year, and 500 the year after that. They have no incentive whatsoever to cap or restrain their production; on the contrary, the more doctorates they issue, the more profit they make.

This approach is in marked contrast to traditional AACSB business schools, which typically produce maybe 10-20 DBAs per year, and which probably have been producing at about that same low rate for decades.

But the concern is not simply that DL doctorates may have a "discounted" value relative to traditional B&M doctorates. The additional concern is that the magnitude of this "discount" is likely to increase with every passing year, due to doctorate overproduction by the DL schools. DL doctorates may be inferior today -- but they will probably be even more inferior tomorrow. That's not the pattern you want to see in a long-term investment.

 

But if they continue to go down in quality wouldn't the demand be reduced since they are not being accepted by anyone as "quality"? Wouldn't that force them to increase the quality? Think about what Toyota did to Ford!

 

Not really, 99.99% of the jobs only require an accredited degree. Most businesses wouldn't care if the degree comes from Capella, University of Idaho or Riverside College.

We have implied that DL Doctorates are not so recognized for academic positions but this doesn't really hold for regular business positions.

if a regular programmer with a BS decides to get a Dsc in Computer Science from a DETC school, the degree wouldn't be required for a programmer job but the doctoral student still does it because he or she feels that most programmers have a masters nowadays so the doctorate might give some advantage.

I agree that the whole thing just produces degree inflation and little value added to society. The shrinking economy and higher unemployment rates are being used by online schools to sell programs that society doesn't really need.

 

I agree with you. It has always appeared to me to be a poor investment of $60K or more to earn a DL doctorate. When an individual spends that amount of money for a degree they would have to depend on an associated high-paying job to compensate. We are in agreement about the devaluation of DL doctorates too. As the big players produce large numbers of doctorates, the market for them will become flooded. However, supply and demand will eventually correct that problem and the demand for top-level, B&M doctorates will experience little impact. It will eventually level out to a more stratified array of doctoral degrees. That's OK; it happens with many new technologies and products.

Where we don't agree is in the area of motivation to earn a DL degree. As I've stated in previous posts, ROI is not the only consideration. Moreover, there are doctorates that are not as expensive. I can only bring in my own experience as an example: My RA doctorate from Liberty will only ultimately cost about $14K. Many military men and women will be able to earn a degree for less than that. In those cases, the ROI, while not guaranteed, offers more promise of being positive. In my case, even if I never become even a lowly adjunct, I get an automatic pay increase and the door to promotion swings wide open for me. As Dr. Pina has stated, DL doctorates are best suited to mid-career professionals seeking to gain an edge over their competition.

 

I hold to my previous statement: "You can't have it both ways; you can't say they are inferior and they pose a threat of saturation, these statements are mutually exclusive." What will happen is the devaluation of DL degrees in business fields, true, but that will not affect the demand for B&M doctorates; if anything, it will increase the demand. If everyone has a DL degree, the B&M degrees will enjoy a higher recognition. The result will be, as I have said, stratification.

 

CalDog and RFValve, I respect your intellect and your opinions. I'm going to bow out of this discussion and allow you have the last word. My best regards to both of you.

 

It was a fun exercise and nice to hear all the different opinions about this fascinating subject of virtual universities. Thanks for all the interesting discussions and all the best to you in your doctorate.

 

I agree with SurfDoctor's comment:

"You can't have it both ways; you can't say they are inferior and they pose a threat of saturation, these statements are mutually exclusive."

A influx of doctorates from a school like Capella doesn't diminish the demand for doctorate holders from established B&M schools. "Online" doctorates are perceived as being inferior and are not in direct competition with doctorial programs at traditional universities.

 

If employers stop accepting DL degrees, then yes. For example, it seems likely that the demand for UoP degrees among Intel employees dropped after Intel announced that it was halting reimbursement for UoP tuition.

But Intel is (currently) the exception; most employers are not so discriminating about perceived degree quality. As you stated in Post #105 above:

If your employer was like Intel, and did nothing to encourage or reward your DL doctorate, wouldn't you be less likely to pursue it ?

 

From previous post: CalDog and RFValve, I respect your intellect and your opinions. I'm going to bow out of this discussion and allow you have the last word. My best regards to both of you.

 

But this is not targeted to DL degrees. It says, "The giant chipmaker now will pay for classes only at business and engineering schools with blue-ribbon accreditation. In Arizona, the three state universities and a couple of others make the cut, including Thunderbird, the Garvin School of International Management."

This would apply to traditional schools also (profit or non-profit). As a matter of fact if AACBS was a requirement for tuition assistance some DL schools that are AACSB would work just fine.

 

DL programs yes, for profits no. Are there any strictly distance/online schools that have AACSB status?

 

The focus of this thread is DL doctorates. It's indisputable that business doctorates are a big part of the DL doctorate business.

Intel's policy affects non-AACSB business doctorates. Now, it's true that DL schools like UoP or Capella are not the only players in the non-AACSB business doctorate game -- but they are by far the biggest. So a policy like this has a particularly big effect on DL schools.

No, I'm not. Go back to the cited news story and take another look at the headline: Intel cuts tuition aid for University of Phoenix classes. Did you notice that one particular school was singled out?

Now take another look at the lead sentence: "Intel Corp. employees can no longer attend the University of Phoenix and a host of other schools on the company's dime because of stricter standards for tuition reimbursement." This sentence acknowledges that many schools are potentially affected -- but again, did you notice that one particular school was singled out?

And of the many potentially affected schools, how many were contacted for a response? Again, only one school is singed out: "the move is a blow to Phoenix-based Apollo Group, parent of University of Phoenix ... an Apollo spokeswoman, said the school hopes Intel reconsiders"

You may not like the spin, but it's not "my spin". The whole news story, from the headline to the first sentence to the last sentence, clearly focuses on the negative impacts to UoP. And that's simply because the Intel policy change was perceived as affecting UoP in particular.

 

Let me clarify - programs offered though a DL format would meet the requirements. I do not know of any pure online schools that are AACSB

 

Perhaps UoP had an agreement with Intel previously - I don't know. I said, "You are taking liberty with the article and putting your own spin on it...shame on you!" but removed it quickly because I realized you were not spinning it but the news was. The headline focused on one school instead of an industry/sector.

 

As stated in the story, UoP "relies heavily on tuition reimbursement for its revenue and has long counted Intel among its largest corporate customers."

When a very large and prominent business gets dropped by one of its biggest and oldest customers, that's legitimate news, not spin. I'm sure it's true that other schools were affected by Intel's move, but I think it's also safe to assume that UoP was the biggest loser.

 

I don't believe so. There's a requirement for strong research faculty in order to attain AACSB accreditation.

 

Tuition reimbursement is a big deal for for-profit colleges. If a school participates in Title IV programs, it cannot derive more than 90% of its revenue from them. Tuition reimbursement and VA programs are HUGE for for-profits because they contribute to the 10% side of the funding equation.