NCU was More Rigorous than California State University

I agree but who would buy a Master's when everyone is getting a PhD? The school wouldn't be able to survive with only Masters due to fierce competition with more established schools, its main strength is the "PhD" brand.

I think that we all agree that the PhD offered by online schools is not the same as the Phd offered by research oriented schools but it is also not a Master's because the dissertation requirement that regardless of its rigour still requires a considerable amount of effort.

Schools like NCU target a very specific market, they know that they wouldn't be able to sell a very rigorous program as the market for this would rather go with a more established school. They know that many require the brand "PhD" but they are not interested in taking research oriented courses and many take these programs for career change so they need a more professional focus.

We cannot blame NCU for offering the programs they offer, it seems that they are doing a good job selling them as people are buying them and they can afford to keep increasing their tuition fees as there is a demand for them.

I'm not too sure if the school would be able to survive if all of the sudden would change their courses to very rigorous with dissertation process in pair with more research Universities. I'm sure people would complain a lot more and they wouldn't be able to sell a lof of these doctorates. We can argue that more rigorous programs would make them more credible but what is the point if they go out of business.

 

Try as I might, I was unable to find illiterate NCU reviews on the site I quoted from. I did find a couple from Strayer, however. TESC is open enrollment and you should have seen the discussion board postings in my Env Science course. It was pretty pathetic and that is even overlooking grammatical errors. Some of the students demonstrated seventh grade level critical thinking skills at best.

 

We cannot blame NCU for taking advantage of the market, but we can blame the regulators for allowing this to happen. It is somewhat ingenious to take tuition from students who do not have a chance of getting a PhD when the PhD completion rate is already very low (15% or so). If admission standards are somewhat lax, then the moment of reckoning comes only at the point in which there is no turning back, and the bulk of tuition has been paid. The good students will make it through somehow with a little luck and a lot of persistence, while the unlucky, frustrated, or untalented students will not.

 

I agree, the regulator should require NCU to disclose graduation rates, placement rates, before and after salary, job profiles of graduates, etc.

Of course this is not to the advantage of NCU, they can also manipulate the statistics to their favour. For example, if a NCU PhD graduate is working as an adjunct for Cornell University based on their previous qualification, the school can show this as "PhD NCU 2010 working as professor at Cornell University".

Graduation rates can also be manipulated.

 

No, we absolutely can blame them for taking advantage of the market. Do professional ethics play no role at all in higher education?

 

So what would be the ethical thing to do? To include the following in each registration contract?
-Be aware that you have only 15% changes of graduation from this program
-Most of our graduates do not get a salary increase after graduation
-Most of our graduates work as adjuncts for other online for profit schools
-Placement rates as tenure track professors at B&M schools is below 1%

Would you want to sign in?

 

What would be ethical?

Not having the program in the first place, most likely.

 

As does a proper Masters level thesis, which most online master programs neglect to even bother with.

 

Oh no, here we go again.

 

Now that is a wise statement.

 

To be fair, my advisor told me that the program was tough, most people never finish and you do not know it until the end (ABD). They also said that you are on your own for the most part. Salary increases, what the graduates do, etc. was never a topic of conversation. The guy was really honest and basically said, "You might not make it - most people don't...are you sure you want to enroll?"

 

Yes, me too. The NCU enrollment person was not pushy and made sure I understood how hard it was. She warned me that many people are unable to make it through the program. There was no pressure and no salesmanship in any way.

UoP was a completely different story when I was looking at them, they tried every sales trick in the book and hounded me for six months after that.

 

The only part they left out was that the support services were lacking and the administration is "confused".

 

Yes, I agree. At least I don't remember anyone saying something like "our coursework is pretty good, but you are going to want to kill us by the time you graduate".

 

:saevil:

To Randell: Heh, Heh, Heh!

 

Even though I don't necessarily disagee with the above it still seems like members of this forum having more bias against NCU than other online for profits. I do not believe for one second that NCU is more guilty of these things than other for profits.

 

I wrote the above with my iPad so please forgive errors...they are hard to edit or correct.

 

Hear, hear. Did you find that the courses were easy and that the dissertation was a joke like a few posters above have implied? I'll bet not. That was the whole point of this thread in the first place. I started it just to bring up the point that the courses at NCU were as rigorous, maybe more so, than Cal State Long Beach in my experience. Does that mean that I think that NCU is perfect and wonderful? No. But people like you deserve our deep respect for their accomplishment. You are all scholars and achievers.

 

Think about what you're saying for a sec.

1. This forum has a good number of active posters that are going or have gone to NCU.
2. People with experience at NCU are going to talk about NCU.
3. General human nature of less than enlightened people (read average) is to bash stuff.
4. On the same thread as point 3, those that have spent money on and graduated from NCU are going to obviously want to protect their investment and by the time graduation comes have more than likely convinced themselves it was a good idea.

So what you're saying is that a population that knows a lot about NCU is more critical than a population that doesn't. No kidding.. really? Never would have guessed it.

You'll find the same at other forums that have a higher population of grads from other schools, talking about those schools.

 

There are only a couple of posters at degreeinfo.com who have vociferously and repeatedly ranted against NCU for the last couple of years.

It would be a draconian nightmare to require private and public universities to monitor the salaries of all students before, during and after graduation.