New Canadian online University

To put the "top 500" in perspective, the brand new International Handbook of Universities includes just over 12,000 of 'em, so the 500 would be roughly the top 4%.

(The new Handbook, incidentally, sells for an astonishing $700. Of course it does have 5,000 pages, and weighs in at 22 pounds, thus $33 a pound.)

--John Bear, whose Bears' Guide to Earning Degrees
by Distance Learning costs about $9 a pound

 

You can if you are a full-time student. I take my finances to a CA and have claimed my tuition without problems. The Gov't did send me a letter one time whereas they made an error in my education calculations and included a cheque...

 

HwyRogue,

I claimed my tuition for full-time "distance" education outside of Canada and had no problems at all. Revenue Canada came back to me with regards to the program and I stated all the facts above board and they allowed 3 years worth of maximum claims. Not a problem any more.

John Bear, hit it on the head when he committed on the top 500 schools represent 4% of the population of schools in the world. This comment even makes UNISA (top 10%) look great in comparison! Thanks John.

 

For what it worth: Meritus University is owned by our friends Apollo Group Inc. (yes, proprietors of the University of Phoenix). So I'd expect it, eventually, to be very similar to UoPx. That is, if Meritus is successful.

 

Just a small point. U de Moncton also offers a LLB, one of only two schools in the world (so they've said, I've never checked) that offers a common law LLB entirely in French. I'm assuming U of Ottawa is the other.

 

Close - University of Moncton, University of Ottawa and McGill University are the only three common law LLB's offered entirely in french in Canada (for those that don't know, Quebec has a civil law system).

 

I don't know why University of Ottawa (which is were I read about the French only LLB) thing didn't include McGill and I'd sort of wondered about that myself. The thing I come up with is that McGill doesn't offer a stand alone LLB, their LLB is part of their trans-systemic program so it's a joing common-civil law program.

I'm also not sure (and admittedly I haven't looked into this) whether or not you can complete the entire law program at McGill without ever taking an English course. I would expect with the large number of civil law offerings you probably can.

 

McGill Law

This is the information from the McGill University web site concerning their integrated programme of Common and Civil Laws:

Language requirements

All applicants to McGill's integrated program must demonstrate substantial reading ability in, and aural comprehension of, both English and French. Both English and French material will be assigned in all first-year courses and in many upper-year courses; students are therefore expected to read complex texts in both languages from the outset of their studies.

First-year courses in law are offered in both English and French. A number of upper-year courses are offered in one language only. While examination questions are set in the language in which a course is given, any examination may contain extensive materials in either French or English. Students may use either language when asking or answering questions in class, writing exams, or when submitting written material.



The main language of the university remains, however, English.

Brad

 

DeVry is not an online school. It is a multi-campus B&M school that has online programs.

 

Yorkville University started as a unit in a building in the Yorkville shopping district. It has since be upgraded to a "university" and moved its office to New Brunswick.

 

Just the facts...

What? Are you just making this stuff up? Lansbridge University is owned by Michael Lo in Vancouver and Yorkville University is owned by Michael Markovitz in Toronto. Two totally different people entirely!

Also, those individuals using AUCC membership to base their comparison on the quality of programs offered by traditional universities versus these schools need to check out AUCC's "About Us" page. They specifically state that AUCC only includes public and private non-profit schools in their membership. It's an elitist club, and hardly worth mentioning in any real comparison.

Private online schools are especially meant for those individuals who cannot afford the time and/or cost of uprooting their lives to spend their workdays sitting in a classroom. The curriculum, faculty, and educational value is as good or better in legitimate private online schools, because they have to be to overcome all of the stigma of distance education and the idea that all non-public schools are evil "degree mills" (a concept strongly pushed by public universities, mind you). I'm not saying that there aren't some bad apples, but not every private online school is at fault. The online universities in New Brunswick must adhere to the same strict standards in their accreditation processes as the public schools. The only difference is that they need to be even more exact in their standards in order to stay operational, since the smear campaign instigated by public universities when Lansbridge first started has obviously been so successful.

Let the rebuttals commence...

 

You are right, Michael Lo has a nice background to back him up:



"China’s stance is understandable in light of the February 8 order to close Vancouver private institution Lansbridge University, which is operated by businessman Michael Lo’s Kingston Education Group and has a student population of approximately 300. An investigation was ordered last fall after its sister school, Kingston College, was shutdown for granting bachelor’s and master’s degrees without authorization.

The investigation revealed that Lansbridge advertised degree programs before gaining authorization, submitted misleading documents when applying for degree-granting status, and did not maintain the required financial security to protect students, among other violations of the Degree Authorization Act. The investigation also reported, “The state of student files raises serious questions about administration, admissions standards, credit transfer criteria, and like issues.” Shockingly, one student transcript was discovered on the back of an old email regarding Lo’s credit limit.

Students attending Lansbridge University and Kingston College – the majority international students from India and China – spent up to $40,000 in tuition for a four-year degree, in addition to living costs. Many of these students are facing the possibility of having to leave Canada as their student visas run out, having wasted their families’ savings and their chance to study in Canada.
"

The full story here:

http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20070328_120739_6912


As already mentioned, these schools try to target international students that don't know better. It also appears that Lansbridge is legal in New Brunswick but illegal in British Columbia. The typical paradigm of a school that is not legal everywhere but only in certain areas, is this really the type of degree you want to put in your resume?

 

More from this "successful" Canadian institution:

"Four international students paying $15,000 to attend Kingston College in Burnaby allege that they were offered degrees from Lansbridge as compensation when Kingston was unable to provide them with the MBA degrees they’d been promised."


http://www.ubyssey.ca/?p=1627

 

Michael Lower than Lo

Whether it was done with intent or simply a result of total incompetence, I'm certainly not about to dispute whether or not Michael Lo is unfit to run any sort of company, much less an institution of higher learning. Personally, I wouldn't buy a used car from the man.

It is unfortunate, however, that the media is so quick to jump on a sensational story that they often tend to do such a shoddy job of fact-finding and reporting it. When they first broke the story, the Vancouver Sun repeatedly failed to distinguish between Lansbridge University and Lansbridge BC. This was since picked up by MacLeans and has clouded the issue of Lansbridge University ever since.

For the record, Lansbridge University was opened in 1999 and has repeatedly met or exceeded the standards of the New Brunswick government time and again - the same standards that public institutions like UNB are held to. Lansbridge BC was an attempt by Michael Lo to capitalize on what was then a small but respected private school, which he just happened to have purchased along with its parent company, Learnsoft.

Does the future look bleak for Lansbridge with Michael Lo in charge? You bet your rosey red hiney it does! Does that mean that the Daily Gleaner in Fredericton will take the same tact as the Vancouver Sun and lead the witch hunt to shut the doors on all those other offensive private online schools? Most likely (though my money's on the Telegraph Journal getting there first). Will there be a big fat "we told you so" coming from UNB's academia? Well, what do YOU think? They've only been fixated on this goal since 1999.

And what will follow? Fewer educational options for you and I, my friends. Want to take courses online so you can earn a living in the meantime? Nope, sorry you can't. Want to learn from home so you're not having to pay a fortune living somewhere else while you study? Nope, sorry - can't do that either. But by all means, do feel free to pay a king's ransom for your education so that these outdated, crumbling academic mausoleums can keep raking in the bucks and still claim they're not in it for the money. I know I did. My degree from UNB amounted to some of the most expensive toilet paper I ever purchased!

 

Call the AUCC anything you like, but it is the de-facto body for real recognition of Canadian universities. These New Brunswick "universities" are certainly not members of the AUCC for good reason. New Brunswick has some pretty lax laws when it comes to what can be called a university. Most of these "universities" are nothing more than a unit on the 5th floor of an office building.

They feed upon the ignorance of international students and the uninformed who assume that these are real universities that offer real degrees. I see it all the time on the CV's that come across my desk. I am not saying distance learning or online education is inferior at all. Many AUCC universities offer entire degrees through DL/online and these are top-quality programs as good as any on-campus programs. Hats off to these fine AUCC universities that delivery quality programs with top-quality faculty to top-quality students.

If it's not on the AUCC list, forget it.

 

Actually, the number of online programs in Canada is growing considerably. Please check the link below for a set of accredited Canadian programs:

http://www.cvu-uvc.ca/

I have a friend following an MBA at Laval University and he is happy with the program. I have another friend doing an Aviation distance MBA at Concordia and he is satisfied too. Few others are following programs at Athabasca and they seem to be very happy too.

There are plenty options for distance learning business education. I don't see why you would go for Lansbridge just to have to explain to your employer that the school in NB is accredited but the one BC is not, and that is not a government school but an online business but accredited in the province of NB. Too many red flags that you might not have the chance to explain because your resume was trashed before you even get a chance to say anything.

 

Interesting to see that according to the Canadian business magazine, the same Lansbridge that was closed in BC due to a scam and operating in NB, is claiming that their graduates are making more than any other MBA program in Canada. See the link below:

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/rankings/mbaguide/list.jsp?pageID=list&year=2007&type=mbaguide&listType=employment

According to this, Lansbridge MBA graduates make 120K after graduation while York MBAs only 90K

I wonder if the successful business man "Michael Lo" has "cooked" the data to make Lansbridge look better than any other business school.

 

Uh huh... based on how many responses?

 

So let me get this straight: you're saying that an online education is NOT inferior, as long as they occupy more floor space than they realistically need to hold their servers and staff? Their courses are still taught by real university professors (typically by the same "top-quality faculty" that is teaching in the AUCC universities). Does the fact that they aren't physically in the same building make the program any less valid? Is it a requirement for a superior education that all class interaction be done face to face? The Internet does offer numerous options for rich whiteboarding and VoIP chat discussion that in many ways improves upon the level of interaction as compared to the bland classroom tutorial model offered in traditional schools.

Perhaps it would give the New Brunswick schools more legitimacy if instead of strictly following an online model, they offered a blended learning approach? Require four weeks of in-class training as part of their regular curriculum? Of course, they would probably need a real campus with accomodations, dining, gymnasium, a full staff to manage and support the grounds, plus a state-of-the art lecture hall and... this is all starting to sound more like a traditional school. And all this for only a brief face to face classroom setting, the merit of which from an educational standpoint being rather questionable (given the much larger classroom sizes and time constraints of an average lecture)?

As I stated earlier, AUCC is choosing to not recognize private for-profit schools, which is why many of the NB schools aren't allowed membership. This doesn't necessarily mean that the degree programs offered in a private for-profit school are in any way inferior. It simply means that, for whatever reason, AUCC is choosing not to work with these schools to "facilitate the development of public policy on higher education and to encourage cooperation among universities and governments, industry, communities, and institutions in other countries" (their words). Why do you suppose that is, other than out of fear of losing warm bodies in classrooms to a (typically) less expensive, more efficient online model?

If an AUCC school IS providing a fully online course that IS making full use of the latest in Internet communications for the benefit of the educational process and IS NOT requiring mandatory live in-class sessions as part of their curriculum, then I am in full agreement with you. Hurray for them! It's about darn time! However, if they are simply uploading web pages for students to peruse with little or no online synchronous educational value, then they really need to look more closely at how the private schools are running things. Also, if they are only offering a blended learning model, they are automatically limiting their programs to only those with the financial, physical, and accessible means to attend classes at their campus. That still leaves an awful lot of unfulfilled potential out there.

In short, it's not a question of the quality of the program. A private school is just as able to hire Ph.D. professors to write and teach course content as a public school. It's a question about the quality of the online delivery of the program. Where public schools are more focused on traditional methods of delivery and (in my experience) more resistant to change, private schools have less bureaucracy and are more apt to embrace the options provided by technology for the benefit of the educational experience of their students. It's simple - a better education for their students means more money for them. You don't have that kind of self-serving commitment in a public school.

 

Don't know about that. Maybe they're basing this figure on the salaries of their American students? I know that Lansbridge does have their DETC accreditation in the States. Anyone know what the typical MBA makes in the U.S.?