US: No job if you only have an online degree

And what debate would that be? I don't hear too many people debating about the educational differences between Notre Dame(private) and UC-Berkeley(publicly funded).

U of P, Capella, Kaplan...none of those "colleges" hold a candle to even state run universities(with a B&M presence). Yes I know U of P has a physical presence, let's be real though, anyone and everyone can get into that school.

 

Are you sure about that? I mean, I am not as smart as most of the folks here, but I am not sure I could make the statement that Capella could not hold a candle to even state run universities. Are you speaking all of the state run universities ( with a B&M presence)? There are some I do indeed wonder about (state run universities). Maybe I am wrong.

 

I think the article is way off base, considering that online learning has now crept into even public high schools and middle schools. In the school district I work for, students are running towards the online courses, since they can earn high school and college credit at the same time. Just last week, we were told by state representatives that the online courses will be expanded to 8th graders.

While some online universities have bad reputations, the fact is that even the brick and mortar campuses already have online offerings or are expanding online offerings. And these online universities do have full time faculty, at one university that I work for, they do have the required number of full time doctorate level faculty, but face it, without the adjuncts these universities would not be able to run what seems like hundreds of sections of the same course each semester.

 

At least within the state of New Jersey, TESC seems to be held in quite a high regard among professors at Stockton and Rutgers. Now, I can't give any info on how it's perceived by the Ivy League, but frankly I couldn't give less of a damn what the Ivy League thinks.

 

I believe they are held to the same standards.
In Southern California I know of one state university that almost lost its regional accreditation, and a public community college that did lose its regional accreditation. This indicates that the RAs are on top of maintaining quality regardless of type of institution. The levels that an institution must meet are usually available on RA websites.

 

who cares what some moron thinks? Persistence, drive, and ambition > Degree from Harvard.

 

Steve made a good response to the original article written by Dr. John Richard Schrock. Later in the follow-up article Dr. Schrock introduced a bogus argument in an attempt to claim since clinical practice programmes cannot be taught exclusively through distance education the entire concept is suspect. Therefore, he must be right in his earlier assertion that distance education in general and online delivery in particular is defacto inferior to traditional on-campus face-to-face instruction. Well of course not, since practicums are a necessary part of any clinical practice. For the vast majority of degrees the lecture and written assignments are the only "interaction" between student and teacher or more likely teaching assistant.

"Today's popularity of online courses is driven by convenience, not quality. There is a reason US armed forces do not commission nurses unless they have at least 60% of their coursework face-to-face. Sure, listening to music on a CD, radio or TV is convenient but if you want the genuine rich experience, go to the live concert." says Dr. Schrock.

 

Dr. Schrock's response is one of the most asinine rebuttals I have read yet. Perhaps if he weren't so closed-minded he would see that there are plenty of "quality" distance learning programs out there. Creighton University has a DL program which leads to a PharmD. It is not easy to get in, as there is an extremely competitive admissions process. I don't think anyone would argue that Creighton does not offer a quality program.

 

Absolutely asinine I would say in reference to Dr. Schrock.

 

"Aside from serving remote Australian farm students by radio courses, distance learning began in the 1960s with airborne TV broadcast classes, and was a failure."

On the contrary, distance learning has existed since the 1700's and I would guess earlier by way of correspondence. The University of London was a pioneer in distance education with the creation of the external program in the year 1858. Universities in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Germany and other UK universities were pioneers of distance education decades before the 1960s.

"Distance education traces its origins to mid-19th century Europe and the United States. American university level distance education began in 1874 at Illinois Wesleyan University where bachelor and graduate degrees could be obtained in absentia. The Chautauqua movement in about 1882 gave the popular push to correspondence education."

http://www.cdlponline.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=whatis&pg=3

"Education research is notorious for getting the results the researcher wants."

At least I did my research.

 

I didn't check all the branches, but if your program is approved by your state board or accredited by the National League for Nursing, that is good enough for the U.S. Navy:

http://www.navy.com/careers/healthcare/nursing/#specific-requirements

I wonder where he gets his 60% figure. He seems to make a lot of assertions without citing sources...

 

I missed this before, but I could not agree more!


And yeah, Schrock's response was as asinine as what you'd expect from someone who didn't do the research (twice) and got called on it.

 

I am curious if some members could please post what they believe are the odds of someone with an online MA/PhD securing a full-time teaching position at a community college. This is more or less what I am trying to do and some members on another forum think it impossible because they are of the opinion that an online degree (even a PhD) is not as good at regular B & M institutions.

 

I don't think that an online degree is useless, but sometimes it's the perception of some programs that makes the difference. Walden's psyc program may be a bar of gold covered in chocolate, but it can look like a turd to psyc internship programs. Result? Most people have a very difficult time matching and have to go with the clearinghouse leftovers. This is also true of some B&M programs as well, but is the case to an extreme extent with hybrid/distance programs.

At least with psychology, it seems like some programs assume you have certain skills and talents already -- some of which would be normally reinforced in a graduate program. Stuff like respect, compassion, patience, objectivity, supporting patient-centered care etc. I hate to call Capella out on this one, but it seems like their PhD program does not really reinforce these basics. I've talked to some people who have these skills already, but I've talked to others who come off as arrogant and almost despising their patients. Does this happen with B&M programs? Absolutely.

But distance programs are at the disadvantage that their entire reputation is based on the students they attract and the future doctors they teach. And, some of it has to do with the newness of Program X, but with many programs this isn't the case.

I grew up really poor and met a lot of people who had a great outcome with DeVry. DeVry probably isn't the most awesome college around, but for some people it serves its purpose very well! Same with ITT, Harvard, UC Berkeley, Texas A&M etc. Find a school with a good reputation, that you like, that has a good program in your field and go for it.

The only specific advice I could give you in regards to teaching is that most "full-time" professors have doctorates. My current psychology professor just got his doctorate in January, but has been teaching a large percentage of my school's psychology classes for at least the 3 years that I've been getting catalogs. Take that for what it's worth. If you are very concerned about it, talk to someone who hires for a CC in your area.

 

Filmguy was asking about community colleges.
Based on head count at my local CC it has 135 full time faculty of which 28 have doctorates (Ph.D, Ed.D, D.M.A, and DBA). My guess is that this is typical for CCs. [Although not all have the "professor" title.]

 

But a simple head count may be misleading, as far as indicating current job market conditions. It is likely that many or most of the full-time faculty have tenure, which means lifetime employment, which means that they could have been hired decades ago. No one doubts that at one time, you could compete effectively for CC positions without a doctorate.

But today, full-time positions at CCs today routinely attract applicants with doctorates. Such candidates are typically preferred over applicants with master's degrees.

 

I have taught for CCs in Canada for a while. I don't know about the US but in Canada is all about timing, credentials, teaching skills, politics and little about the source of your degree. I have interviewed few times for CCs and never once have been asked about my doctoral degree or how it was earned. The full interview is always focused in teaching skills and knowledge.

I have interviewed for few Universities and the focus has been about research and teaching. I have never been asked if the degree was earned distance or on campus.

I think that because in this forum we worry too much about distance, we tend to believe the rest of the word is too worry about this when in real life there are hundreds factors that affect more.

You should only worry about getting your degree from a solid institution, I would not go for any new online start up school. Pure online virtual schools are a new concept and the real world does not understand them very well.

You also have the problem that online schools tend to graduate a lot more people than traditional schools, it looks like many schools are getting flooded with resumes from online schools. A traditional school graduates very few PhDs every year while some online graduate in the order of hundreds, if an administrator gets too many resumes from a particular school, this can be perceived as a negative.

 

Right! My current professor (CC) had a Master's until just a few months ago -- but every quarter he teaches the most out of the psychology classes offered here (out of 5-10? psych instructors). He teaches more than the psychology department head/advisor does! He could be an "adjunct" or he could be "full-time, tenure-track".... there's no way to know, and his performance is excellent either way.

So I say have a face-to-face meeting with a couple of colleges that you might be interested in and ask their opinion. But know that you might get mixed opinions. I say go for more education if it won't put you in a bad financial situation. It certainly wouldn't hurt.

 

Thanks ... I am curious as to whether some think there are more opportunities at the CC level teaching Psychology over English as I have been thinking that after I complete my MA that a online PhD in Psychology might be more practical in terms job prospects... thoughts?