Kaplan University

[DrPhil]

Bump because I keep seeing commercials for for-profit and nontraditional schools, including recently founded schools. There's a really dumb commercial out now with 4 people walking past a crowd and the voice says something silly like "I don't want to be lectured to, I want control of my education."

I need people to be realistic and honest about what they expect to get out of this educational experience. Check the accreditation, check who is overseeing this school's programs, and realize that everything with "college" or "university" in it is not a REAL college or university.

Another critique of for-profit schools (I think this includes online degrees offered by legitimately accredited colleges and universities):
http://www.mndaily.com/2011/11/07/ab...t-universities

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

Bump because I keep seeing commercials for for-profit and nontraditional schools, including recently founded schools. There's a really commercial out now with 4 people walking past a crowd and the voice says something silly like "I don't want to be lectured to, I want control of my education."

I need people to be realistic and honest about what they expect to get out of this educational experience. Check the accreditation, check who is overseeing this school's programs, and realize that everything with "college" or "university" in it is not a REAL college or university.

This. This includes the technical school type for-profits that aren't online like National College, Fortis College, etc. (Google them, I think they're local but I'm sure there's a similar kind of thing everywhere.)

They call it college, but it's not. And you're surprised when employers give your "degree" the side eye because the place you got it from is non-accredited and the credit doesn't transfer to any other legitimate school because of it.

My fave thing is when people try to be school snobs with their for-profit degrees.

Ex: Looking down on people because they went to a state university like Kent or Akron, but your degree is from Kaplan?

Other personal fave, for-profit film/art schools like the NY Film Academy. There are ads for it (their MFA programs) all over my campus and I'm pretty sure it's not legit.

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

I need people to be realistic and honest about what they expect to get out of this educational experience. Check the accreditation, check who is overseeing this school's programs, and realize that everything with "college" or "university" in it is not a REAL college or university.

I see the people who are overwhelmingly taking classes at "Fake Universities" online and it worries me. They're not savvy enough to know the difference--they just see that they can get a degree while they're in their pajamas! You don't need an online MBA to do hair. They're taking out insane amounts of debt just for the privilege of saying that "they GOT their degree!"

I also think these schools know, demographically, who will fall for their nonsense.

[carnation]

One thing that really gets me: that so many teachers are getting these fake graduate degrees and getting paid for them! And since they're not at a bricks-and-mortar university, no one can really check up on them and I've heard of several teachers who pay other teachers to write all their papers.

Many teachers have been RIFed in this state due to a lack of money to pay salaries and I really think that a lot of that is due to the sudden explosion of teachers with so-called advanced degrees.

[KSUViolet06]

^^^Interesting point about online degrees and teaching: My state does not allow for-profit university online degrees to be used in applying for an initial teaching license. Ex: If you get your education degree from Kaplan and you go to apply for your license after you're done, you're going to be a very sad panda because it's not approved by our state as an acceptable program for licensing teachers. That's why it's good to do your research.

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by carnation

Many teachers have been RIFed in this state due to a lack of money to pay salaries and I really think that a lot of that is due to the sudden explosion of teachers with so-called advanced degrees.

I never thought about this for teachers, but a ton of my idiot cousins are state employees (again, not educators) and they've all taken the online degree route because they get a pay boost for getting more education (anywhere from an AA to a PhD). Their respective states don't care where the degrees are from...just that they have one.