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I wanted to start a new thread on the discussion of Higher Education in the RDU area. There seems to be consensus in this forum that the for-profit colleges and schools in the RDU area are inferior to the more traditional colleges and universities. Some have associated them with Diploma mills and others have suggested that they do not meet the standard for Higher Education.
Can someone provide me evidence that the for-profit colleges and schools in the RDU area are of a lesser quality than the state run or private institutions in the area?
There are a lot of passionate and some hurtful posts related to this topic. I would like to reiterate my original post:
I asked for evidence of inferiority and/or lesser quality...and what many of you have provided is your opinion of for-profits along with anecdotal evidence to why the for-profits are inferior. You cast disperions and stories of unsatisfactory experiences of a for-profit...but provide no data or trends to poor quality.
Yes, Accreditation is a good starting point...but it does in of itself guaranetee that you will have a quality experience or take quality courses. The quality begins with the individual faculty member and how the course is structured.
At least in my field, and in my state its not the starting point it is the be all and end all since licensing requires a degree from an accredited school. Essentially in that regard a degree from an unaccredited school is not worth the paper its printed since you cannot get licensed.
Last edited by Randomstudent; 06-09-2011 at 07:15 PM..
At least in my field, and in my state its not the starting point it is the be all and end all since licensing requires a degree from an accredited school. Essentially a degree from an unaccredited school is not worth the paper its printed since you cannot get licensed.
We must draw a distinction between programmatic and institutional accreditation. Your field relies upon the programmatic accreditation that focuses only on your program and not the others at the institution, but the entire institution is accredited to offer degree programs. Any programs in my for-profit schools that are in a licensure track will also have programmatic accreditation, or will be in the process of getting it.
Specifically....similarly stringent entrance requirements, accreditation requirements, graduation and employment rates, median income of graduates, rate of acceptance into graduate programs...
These are excellent qualifiers for quality comparisons between for-profits and brick and mortar.
Quote:
Originally Posted by csbjornstad
Ok...how about you start your own thread and ask that question.
I am sticking to my original question. Considering there are so many claiming that for-profits offer an inferior product, it is only appropriate that someone provide evidence to support this claim.
To your indicators. How are entrance requirements related to the quality of a program?
...accreditation does not gurantee quality.
...employment rates speak to the prestige of a program/institution, but not necessarily the quality.
...median income...don't see the connection to quality of programs.
...rate of acceptance into grad programs...once again, prestige and name of program, not necessarily the quality.
This does not make sense to me. For one, accreditation is simply the bare minimum. I don't see how you can consider quality without accreditation. Employment rates, income, and grad acceptance rates are outcome measurements. If you don't want to use outcome as a measurement then what will you use?
Quote:
Originally Posted by csbjornstad
There are a lot of passionate and some hurtful posts related to this topic. I would like to reiterate my original post:
I asked for evidence of inferiority and/or lesser quality...and what many of you have provided is your opinion of for-profits along with anecdotal evidence to why the for-profits are inferior. You cast disperions and stories of unsatisfactory experiences of a for-profit...but provide no data or trends to poor quality.
The above posts are the evidence. You have brought nothing to the table to say otherwise. And you know darn well that repayment of school loans coming from for-profits is a big problem. A problem you expect tax payers to deal with. It's all snake oil. Why would you in good conscience encourage a poor, uneducated, academically challenged individual to go into debt for tens of thousands of dollars for a worthless piece of paper when you can instead guide them to a CC? I don't get it.
The incentive to a quality education is that for-profits must pay attention to their students or they will leave and the school will that tuition revenue.
With the ever tightening state budgets, the options are shrinking. Quality public options are even rarer.
Or alternately, in programs that don't require an outside test/other credentialling, the for-profits will pass unqualified students in order to get them to enroll in (and pay tuition for) additional classes. "Pay the fee; get the B" is the saying for those kinds of schools in these parts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bluedevilz
You keep talking about "quality" and yet you can't point to a single metric that would show how for-profits provide any sort of quality education...
Quality is measurable and definable, for-profits fail to measure up....
Coming at it from one of those $80/credit hour state schools, I'll offer part of what we're required to do in this regard: every department and program are required to set program goals for student success in those programs, and then report on progress toward those goals. Meet your standard for three straight years and you get a pat on the back and instructions to make that benchmark harder next time- if your outcome says that "at least 80% of your students will show proficiency..." and your last three years, you've hit 80%, 84%, and 82%, then your new goal is 90% showing proficiency, and that bottom quintile is always going to be the hard part in terms of getting them successfully through the program. We also use external testing for those kind of intermediate student learning outcomes in order to make sure that we're teaching what's expected at a national or workforce level from a certain type of class. One of our outcomes for introductory chemisty classes is a national exam from the American Chemical Society.
So how do the for-profits maintain their academic quality control? I'm curious how many of them have the same sort of process we've got. Some of the 'better' schools would have to (Phoenix actually is regionally accredited, and part of that is having those sorts of student achievement metrics in place.) but a lot of them aren't going to spend the money to do that kind constant quality improvement because, well, they have't reached the point where the lack of it is cutting in to their bottom line.
Quote:
Originally Posted by csbjornstad
I do not see how the makeup of a student body can lead to a better quality program. Quality starts with the faculty, program design, and course design.
Which is a problem with a lot of the for-profits because so many of them are adjunct farms with a lack of full-time professional faculty who have the time to devote to constant program and course revision to meet student needs.
There are a lot of passionate and some hurtful posts related to this topic. I would like to reiterate my original post:
I asked for evidence of inferiority and/or lesser quality...and what many of you have provided is your opinion of for-profits along with anecdotal evidence to why the for-profits are inferior. You cast disperions and stories of unsatisfactory experiences of a for-profit...but provide no data or trends to poor quality.
You asked for evidence of lack of quality because you can't provide evidence of quality. Many links have been posted about graduation rates and the type of student attending. There is a reason the government is cracking down.
Or alternately, in programs that don't require an outside test/other credentialling, the for-profits will pass unqualified students in order to get them to enroll in (and pay tuition for) additional classes. "Pay the fee; get the B" is the saying for those kinds of schools in these parts.
Coming at it from one of those $80/credit hour state schools, I'll offer part of what we're required to do in this regard: every department and program are required to set program goals for student success in those programs, and then report on progress toward those goals. Meet your standard for three straight years and you get a pat on the back and instructions to make that benchmark harder next time- if your outcome says that "at least 80% of your students will show proficiency..." and your last three years, you've hit 80%, 84%, and 82%, then your new goal is 90% showing proficiency, and that bottom quintile is always going to be the hard part in terms of getting them successfully through the program. We also use external testing for those kind of intermediate student learning outcomes in order to make sure that we're teaching what's expected at a national or workforce level from a certain type of class. One of our outcomes for introductory chemisty classes is a national exam from the American Chemical Society.
So how do the for-profits maintain their academic quality control? I'm curious how many of them have the same sort of process we've got. Some of the 'better' schools would have to (Phoenix actually is regionally accredited, and part of that is having those sorts of student achievement metrics in place.) but a lot of them aren't going to spend the money to do that kind constant quality improvement because, well, they have't reached the point where the lack of it is cutting in to their bottom line.
Which is a problem with a lot of the for-profits because so many of them are adjunct farms with a lack of full-time professional faculty who have the time to devote to constant program and course revision to meet student needs.
I have already talked about this...but here it is again. At my campuses we track our student progress througout their program. In some programs, we conduct Year 1, Year 2, and end of program evaluations to assure that the student is acquiring the compentencies before they move on to the next level or they graduate.
Graduation rates and employment rates are not direct measures of program integrity or quality; with the excetion of licensure programs. You could say that students who pass the licensure exam to get a job, have successfully acquired the compentencies delivered through a rigorous and quality program. However, outside these licensure programs, you must look at course design and faculty input for more direct measures of quality. We do that at our campuses. In addition, I suggest that employer feedback also provides a direct measure of quality.
Our faculty work directly in their industry and provide invaluable guidance and feedback to what the industry is looking for upon graduation.
Last edited by csbjornstad; 06-10-2011 at 09:26 AM..
I have already talked about this...but here it is again. At my campuses we track our student progress througout their program. In some programs, we conduct Year 1, Year 2, and end of program evaluations to assure that the student is acquiring the compentencies before they move on to the next level or they graduate.
Graduation rates and employment rates are not direct measures of program integrity or quality; with the excetion of licensure programs. You could say that students who pass the licensure exam to get a job, have successfully acquired the compentencies delivered through a rigorous and quality program. However, outside these licensure programs, you must look at course design and faculty input for more direct measures of quality. We do that at our campuses. In addition, I suggest that employer feedback also provides a direct measure of quality.
Our faculty work directly in their industry and provide invaluable guidance and feedback to what the industry is looking for upon graduation.
This is a claim only people associated with poor programs would make.
Grad rates and employment rates are valid indeed. You just need to put in the effort to find peer institutions to see where you're at once you account for student demographics and academic achievement at time of enrollment, and common geographic/economic characteristics of the local area or regions in question. And it's darn easy down here to get that kind of information down here from a public peer institution because of state Department of Education reporting requirements on schools. Again, I'm with the 'an institution is being lazy or scared of the results' if they claim they can't make those kinds of comparisons.
The incentive to a quality education is that for-profits must pay attention to their students or they will leave and the school will that tuition revenue.
With the ever tightening state budgets, the options are shrinking. Quality public options are even rarer.
"Pay attention" doesn't mean providing a good quality or useful education. As long as students can get their hands on seemingly free federal student loans, they will not have skin in the game with regards to price. This means that a school with great marketing can get students to pay above-market prices for a below-market education with ease. It just makes good financial sense.
Sorry, but empirically there are still a lot of pretty good public options out there. Less than in the past? Maybe. But students who can't get into the most average public colleges probably shouldn't be pursuing higher education at this time at all. The "everyone has to go to college" mania in this country is destructive and wrong.
Your original post asked: "Can someone provide me evidence that the for-profit colleges and schools in the RDU area are of a lesser quality than the state run or private institutions in the area?" You are talking about for-profit schools as an aggregate and public schools as an aggregate. Thus, answering your question in the affirmative does not require an indictment of every single for-profit school.
All of your arguments seem to hinge on the idea that the for-profit where you work is okay. If that's the discussion you want to have, you should have titled the thread "X for-profit school vs. RDU area publics." But you didn't. You explicitly asked us to compare for-profits as a group with publics as a group, and now you have the audacity to complain that we are painting all for-profits with the same brush. You need to make up your mind.
Quote:
Originally Posted by csbjornstad
I do not see how the makeup of a student body can lead to a better quality program. Quality starts with the faculty, program design, and course design. The types of students may provide a more diverse classroom and lead to a better student experience, but I do not agree that it leads to quality assurance. The accreditation agency assures that a program has the acceptable standards for academic rigor...but falls short in assuring that the program remains rigorous. The accrediting agencies, both Regional and National, are getting slammed for their lack of oversight and follow up campuses. A program can get accreditation for a period of years with no follow up to make sure that the institution continues to deliver quality and rigor. Yet, they are getting better by shortening the review cycles and requiring periodic reports.
1. I don't think you really wanted to bring up faculty. Please tell me: how many faculty at your for-profit have PhDs and a strong record of research accomplishment? How many citations does your average faculty member have in the past year?
2. You're saying that some schools with accreditation may not be great. Okay. But this is if anything a more damning indictment of any school without accreditation. If they couldn't even pull it together long enough to survive a single accreditation review, that is a very negative sign.
3. As I said before:
"I'm not a big fan of selectivity as a proxy for quality. However, there are people out there who simply are not capable of doing college-level work. If an institution admits unqualified applicants, that indicates one of two things: a) the school is happy to take students' money and then let them fail or b) the curriculum doesn't meet acceptable standards for academic rigor."
Quote:
Originally Posted by csbjornstad
You linkage from graduates to prestige back to program quality is circular and does not indicate cause and effect. The chicken or the egg?
Actually, the logic is pretty strong:
"1. How is industry prestige developed? If a company chooses to recruit from a school, usually that indicates that they have had success with graduates of that school in the past.
2. Graduate acceptances are not just based on prestige. In some cases, prestige may be close to irrelevant. The reality is that fairly objective indicators including test scores and research experience can play a big role in graduate admissions."
These are two very strong links from outcomes to quality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by csbjornstad
Liberal arts courses such as English, Math, History, and the social sciences are sound aspects of any degree program. But there are too many in a degree program...less liberal arts course and more applied courses are what this country needs.
See post #17... I think your scare tactics with regards to graduation requirements fail to hold water.
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