What do you think of the for-profit colleges catered to the military?

LTC David S. Chang, ChFC®, CLU® — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 22:58:26 -0500

Not a week goes by where I see ads for For-profit colleges offering degrees to our military. I have taken classes online and some are great and believe that the future will be online classes such as MOOCs.

However there are have been controversy with schools not being accredited, colleges graduating people just to get the money, a huge wave of investigations, and the quality of education is questionable. I believe it is important that our soldiers get as much access to education as possible, but how should we scrutinize colleges so they don't take advantage of service members?

Response by 1LT Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 3 at 2014 11:12 PM

1LT Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 23:12:55 -0500

MAJ David Chang, Accreditation is critically important for many reasons: (1) it certifies the legitimacy of the academic program, (2) many employers require accreditation to recognize a degree, (3) it includes a review of the graduating student's ability to get a job to justify costs incurred, (4) it lays the foundation for transferring units between accredited colleges making it easier to transfer earned units from one college to another college, (5) undergrad college accreditation may be required for admission to grad school, training, or profession. Unfortunately, unaccredited for profit colleges often set their per unit cost to the maximum a student's sponsor or loan agency will bear, the unaccredited degree is often unhelpful in seeking employment, and unaccredited units may be impossible to transfer to any other school forcing a student to complete all coursework required to complete their degree at the unaccredited school and if they cannot complete the program (due to cost, relocation, etc) their earned units may not be transferable to other schools, requiring them to start over without the benefit of the units for which they have already paid. Warmest Regards, Sandy

What is regional accreditation and why is it important? | Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education

Accreditation is a process used by higher education to evaluate colleges, universities, and educational programs for quality and to assess their efforts toward continuous quality improvement. Accredit...

Response by PO3 Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 3 at 2014 11:20 PM

PO3 Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 23:20:02 -0500

Stay away from Grand Canyon University. I got my MBA online through them, and while they aren't on the sleeze level as Kaplan or University of Phoenix, if I had it to do all over again, I certainly would NOT. I could have gotten a much better education for alot less money at a brick and mortar school. <div><br></div><div>The good news is that many brick and mortar schools now do offer completely online degree programs, where in 2008 when I started my MBA, the schools that offered complete online programs were few and far between. There are so many options these days, just a matter of doing the research before committing.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div class="pta-link-card"><div class="pta-link-card-picture"><img src="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAutoLogin/start?type=1x1"></div><div class="pta-link-card-content"><div class="pta-link-card-title"><a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_online_colleges_in_the_United_States">List of online colleges in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</a></div><div class="pta-link-card-description">Below is a list of schools that offer virtual or online education programs and are accredited by an accrediting body recognized by the US Department of Education.[1] The Distance Education and Trainin...</div></div><div style="clear:both"></div><div class="pta-box-hide"><i class="icon-remove"></i></div></div><div class="pta-link-card"><div class="pta-link-card-picture"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bd/Ambox_globe_content.svg/48px-Ambox_globe_content.svg.png"></div><div class="pta-link-card-content"><div class="pta-link-card-title"><a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_for-profit_universities_and_colleges">List of for-profit universities and colleges - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</a></div><div class="pta-link-card-description">Many for-profit institutions are subsidiaries of larger parent companies such as the Apollo Group, Career Education Corporation, Corinthian Colleges, Inc., DeVry, Inc., and Laureate Education.</div></div><div style="clear:both"></div><div class="pta-box-hide"><i class="icon-remove"></i></div></div>

Response by MSG Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 5 at 2014 5:48 AM

MSG Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 05:48:34 -0500

It's all about accredited schools that are not focused mainly on the military population.  If a degree is earned from an institution not recognized by the general population or is not accredited, there really isn't any gain for the service member who gets a degree there.  The perception that military personnel have to go to a "diploma mill" because they couldn't handle a "real school" is not one we should want to perpetuate.<br>

Response by PO1 Private RallyPoint Member made May 24 at 2014 11:01 AM

PO1 Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 24 May 2014 11:01:23 -0400

Sir,

I'm not sure of the sustainable of MOOCs. They're great for those who simply want to take a challenging college level course to learn something new. If they were to award credit for MOOCs, they would start to charge for the classes and I would think drastically change them to the point where they're just another iteration of the online classes we already have. They definitely are interesting however and I've even been writing about them in one of my online classes haha.

Response by SFC Mark Merino made Aug 10 at 2014 2:25 PM

SFC Mark Merino — Sun, 10 Aug 2014 14:25:25 -0400

There are some unpolished gems out there. When I was in Mosul, the Combat Stress Team OIC told me about getting my Masters/PhD from NCU (Northcentral University) They are very military friendly and accredited. No one has heard of them, I know. It was one of the very few that was completely online and regionally accredited however. While on active duty, the price per credit was only as high as the max allowed so they were military friendly. It wasn't a degree farm. You got zero love for transfer credit at the masters level. I wasted so many credits getting my degree before online schools came along. In the 90,s, that was the dilemma. APSU at Fort Campbell offered Public Management on post with no night classes so THAT was the degree you could get, before that it was psychology at another jerk-water school and business at another and sociology at another and criminal justice at another..........I had 200+ credits before completing a bachelors! Air Cav, brother. Busy schedules and long duty hours don't make it easy.

Response by CSM William DeWolf made May 5 at 2015 10:07 AM

CSM William DeWolf — Tue, 05 May 2015 10:07:44 -0400

There are some reputable for-profit institutions and some bad choices that should be avoided. As a higher education administrator, I feel that I can offer guidance and advice in this area and would be willing to advise any of our veterans in this area.

Response by SSgt Boyd Herrst made Dec 21 at 2018 3:22 PM

SSgt Boyd Herrst — Fri, 21 Dec 2018 15:22:13 -0500

It’s these “fly by night” George Jones Schools of advanced basket weaving that need to be shut down !..