New York Times Gets a Bad Grade
A recent article about University of Phoenix in the NY Times provides a lot of inaccurate and unchecked information. The article, which printed on Sunday’s Times provides readers with a scathing and inaccurate portrayal of the nation’s largest University. Like most controversy, advocates on both sides are cropping up and either supporting the Times’ article or supporting UOP. TheBizofKnowledge published an internal response from UOP that was circulated widely to educational partners, clients and students.
A nicely balanced response is available through This Week in Education.
I encourage you to go and read the articles and responses. Feel free to comment on either side of the issue.
I have formed my opinion based on my own experiences and researched understanding of the University. In true scholarship, finding evidence and support of one’s claim is important. Sure the article is raising the flags of controversy and the battle lines are being drawn. As a doctoral learner, I am taking the stance of support your claim, to both sides.
NY Times did a poor job substantiating the facts. UOP’s response shows that and the evidence is available for us to get and support. Something obviously true about University of Phoenix. It is the largest university in the nation and for-profit. The scrutiny such an institution would be under is easily more than traditional schools.
What is sad about the inappropriate article from NY Times is that is falsely turns people’s opinions about the University, making accomplishing the mission of the University – to graduate students and boost the level of knowledge in the world- much more difficult.
Make no mistakes, there are good and bad points to every school regardless of format, modality, tradition, focus, etc. I, like you, need to practice good research and find the right fit for our lives. I do not look at the world through rose-colored glasses. Not everything is fantastic at UOP or in classes. There are areas that require improvements. However, I am a fan, a caring, passionate, raving fan of what UOP is doing in terms of education. My story is below. It is real. It is mine. It may be like yours, it may not be.
My Story
I was skeptical about University of Phoenix back in 2002 when I started my Masters degree. I asked a lot of questions of the counselor, my HR colleagues, my training colleagues, business executives, and students about the experience. I found negative things and more positive things. I looked into the acceptability of online degree programs and discovered some unexpected truths about the perception in the marketplace and my particular industry. Armed with a well researched decision, I took the plunge into a graduate degree.
After enrolling, I still had doubts about UOP and those quickly dissolved in the strength of academic rigor and discourse. Comparing to my traditional alma mater, I never experienced such a robust and meaningful learning experience. The materials are deeply rooted in theories, scholarship and academic rigor; while looking forward to how that root system supports the growth of practice and growth of that practice.
- Did I have tough times? Yes.
- Did I have bad experiences? Yes.
- Did those outweigh the benefits or greatness? No.
The quality of my work grew exponentially. My expertise quickly took shape and I found myself excelling at the focus of my work and study. I was/am an advocate of the University of Phoenix. I know it is not for everybody and have no delusions that some people don’t like UOP and what is has to offer for a growing and needing population.
When it was time to look at a Doctoral Program, I could not imagine attempting the rigor in any other format. I wanted to be challenged, I wanted to grow, and I wanted to advance in career and profession. UOP was the only school on my mind. I did look at others and arrived back at the experiences I had with UOP and found myself quickly back in the routine of being an adult, working, living, student.
I cannot imagine learning in any other manner for me.
Again, comments (on either side) are welcome. This is an emotional issue for some, please be professional.
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This note was sent to all students in the School of Advanced Studies at the University of Phoenix.
University of Phoenix — Making a Difference Today
A Clash of Cultures in Academe
by Brian Mueller, President, Apollo Group
The article in the New York Times by Sam Dillon has exposed a clash of cultures between traditional academia and newer, market-oriented colleges and universities.
The education crisis
America’s economic power depends upon our educated workforce and by all counts, we’re failing. Forrester Research has predicted that about 3.3 million U.S. service jobs will move to foreign countries by 2015, yet we continue to leave behind masses of potential students who either can’t afford college or can’t find a seat in one. It may come as a surprise that your own alma mater is not what the majority of college students may want or need today and for the next decade. Those bucolic, sentimental, ivy-covered campuses may even be obsolete with their heavy investment in physical facilities, semesters based on a bygone agrarian system, and class schedules that appear to honor the more pressing needs of the faculty than the flexibility required by students.
Today the majority of students are cobbling together their education in fits and starts, commuting to colleges part-time while working full-time. Many are single parents and first-generation college students, and frequently they must engage in remedial coursework in order to overcome an incomplete or insufficient educational past. These are the students who overwhelmingly need flexible learning options such as online classes, alternative schedules, financial assistance and access to intensive support services to provide a coherent path to their degree. These are the students that most of the traditional higher education community has left behind.
New market-oriented colleges do the nation’s work
Market-oriented colleges like University of Phoenix are an essential part of the solution. The land-grant colleges originally intended to provide broad access to education cannot do it alone. In their quest for prestige, many of them have raised both tuition and admission standards beyond the reach of most students. Community colleges are filled to capacity, graduating fewer than 25% and struggling to learn how to serve this growing population.
In this environment, the rise of private for-profit colleges and universities should be no surprise. These institutions provide educational access to a broad spectrum of students, and they push the envelope on important innovations in flexibility and quality because they are fundamentally organized to confront market forces. Taxpayer dollars are not available to these colleges to fund their growth or services. Rather, public dollars come in the form of loans and grants, which go directly to students to fund their education. As employers, market-oriented colleges pay into the tax system and provide local employment opportunities. It’s a perfect example of America’s free enterprise system, whereby demand for a service fuels the growth of innovation and supply. Not just any service – but one that our nation desperately needs.
Quality and Regulation
Traditions die hard, despite the dismal realities confronting our public education system. Regulation and popular sentiment favor the status quo. It’s nice to believe that non-profit organizations have a higher moral purpose, but despite the extreme rhetoric about regulatory mishaps in for-profit education, there is no evidence that the accredited for-profits are any more or less compliant in regulatory matters than their non-profit peers. Indeed, if oversight is a comfort, the private, for-profit higher education sector is certainly the most examined and therefore most transparent in all of American higher education; accountable to local, state, federal and accreditation boards in addition to the Securities and Exchange Commission. They also must provide evidence of outputs or educational quality by maintaining comprehensive learning assessment systems, available to their regulatory overseers.
Education in the 21st Century
However, as with all innovation, skeptics abound to feed the culture clash between the old and the new. Those invested in the status quo objected when land grant colleges were introduced and also when community colleges came on the scene, railing against their supposed lack of quality, For-profit colleges are the latest target. We know that students will choose to earn their education both online and on campus, probably at multiple institutions, and from the colleges that can provide the most support and flexibility. There is no turning back – this is what education looks like in the 21st century.
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[...] I was reading an blog about someone’s decision to enroll in an MBA program over at The Finance Journey. I wanted to comment but the commenting option appears disabled, so I am commenting on my own blog in hopes that Chuck, the blogger at The Finance Journey, finds my post. And, for the frequent readers, you know I blogged about my decision to go to UOP before. [...]
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