Online universities: friend or foe?
Last week, Fox News’s Glenn Beck announced the launch of “Beck University” featuring “captivating lectures and interactive online discussion” through an “academic program” of courses in Faith, Hope and Charity. The admissions process is pretty simple—just sign up for a subscription to Glenn Beck’s Insider Extreme on his website. The tuition is pretty cheap, too—just $6.26 per month.
Disregarding the obvious political slant (although Beck himself is not teaching the courses), there are some big questions here. What constitutes a university, or even an academic program at that? Where should we draw the line at marketing online “programs” as a university? Who is really qualified to teach? If anyone can start their own online academic program, who should we trust?
The fact that just about anyone can attach words like “academic,” “courses,” “university,” or “program” to their online content is interesting. I don’t think anyone would confuse Beck’s courses for a real accredited academic program, but I still have no doubt that some users will readily sign up for it. The fact of the matter is that Beck isn’t the first to name his own unaccredited university; he’s just brought it to a new level.
Apple did it. Take iTunes University for example; it’s an online public access point where just about anyone can create a page under which to distribute their content. It’s an amazing resource, where we can often find genuine college course lectures and materials, but Apple sure isn’t passing out degrees. There’s still plenty of subjective and non-academic content under the iTunes U umbrella and I find myself having to weed through to get to the good stuff.
Some companies even have their own corporate universities, often comprised of training programs for a specific internal positions and/or continuing education for staff’s professional development, where the company almost always picks up the tab. Although some corporate universities offer courses for Continuing Education Credits (CEU’s), most often the programs are offered with a company slant rather than general education, making the content difficult to transfer elsewhere.
Then there’s everyone else. The unaccredited Christian bible universities of the world that seek “only God’s approval.” The Average Joes disguising their mediocre knowledge of a field as a course at their self-created “university” (as an example, check out CoreTech University online). And of course, the Glenn Becks of the world basically re-branding the same old opinionated content on their site in the form of an academic program to make an extra buck.
But what does this all really mean? If anyone can start a university these days, whom should we trust with our time and our money? In an age where Gen Y is graduating with mounds upon mounds of college loan debt and not reaping the career benefits they thought they would having a college education, maybe all these privately-run, relatively inexpensive universities aren’t a bad idea. Maybe there’s more value in these various, industry-targeted, biased programs than we give them credit for. After all, if someone is willing to pay money for Beck’s program or anyone else’s, there has to be at least some value in it for that person.
So let’s keep this conversation going, because I don’t have all the answers. Did you find more value in the online program you paid $99.99 for than the college degree you paid at least $30,000 for? What about all the online resources that you don’t pay for? Is it even necessary to pay for an education anymore—if we weren’t worried about having that little piece of paper that declares us competent in reading, writing, and arithmetic? Do you think all the unaccredited programs sprouting up need more regulation or common terminology? How is all of this changing the educational landscape for the future?
Photo by Gage Skidmore
This is why it is important to take classes and get degrees etc where the institution is accredited by the specific Governing Body for that subject or area of expertise. Yes it usually costs more. But it means more. Also as you grow in your work life and possibly hire people for jobs, you can check on the background of any learning institution to ensure it is legit. Plenty of people lie on resumes. Whether it is your own business or you work for someone its good practice to check these things out.
As for the subject of your post, the new online classes and universities can fruitful for people. I know someone with 2 Master Degrees teaching an online class via video feed for a community college. Just because they are online doesn't mean they lack value. But I doubt anyone who graduates Glenn Beck U will be looked at with awe like someone who has a PhD from Harvard Med!
You ask some thought provoking and important questions here, Carlee. With more and more educational “institutions” popping up, the over saturation of the education sector will cause it to lose value. This loss in educational value can be alleviated by inspiring the students to define what they are looking for in an education. The hardest part in this “what holds the most value?” debate is that no two students are alike, so what helps one student learn , may not help the another. If we all could have the discipline to be Will Hunting and teach ourselves reading, writing, and extremely advanced arithmetic, than the world would be a better place.
But this is hardly ever the case. We look to institutions to teach us and award certificates for a competent completion. Unfortunately, it seems that the motives behind the educational process are off track and are treated more like a business than anything else.
Beck U isn't even close to accredited, so obviously it's not even nearly comparable to Harvard or any other ivy league. But still there's a ton of accredited universities that I would doubt their legitimacy… especially with all these online degree programs popping up. Some programs lend well to the online format, but some just should never go down that path (like Nursing, MBAs, Clinical Counseling, etc).
That being said, I believe there are still some really respected, highly educated, knowledgeable people teaching courses & programs online that may not be part of an accredited program, yet they're way more valuable to the individual than a crappy B.S. from Stayer University.
Carlee case to your point. I have a BS Finance from a UNC school. I spent 16 years in B2B sales mostly heavy industry. Direct sales, Business Development. Everything I know about Advertising has been self taught by reading and observing real life. I don't read books. Just trade news and white papers, case studies etc, and since fall 2009 when I got heavy into Twitter for Networking I read many blogs from great minds like Edward Boches (and podcasts these people are on like The Bean Cast and Adverve) as well as talk with these people I align with (I don't align with 80% of people on the industry which btw is one of my selling points). So its all real life education.
My resume and my Degree say certain things but not the whole story. My last corp job I sold things that did not exist…yet! I sold custom engineered products that detect motion (like telling a NASA probe its now in a comets tail) or gas control products (hydrogen fuel system for Fords hydrogen car program). You can't find these things in a catalog.
So I think degrees are important (they show achievement) but real life experience is just as important and you know when someone is BSing you about subjects you are an expert on. I mean technically I have an unaccredited MBA now in Advertising and Business Admin (started my own company 2 years ago). Knowledge is power. A Paper Degree is just Paper! Plus most of my Schooling I never used in real life work since I didn't go into banking. (Though it does piss off people like Edward when Finance folks pester Creatives on whether work increased sales when its not always in their control! LOL)
I feel like this is comparable to the influx of “accurate, informative” web pages and online research that popped up when the Internet got popular (and continue to grow — Wikipedia, I'm looking at you), with traditional schooling being something like the trusty old book form of an encyclopedia. In both situations, you have to do your research and figure out what's worth your time (and money, in the case of online courses) and what's complete BS. Nature of the beast, ya know?
I could see taking an online course (I actually looked into an online certificate program), but only after significant research to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into. I also agree with you that online programs really don't gel with some subjects — anyone who got their nursing degree online, I'd run from as fast as I could!
I'm with you, Angela. I've been considering taking some continuing education courses and I've looked at the brick & mortar universities around here (UNC, NC State, Duke, & even the community college) as well as some online courses. The online courses are just CHEAPER, don't require such a physical presence (except in front of my computer), and I can sign up just about any time I want. Not only that but after doing my research (and this depends on the course topic and industry), I trust the online courses better than most of the community college offerings & they're cheaper than the bigger universities who would slam me with all these extra student fees.
But yea… if I wanted to go be a nurse I wouldn't look to Phoenix, Strayer, or AIU that's for sure!
Good point, Rich about no two students are alike. What's valuable for one person isn't going to be valuable for another. In that case diversity in education like this is pretty important. Some students need the physical presence to guide them, others don't. Some need a piece of paper degree to get them in the door, while others (and I'm speaking mostly to entrepreneurs & freelancers here) need the skills quickly & cheaply rather than a 4-year degree.
I think perhaps the accreditation process is getting a little lax with all these online institutions though. What exactly are they being granted accreditation for? If just for offering certain courses with a certain number of teaching hours… there are so many ways that online institutions can't get around these rules, it concerns me. And they have every REASON to do so, because it's just more money in the school's pocket.
Great post, Carlee. I've been mulling some very similar things over at my blog, Higher Ed Career Coach. This Monday, I wrote a post asking “What Do Institutions of Higher Education Need to Learn? http://higheredcareercoach.com/2010/07/12/what-…
I also like Rich's allusion to Good Will Hunting. One of my commenters mentioned that movie yesterday and I think that story is very relevant. What Beck is doing is basically cashing in on the information economy. Many of us are doing so, me included, so I'm not going to harsh on him for that part of things. (There's plenty of other stuff to criticize him for, anyway.)
Rich has a good point about accreditation and soon enough, “universities” like Beck's will probably just create their own “accrediting” bodies. Diploma mills already do this. Which is why processes like ISOs exist.
So how can people best weed out the bad from the good? Credibility is an issue, but doesn't good information stand on its own? Curious to hear your thoughts. Please consider reading my post and commenting on it as well.
Thanks for the though-provoking and well-written post.
Sean
Thanks Sean! I will definitely investigate your higher ed blog and see what everyone else was saying over there. If you're interested in some real back and forth discussion on the topic, check out the comments on the Brazen Careerist page (http://www.brazencareerist.com/2010/07/13/onlin…) where this article was also posted. There's a few other passionate people discussing the value of an online education over there.
My opinion is that there are always going to be the Will Huntings in the world, and they're often the ones taking advantage of all the FREE (or less expensive) & often unaccredited learning content online because I think they're more self-motivated to delve into a topic on their own and don't feel the need to pay lots of money to have someone whip them into shape.
But those people are rare. Most people want the easy way out, whether that be paying someone to give them the easiest degree they can get, or paying someone to really push their boundaries further than they would on their own (where a lot of private tutors, coaches, consultants, etc come in). People like that don't need to be accredited that they know what they're talking about… they just need recommendations & references.
I'm more and more jaded by the word “accreditation” as I review more and more “universities”. Just about all online institutions (and even some really small brick & mortar ones) are accredited these days… but BY WHO? When you look closely you realize they're accredited by their small town, their friends, their church, I'm not surprised by anything these days.