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University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

uopeople.edu

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Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

#311

Post by throwawaygh »

jariel wrote: post #139
themodelplumber wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> could not grasp the idea of plagiarism being unethical I remember experiencing this at a private religious university. At the time, my hyper-religious mind was blown to see students outright cheating in the Testing Center. Since then I've been exposed to additional perspectives on plagiarism. It is an extremely deep and nuanced topic. A few years out of school, I ended up mentoring and then teaching college student…

This is a thoughtful comment, at the same time, it's some pretty scary postmodernism. Advocating cheating because it helps a student from possibly lesser means achieve their 'check-box' in education is missing the point, in a very serious way. We can always strive to have an open mind, to try and be sympathetic to the plight of others - but the Truth is pretty much still the Truth. Plagiarism is not a controversial s…

The "checkbox degree" hypothesis is mostly false. Some companies do require a degrees, yes. But that's a minimum requirement. Literally zero companies promise a job to everyone with a degree.

It's a bit difficult for me to believe that there are highly competent people who would be effective employees now, but for whom cheating is easier than doing the work. Remember: cheating (without getting caught) takes time too.

I can write a few page essay on any given topic much faster than I can figure out how to copy/pasta that essay without getting caught.

I can implement most undergraduate programming assignments faster than I can figure out how obfuscate someone else's code enough to fool cheat detectors.

Etc.

The subset of people who are truly competent but for whom cheating is easier than doing the work has to be vanishingly small.

Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

#312

Post by bitexploder »

brooklyn_ashey wrote: post #301
glenstein wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of people in this thread breezily dismissing the value of effective writing is taking my breath away. I don't think these confident declarations we're getting in this thread paint a remotely accurate portrayal of skills that actually help career advancement. I think everyone's kind of playing a game where it's treated as a trick question and they're looking to emphasize the exceptions as much as possible.…

Throughout grad school, I worked as a writing tutor to support my humanities habit. Each new class of high school seniors was less skilled —and even less interested— in writing than the last. These were kids with 3.9 GPAs who went to Dalton, Horace Mann, Brearly, Choate and similar. I think great writing is a valuable life skill. I wish I could see more real-life evidence that employers care about it in the real worl…

My point is not so much that employers value it or not, but that it is a tool in your arsenal to advance yourself.

Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

#313

Post by throwawaygh »

topkai22 wrote: post #94
eikenberry wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't restricted to untraditional schools. At least one of our local state universities have stopped accepting credits from the community colleges due to the practice of transferring for the final couple years. Might be something similar going on here. It might be that they want the degree to represent the full 4 year experience at the school or it might just be the money. The cynic in me prefers the latter.

If that was happening in my state I’d definitely be writing my representatives to take action and change that- transferability to a university while being able to live at home and pay less was quite explicitly one of the points of having a community college system when I was growing up.

Many state universities changed those transfer policies when states made deep higher ed budget cuts during the great recession. The alternative in our state was closing branch campuses (thereby making college even less accessible for most of the state).

Lots of universities in the US are lavish and expensive. Our state's branch campuses are the definition of utilitarian. Tuition is some of the lowest in the country. Salaries for professors at the branch campuses are lower than what we pay our high school teachers. Very little admin overhead. There's simply not much to cut.

Anyways, not saying it's right. But if you cut higher ed budgets, higher ed will get more expensive to the end user. Especially if the system was already hyper-efficient. Limiting transfer credits is pretty much the only way to make things more expensive to the end user without increasing tuition.

Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

#314

Post by bencollier49 »

querez wrote: post #185
Zircom wrote: post #57

So this seems like a good time to ask, does anyone have experience with University of London's online degree and how US employers feel about it? I've been eyeing it for a couple years now and was wondering if anyone either has experience directly with this program, or at least can speak more to how US employer's feel about degrees from overseas. https://london.ac.uk/sites/default/files/prospectuses/comput... https://…

This may be slightly off-topic, but if you're looking at online/distance-learning offers from the UK, the OpenUniversity ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_University ) is very well known and well respected, and has decades of experience in doing this.

Unfortunately, the OU is now a lot more expensive than it used to be. It's a shame it can't offer anything at the price of this University of the People.

Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

#315

Post by jerry1979 »

BeetleB wrote: post #167
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you can't do the middle-class job because you can't write, the piece of paper will only get you so far. It may get you an entry-level job, but you probably won't get much in the way of promotions. So even from that perspective, plagiarism isn't helpful.

> But if you can't do the middle-class job because you can't write, the piece of paper will only get you so far. It may get you an entry-level job, but you probably won't get much in the way of promotions. So even from that perspective, plagiarism isn't helpful. Where do these mythical jobs exist where being able to write well is a requirement for career growth? Certainly not at engineering companies. I wish what you…

You write well. Maybe you have a blind spot because of that.

Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

#316

Post by zepto »

zarathustreal wrote: post #291
antepodius wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or: Objective reality might exist, but it's not necessarily present in the universities, which are mostly there as an IQ test by proxy with a filter for the most lazy, with some social indoctrination thrown in. Any science or truth exists only at the whims of the social order of the day.

>Any science or truth exists only at the whims of the social order of the day. This is not objectively true but I understand what you're trying to say. I'm sad to hear that your experience of science and truth has been only that which society has given you, or at the least that you feel that others are only experiencing it in that way

This is a crucial argument. Do you have a link to something that supports your statement that “this is not objectively true”? I think it would help a lot in these debates.

Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

#317

Post by dangus »

It’s not regional accreditation, so it’s not real accreditation.

For example, the MBA program doesn’t have AACSB accreditation.

I don’t want to just be negative here and certainly for the price of free it’s a good resource to receive some kind of education, and ultimately a lot of people shopping for degree programs forget that a big reason to do them is to actually learn things. In that way this is a great resource!

But without that regional accreditation, I find the big bold claim of “accredited” to be just about as misleading as the way that for-profit schools throw around the term.

Of course, a lot of employers ignore the name of the college and don’t bother with researching its accreditation. I’m sure a lot of people want to just get through HR filters if you can say “bachelors degree” instead of “high school diploma.” Or maybe you need a masters degree to become a manager as a matter of company policy, and the company isn’t picky about the degree.

I look at the MBA courses and it looks like the program consists first foundational courses that make up less than half or so of the curriculum of an AACSB accredited MBA. The computer science program does look a little more comprehensive.

There are a ton of programs out there online with reasonable costs and more legitimate credentials. Since I was recently looking at MBA programs, I can tell you that public schools like the University of North Dakota, Ball State, Mississippi State, and many others are highly ranked along with a low cost per credit hour. You can jump on the US News online MBA ranking site and filter by credit hour cost.

The most expensive thing is your time, and unlike money you can’t get it back, so if it were my own education I would consider cost but also consider whether I come out of the program having wasted time with any of the concerns I stated above. Look at the curriculum and make sure it offers electives that might help you in your desired or current career (for example, a good AACSB business school will have courses on specific industries like Healthcare or IT Operations).

Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

#318

Post by zepto »

jariel wrote: post #146
themodelplumber wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit of an overreach, isn't it, calling my writing incoherent and incompetent? (Edit: Parent clarified that "you" is meant to mean a hypothetical student, not me.) If more information is needed, as was the case here, we can ask questions. That's got nothing to do with author competence. It's not an essay contest. And why assume we know it all, filling in the gaps like that? In a discussion of ethics, this is…

His statement was very matter of fact. If students don't bother to do the work, they won't develop any competence in the discipline. It would be like sending someone for Scala training, only to have them skip all of the work, buy the answers to the quiz, get the accreditation. University is about much more than 'skill acquisition' but there is a lot of that. Cheating is almost universally pointless.

‘Cheating is almost universally pointless’

Except that it clearly isn’t. There are all kinds of people in positions of power who are clearly incompetent in many of the skills we would want them to be expert in.

Often cheating enabled them to pass the gatekeepers and attain their position.

Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

#319

Post by non-entity »

querez wrote: post #185
Zircom wrote: post #57

So this seems like a good time to ask, does anyone have experience with University of London's online degree and how US employers feel about it? I've been eyeing it for a couple years now and was wondering if anyone either has experience directly with this program, or at least can speak more to how US employer's feel about degrees from overseas. https://london.ac.uk/sites/default/files/prospectuses/comput... https://…

This may be slightly off-topic, but if you're looking at online/distance-learning offers from the UK, the OpenUniversity ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_University ) is very well known and well respected, and has decades of experience in doing this.

OU is pretty interesting, and I've always heard really good things about it, at least from people in the UK nations strongly associated with the UK. But one thing the GP asked about was how US employers feel about it, and I wouldn't consider OU a well known school in the US.

Some people have brought this up about UoTP, and I think it may also apply to OU in the US: The name makes it sound fishy.

Slightly unrelated, but I find it weird that I, an American, can apply to some their law degrees, but not a number of fully-online STEM degrees.

Re: University of the People: Tuition-Free, Accredited Online Degree Programs

#320

Post by throwawaygh »

cancerSpreads wrote: post #267
TrackerFF wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, that's probably true, but even students at the absolute top universities are capable of this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Harvard_cheating_scandal

The more students you meet at "top Universities" the more the illusion of superiority disappears. The students are mind numbingly average. (But don't worry they will let you know what college they went to 12 years ago) Heck if the job requires any communication, you might be better off finding someone humble or someone who needs to prove themselves. Or maybe the best of these students go on to work at companies that…

I attended a no-name college and went to a top-tier university for my phd (think mit/stanford/cmu/berkeley). I also taught at a different top-tier university. Everything below is specific to CS.

I think that top-tier universities are different in the top 20% and bottom 20% of students. The top 20% because you won't find those types of people at no-name. The bottom 20% because they're at least not completely incompetent (unlike the bottom 20% at no-name).

Here's how I break it down:

Top 20% of students at top universities: They really are that good. Also, they are the ones who benefit most from the intense curriculum at top universities. So they start off really good and actually do get a force multiplier effect from the comparatively very rigorous course-work. Most of these students end up on rapid trajectories in industry or with NSF fellowships.

Average students at top universities: Most of these students would be in the top 10% of the class at a no-name college. Still quite good, but nothing special.

Bottom 20% of students at top tier universities: Really nothing special. Comparable to the average student at no-name. Contrast with the bottom 20% at no-name, many of whom couldn't fizzbuzz on their first attempt in our senior interview prep course.

So, top tier places are really characterized by their top 20% and bottom 20%. The top 20% really are quite amazing to work with. The bottom 20% are at least not incompetent.

One last note:

> Or maybe the best of these students go on to work at companies that pay 250k/yr and I just don't meet them.

Most of my students at top-tier had offers in the $150K - $250K range. So if your sample of top-tier university CS students is sampled exclusively from non-entry-level engineers who did not receive offers in the $250K range, you're almost certainly sampling from the bottom 20% of top-tier graduates.

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