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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

#331

Post by uopeoplestudent »

jki275 wrote: post #280
uopeoplestudent wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're deluding yourself, as people who go to these dead end institutions often do. You're of course free to do so, but if you think you are actually going to a real university, you're going to be in bad shape. I am curious. Why do you think I'm deluding myself? What do I stand to gain? I've already stated elsewhere that my pursuit of this degree is purely for the love of learning. I've also stated that I already h…

You probably benefit, we don't know who you are. It looks to me like you're shilling. You're a new account that exists solely to shill for your school that advertises itself as free but isn't, and advertises itself as accredited but isn't. ymmv. And I don't know what you consider "prestigious", I don't consider WGU prestigious.

> your school that advertises itself as free but isn't

Tuition free, which it is.

https://www.uopeople.edu/tuition-free/what-is-tuition-free/

"UoPeople’s Tuition-Free Model is 100% real! We offer degree programs absolutely tuition-free, thanks to our generous donors who support our mission. To help support the university’s continued operation, UoPeople charges a $60 application fee, and an Assessment Fee per course completed ($100 for the undergraduate programs, and $200 for the graduate programs). That’s it. No annual enrollment fees, and no cost for course material. For those who cannot afford these fees, scholarships are available to help support their studies."

> advertises itself as accredited but isn't.

Nationally accredited, which it is. Here's what the US Department of Education says: "Accredited since (01/16/2014)"

https://ope.ed.gov/dapip/#/institution-profile/233675

> I don't consider WGU prestigious.

UC Berkeley is fairly prestigious, no?

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2016/04/22/uop-partners-with-uc-...

Sure, new account could be a shill. I understand the skepticism, but I think I've provided enough throughout my various comments here to demonstrate that I'm a student while also maintaining my privacy.

You don't have to agree, but at the very least you can stop spreading misinformation about the school.

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

#332

Post by jki275 »

uopeoplestudent wrote: post #331
jki275 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably benefit, we don't know who you are. It looks to me like you're shilling. You're a new account that exists solely to shill for your school that advertises itself as free but isn't, and advertises itself as accredited but isn't. ymmv. And I don't know what you consider "prestigious", I don't consider WGU prestigious.

> your school that advertises itself as free but isn't Tuition free, which it is. https://www.uopeople.edu/tuition-free/what-is-tuition-free/ "UoPeople’s Tuition-Free Model is 100% real! We offer degree programs absolutely tuition-free, thanks to our generous donors who support our mission. To help support the university’s continued operation, UoPeople charges a $60 application fee, and an Assessment Fee per course c…

I'm not.

It's not tuition free, it has "fees" that replace tuition, and its accreditation is worthless, and the school goes to great lengths not to make that clear to its applicants.

And your "UC Berkeley" statement says "will consider", not will admit and not will transfer. It's very very mealy mouthed in terms of whether anyone actually gets in.

You're the one with the incentive to spread misinformation, and that's exactly what you're doing.

What would my incentive be? I've got multiple actual accredited degrees I'm working on another. What does explaining what this school is actually doing benefit me in any way? "National accreditation" is essentially worthless. This is known in the academic community, it is less well known to the people institutions like this prey on. I personally know people who have been taken by these institutions and I don't like to see it happen to people.

All I'm doing is telling people the misinformation you're feeding them.

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

#335

Post by jki275 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #324
jki275 wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By stating this, you are claiming that this fly-by-night unknown is like Stanford and Harvard. Stanford and Harvard don't need accreditation because they are the standards, and have set those standards for (Harvard anyway) nearly 400 years. When this college has been around and is known as one of the most prestigious colleges on the planet for 400 years, then we can talk about it not needing accreditation. Until then…

I don't think you understand. The reason this college is useless for academic purposes is nothing to do with its accreditation - it's to do with its reputation. We know accreditation is irrelevant, as other colleges do fine with out. You can be accredited and have a reputation, or you can be not accredited and have a reputation, or you can be accredited and not have a reputation, or you can be not accredited and not…

You're making an argument from absurdity, and you're wrong.

Stanford and Harvard don't need accreditation because they are among the premiere universities on the planet. Stanford is regionally accredited by the way, I'm not sure why you keep arguing they're not (your confusion is probably that they dropped their ABET accreditation in CS which is not required for CS although some universities do maintain it). Actually, now that I went back and looked it up, even Harvard is accredited, as is every other ranked university I looked up -- Carnegie Mellon is accredited, Georgia Tech is accredited, MIT is accredited.

The two things are entirely independent, you're correct -- but you're making an argument that isn't supportable in comparing the premiere universities on the planet who could, if they wanted, theoretically, eschew the concept of accreditation because they don't need to prove anything about their curriculum with a college that has nothing -- no accreditation, no reputation, nothing at all.

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

#336

Post by xythian »

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.

A number of states ended up enacting laws to solve this exact problem. Lawmakers had to force the big state universities to accept transfer credits from community and regional colleges.

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

#337

Post by mrybczyn »

SkyBelow wrote: post #277
wisty wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this different to the following? "Using counterfeit money is arguably OK because some of the people who use it might need it, or see the need to earn a living as a needless waste of time as long as there's idiots who'll accept fake currency".

The issue with counterfeit money is that it devalues the worth of all other money. But given who holds the majority of the money being devalued, given the extent that money is already being devalued for the benefit of some at the expense of others, and given that the idea of taking a relative to wealth portion from the group for the benefit of the poor is a form of redistribution the group already engages in regardle…

Plagiarism as a means to acquire a university degree devalues the worth of all other degrees...

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

#339

Post by uopeoplestudent »

elil17 wrote: post #200
uopeoplestudent wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish the school were more rigorous, but they are working towards regional accreditation. It takes time, unfortunately (or fortunately?).

I want to clarify, I’m not at all saying that UoP isn’t rigorous enough for what it is. While it may look like a cake walk to some HN readers, I’d guess that the curriculum poses a significant challenge and a real opportunity to learn for most people. If this is the low cost, online version of a average public university, I think there should also be a low cost, online version of a “top-tier” school.

No worries. I didn't take it negatively.

I would prefer a more rigorous program, but for what I pay I accept it for what it is.

And you're right that many of the students struggle with even the basic courses, and there's very little in the way of support for them. Then again, that tends to be the nature of online education in general.

I don't know of any low cost "top tier" bachelor's programs, but I do know the University of Texas Austin and Georgia Tech both offer online master's for ~$10k. As I understand the programs, they're supposed to be more for students who didn't major in CS in their undergrad though.

I actually find some of the coursework in the Tech program interesting like Computational Photography.

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

#340

Post by fortran77 »

finolex1 wrote: post #130
fortran77 wrote: post #56

I looked at their CS degree. Just one semester of Calculus?

AFAIK, CMU, Harvard, Yale and Princeton all require only one semester of calculus or less.

CMU appears to require 3 semesters (but will give credit for people who took a course in high school)

http://coursecatalog.web.cmu.edu/schools-colleges/schoolofco...

Yale has only one semester but warns students they may need additional math to succeed in some of the coursework.

I didn't check the rest.

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