July 31, 2006
Employers Remain Slow to Embrace Online Degrees
In its latest report on employers’ views of online colleges, The New York Times offers some news that will encourage the Phoenixes and Kaplans of the world—and some that should give them pause.
More and more online learners are applying for hotly contested jobs, the Times reports. The Central Intelligence Agency, for example, estimates that between 5 and 10 percent of its new recruits have taken at least some courses over the Web.
But online education’s reputation still suffers: Stories of diploma mills and the University of Phoenix’s allegedly over-the-top student-recruiting tactics (The Chronicle, October 8, 2004) have left many employers reluctant to hire virtual learners. In one recent study, 96 percent of employers said they would choose an applicant who went to a bricks-and-mortar college over one who obtained his or her degree online. —Brock Read
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Caveat – What this and other “studies” fail to differentiate is that if the “online degree” is actually earned from a brick and mortar college whose name employers recognize—such as the University of Illinois or the University of Maryland—then the stigma of an “online degree” disappears. However if the “online degree” is earned from a completely online (and often new college) lacking brand name recognition (such as Kaplan U or the U of Phoenix Online) then a significant stigma often applies. All “online degrees” are NOT seen as equal by employers accordinging to ongoing studies/surveys by GetEducated.com, the online degree clearinghouse.
— Vicky Phillips Jul 31, 04:44 PM #
Other “recent studies” show that as many as 40% of employers do embrace “online learning.” The Chronicle should be careful about publishing such briefs, which sometimes turn out to be junk science.
— Betty Jul 31, 05:18 PM #
why is there a lack of research on—-on line design challenges in problem based learning in nurse education.
Please does any one have any imformation of this.
chaz scotland
— chaz mac Jul 31, 06:31 PM #
How bizarre. Were not and are not industries pushing academia to open its doors to their employees… at all levels… to support, train, and retrain in the new ‘techno era’? Moreover, if the college or university… attached to or not to brick and mortar has accreditation from e.g. Regional Accreditation Organizations, what is the problem? Are not RAO, CHEA, and/or USDE legitimate? When did legitimate mean accreditation from a nationally recognized organization (see list at http://www.chea.org/pdf/CHEA_USDE_AllAccred.pdf) but ya gotta have more than the ability to use the best educational technology available, faculty, staff and administration to support it?
I guess I need a refresher. Let me see. Diploma mills are defined as being fully really accredited but not real even if they have received accredited, performed the rigorous process of self-accreditation analysis and been approved by the aforementioned BIG GUNS because employers only want graduates who have lived in a dorm and attended keggers?
Additionally, is it that colleges and/or universities are considered diploma mills when their programs pass the rigors of accreditation just like the ‘brick and mortar’ but are dismissible because they do not have enough square footage of building space?
OK, I give, however, I can accept it but I was wondering, what merit-to-value has been found as superior in brick-and-mortar graduates who have had the “touchy feely of hard pavement” preferred by employers in the workspaces that is not being met by online degrees? Is it the ability to coffee klatch?
Could it be, online degree programs provide access and opportunity for those who cannot afford to quit working to retool, do they have responsibilities, like partners, parents, or children who need them and creditors who insist on their regular incomes? Are they middle-class or aspiring to become middle-class working people (men and women) furthering their dreams who literally cannot afford to impoverish themselves? Alternatively, do the ‘brick and mortar’ institutions who provide courses and degrees, themselves distain their students and degrees offered in this new non-traditional venue? Just wondering.
Hmmm, last question, about the organizations and hiring authorities who denigrate working, distance, and time-disadvantaged student, were they … ahhh, Old School?
— Janet Jul 31, 08:50 PM #
I think that the first comment is probably most likely to be true. We recently conducted a study to compare the experiences of online students to traditional students at Drexel University and found that there was evidence that, in some aspects, online programs were actually more challenging and rigorous than the traditional counterparts, but that in most aspects there were few differences in the rigor of the programs. That would lead me to believe that the online programs offered by traditional “brick and mortar” institutions should garner the same respect with employers. The results of this study should be posted soon on http://www.drexel.com/
— Mark Palladino Aug 1, 09:44 AM #
This will all change in the next five years. Some of the current generation of senior employers look with suspicion upon distance learning and online courses and degrees because they, by and large, did not have them available, nor use them if they did, when they got their own degrees in the 1970s/1980s. Once the current generation of corporate leadership retires, within the next 5-10 years, the ones coming next will recognize the distance learning courses and degrees, and accept them as fully valid. This, in fact, is already well on its way as the “new blood” begins replacing the “old blood.” A majority of the new leaders will have already taken a course or even a degree along the way. Much of senior corporate/government/higher education leadership today learned typing on a Royal, manual typewriter (me included). The upcoming leadership generation probably doesn’t know what manual typewriters are/were. FYI—the US Marine Corps invented distance learning in the early 1920s at Marine Corps Schools, Quantico, Virginia, in response to a need by overseas stationed Marines. It has taken about eight decades to finally catch on in society in general.
— Dr. Barry N. Moore Aug 1, 11:50 AM #