Aspen University: online Doctorate in Computer Science

[eLearner]

NA schools get a bad rap but not all of them deserve it. Especially at the highest levels of academia. While the original intention of NA colleges was to prepare students for applied, career-based degrees rather than liberal arts or pure academic degrees, there are plenty of NA colleges out there with a strong academic focus. This is particularly the case at the doctoral level. These schools are only NA in name and appear to be biding their time to earn RA accreditation since that is an expensive, multi-year process with lots of milestones along the way that they need to hit.

Which is why when people say things like this:

Personally wouldn't touch a NA school with a 10 foot pole. If an organization is accepting of a NA degree I'd be willing to put money on that degree not being a requirement for the position.

I remember that most who say it are saying it on reflex and (mis)perception without examination. For instance, there are tons of NA Nursing programs, surgical tech programs, vet tech programs, technology programs, and many others, all of which require the degree for their respective positions.

Over on another forum, it was funny watching people trash NA school after NA school over the years (none of them having attended the NA schools they were trashing mind you), only to suddenly speak highly of those same schools when they got RA accreditation. It was particularly hilarious watching them trash one that wound up getting ABET accreditation which is something most RA schools couldn't manage to achieve. If all of those once-NA schools were able to do that, clearly they weren't bad schools.

WGU had national accreditation at one time, but how many here trash WGU? I haven't seen any, and their system is no different today as an RA-only program than it was when it carried NA accreditation. The University of Arkansas system got NA accreditation for its eVersity program, should we say that the group of highly educated people who know the educational system better than most made a mistake? Or, does it stand to reason that they know NA has value and are in a much better position to make that assessment than the average detractor we find on the internet?

Bottom line, and I say this from a place of deep experience: the quality of a school comes down to its administration, not its accreditation or its profit status. America seems to be the one country of people still struggling to understand this.