Your experience at California Coast University? Interested in $21k doctorate.

[eLearner]

I’m here to inject reality into the discussion as someone who has done extensive in person and online schooling. If the philosophy of the forum is to collect and gather as many degrees as possible from random third world countries, elaborate transferring processes or unaccredited dubious programs. Then yes, I am at odds with that.

I always ask the, “why”. Well regarded is subjective of course, a PhD in History from UC Berkeley is universally well regarded. A random EdD online from an unknown school? No. There is a reason why 99% of PhDs are in person and online “doctorates” are relegated to either professional fields (DNP, DPT, DBA) or soft areas like DPA or EdD. They aren’t in the same league as a PhD and tensions someone who has one (forced due to my career field), they serve really no purpose practically.

I’m here to inject reality into the discussion as someone who has done extensive in person and online schooling.

Many of us here have done the same.

If the philosophy of the forum is to collect and gather as many degrees as possible from random third world countries, elaborate transferring processes or unaccredited dubious programs. Then yes, I am at odds with that.

Almost no one here is interested in unaccredited degrees as it's well-understood what the issues are with them. I don't know of or recall any rush for degrees from "random third world countries". With "elaborate transferring processes", if one can figure out how to use legitimate schools to learn and make transfers to maximize their endeavors, then that's just savvy. No reason to spend 100K to learn the exact same thing and get the exact same degree (sometimes from the exact same school) that you can for 25K or less.

Well regarded is subjective of course, a PhD in History from UC Berkeley is universally well regarded. A random EdD online from an unknown school? No. 

I don't think it's that subjective at all. Everyone here knows which schools have a standing of prestige and which ones don't. But not everyone is concerned with that, especially after knowing that so many people who went to high-priced schools of prestige are struggling to make ends meet and aren't even working in the field their degree is in just like the people who went to a local community college. That's the injection of reality we all got years ago and we know better now. For most of us, learning is the aim more than the prestige, being in a clearly outlined system with people overseeing our progress and being able to answer our questions and concerns is why we enroll rather than just grabbing books and trying to wing it on our own. And given the not-so-great ROI of the college degree today, it makes perfect sense to seek out those systems without going into crippling debt.

There is a reason why 99% of PhDs are in person and online “doctorates” are relegated to either professional fields (DNP, DPT, DBA) or soft areas like DPA or EdD. They aren’t in the same league as a PhD...

I'm fairly certain that 99% of PhD programs are not in-person only. I've seen some data suggesting 85-90% but that number was about 0% for a few years, I'll touch on that later...

Define "soft", because there is definitely subjectivity there. "Hard" sciences are learned online, and between 2020 and 2023 there was no other choice, but people were already doing that long before 2020. Lots of medical students have been saying since at least 2010 that it was common to listen to lectures and videos at 2x speed, hardly go to classes, and still ace their exams, and medicine is a "hard" science. That just shows us that there are other ways to learn without having to be butt-in-seat for hours in a lecture hall. But what I find hilarious about that is, those exact same people who've said that at places like Student Doctor Network also attacked online medical school learning while they themselves learned by distance and somewhat bastardized it by watching their videos at 2x speed, lol. The logic, smh. After 2020, I haven't seen much negative talk in that regard there, hmmmm... wonder why?

So starting in 2020 and for a few years after, every other subject had to be learned online as well, and that includes all PhD programs. Did they all just suddenly become garbage? Absolutely not, because one thing people who have been with a number of schools online and off know, is that there are good and bad schools online and offline, good and bad courses online and offline, good and bad instructors online and offline. There are online courses that were complained about by students until they went out of existence at top schools, and other online courses at lower-tier schools that won awards and wound up having a waiting list for students to get in. School quality varies.

... they serve really no purpose practically.

For you. That's not the same for everyone else. People have gotten degrees at every level from online programs and transformed their lives. 

This debate feels like one I would've had in 2004 when online learning was still in its infancy, technology had more limits, and most people had never taken an online class (and yet had nothing but negatives to say about them). In 2024 with all of that having changed, the debate is just outdated and weird. You may not like where education has gone, but it's already gone there and it's never going back to what it was before. I'd be more concerned about the nonsense being taught by many schools today rather than the delivery method.