Whether we like HES and its students or not, whether the degree HES offers will grant them high salary job or not, the FACT is that the enrollment is growing exponentially and getting rave reviews about its Distance Education programs. The school offers 600+ courses and over 100+ courses capture live classes few days ago.
Also having a "Harvard" degree can definitely help with resume, but that doesn't mean that you are worth what the degree or the brand has to offer, that you are rigorous in advancing the knowledge and pursuing a higher "ivy-league" standard. To this end, it will be upto that individual. When you look at the 2007 graduation booklet, and see the HES graduates, many includes folks from top schools, even with PHDs, and multiple degrees (some even 4).
Some statistics are that there have been about 400,000+ individuals taking courses at HES and only about 1% are graduating with degrees granted (according to this year's (2007) Dean Shinagel's commencement speech).
To my knowledge, yes, ALB and AB are very different program in nature. In that matter, AB and rest of the Harvard degrees differ in that AB's definitely get their share of "praise" (watch the 2007 commencement video at
http://www.commencement.harvard.edu/)). Not to mention the prestige of living in the dorm and belonging to your own "dorm", or having your own freshmen dining hall at Sanders Theatre.
By attending HES, you won't have that prestige but at the same time you wouldn't have to spend (or don't have money to spend in my case) $200,000 dollars in four years (not to mention graduate studies that should follow after).
I believe we are comparing different fruits. Extension School gears toward specific individuals like me, who need to work full time and yet don't have leisure nor money to attend schools in full time. To that extent, I praise HES and its curriculars.
Cheers!