[Tuition-free online university draws immigrant students](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/0f00da26788b4790af893893f385bd53/tuition-free-online-university-draws-immigrant-students)
What are your thoughts on this university? Would you allow your children to work hard to earn a four-year Bachelor’s from this type of university?
Not with an accreditation from the Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC)
Is there anything wrong with DEAC?
You get what you pay for. Here you pay nothing…
Regional accreditation is what counts, and DEAC isn’t a regional accreditation agency.
As of now, I seriously doubt that a degree from the University of the People will count for much among employers. The school has a noble ideal, but almost nobody has heard of it, and the name makes it sound like it’s some kind of hippie school that offers degrees in fields like Communism and Utopianism, Meditation, GMO-free Culinary Sciences, and Medical Marijuanology.
Why would NYU support such university?
http://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2011/06/09/nyu-partners-with-uopeople.html
Why would NYU allow students to fulfill some basic requirements with the U of P before heading to their Abu Dhabi campus?
“High performing students who have studied for at least one year at UoPeople and meet the standards of admission will be eligible to apply for admission to NYU Abu Dhabi.”
It looks like NYU Abu Dhabi is treating UoPeople as if it were a community college. Nothing wrong with that if there is no community college-like institution that serves that population of students.
From reading a few articles, it looks like NYU is using University of the People as a means to get some experience and experiment with on-line teaching.
But that is the problem: NYU is not letting them attend the NY campus. They’re flying them to UAE.
Why is that a problem?
Its web site indicates that it has two majors (business and computer science) with associates and bachelor’s degree programs in each. It has a very small selection of other courses for general education requirements.
DEAC is the only accreditation mentioned. No mention of getting or seeking regional accreditation, or AACSB for business, or ABET for CS.
“University of the People”
the name sounds like a cult or something.
and online degrees just do not cut it.
NYU may accept the credits, but if you don’t want to live in Abu Dhabi, no other college may accept the transfer credits.
The problem with this type of accreditation is that it is typically non reciprocal. I worked as an administrator at a college that had national accreditation and was in the process of regional (which we were awarded). In order for classes to transfer from one institution to another accreditation types must match. This means that any classes taken at a school that does not have regional accreditation will often not be accepted by a school that does. Until we were awarded regional our students were stuck, unable to transfer classes. Worse, we had a student with a bachelor degree get accepted to a Masters program at UCLA, who had her acceptance rescinded when they learned the school was nationally accredited. Once we had that regional accreditation everything was fine and our students were able to transfer classes and continue on for higher degrees.
On the bright side, this school is a not for profit, so this may mean traditional schools may be more willing to work with them down the road if they show a track record of strong learning outcomes. Time will tell.