I agree that online classes and degrees can be great, valuable additions to one’s career/life. Sadly for-profit places like U of Phoenix are more about what the person makes of it. I don’t doubt that you can learn a ton at UoP, but I’m willing to bet that you can also just run through a bunch of motions and get a degree. One interesting thing about the tech world is that so many job listings will say “or equivalent experience” because they know there are still people out there who might have no degree and still blow the doors off any other candidate.
I knew I was being dumb and missing the obvious joke, lol. It all makes sense now. DUH 
I just wasn’t sure if he was referencing Arizona, particularly with some of the recent political bullshit in regards to education there, and of course the insane heat.
@1vw2go I should have remained mum, then perhaps you would have continued to think of me as very clever.
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Oh definitely - for my kid, I want her to have that college experience and not just the piece of paper, but compared to the benefits offered by similar companies, being able to complete a degree with so little out of pocket expenses is an incredible benefit. Although it might not be as valuable as going to a 4 year traditional college with hanging out on the quad and the parties and the live music scene and all, it’s certainly WAY more valuable than a high school diploma and experience as a barista alone. If you were to take some kind of skill oriented degree, like accounting or computer science, it could be a good jumping off point to a more lucrative career.
Yeah, just for shits and grins I decided to see what they offered, and here are some that seem valuable for doing online:
Accounting
Information Technology
Criminal Justice Administration
Health Care Management
e-business
The Open University is well-respected as an educational establishment here in the UK. Employers tend to look favourably on folks who’ve completed a degree with them, as it shows considerable commitment doing so off their own bat in their own time.
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According to the Politico article I just skimmed, 25% of Starbucks baristas already have a college degree. My concern is that we’re filling the world with college-related debt, but the workforce doesn’t require all those college grads. Doesn’t anyone ever learn a trade anymore?
I think there’s a college bubble in this country, and I don’t know what it will be like when that bursts. Just like subprime mortgages and corrupted lending practices made home “ownership” easily and briefly available to millions of unqualified Americans, I’m concerned that mountains of unqualified, inescapable college loan debt is making college available to WAAAAAAAAY more people than it should. And when those people finish school, they’ll go become baristas and will not be able to repay their loans.
And in the meantime, colleges are expanding, expanding, expanding. And when they can’t expand physically due to geographic limitations, they reach more students (customers?) through online programs. And for-profit institutions like the University of Phoenix pop up, offering a dubious education in exchange for that federally subsidized loan money.
When anything from an economy to a colony of bacteria expands at this rate, it is eventually forced to contract. What will that contraction look like?
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Christ what assholes.
Mike Rowe (of Dirty Jobs) doesn’t just tell people that he supports trade work as a career. He started his own Foundation (Mike Rowe Works or MRW) aimed at providing a variety scholarships for students seeking education from trade schools.
One is provided as a $1,000 scholarship to help buy tools which are a required out of pocket expense for those students. In 2014, at total of $51,000 in $1000 scholarships was provided. In 2013, $51,000 was made available. In, 2011 and 2012 (the first two years of the program) a total of 76 scholarships were given out.
http://www.aednet.org/aed_foundation/articles/index_full_story.cfm?id=10928938
http://www.aednet.org/aed_foundation/articles/index_full_story.cfm?id=10930743
Here’s some more.
I think I might donate to Mike Rowe’s fund.
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He’s completely sincere in his efforts. He even spoke to the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee about the need for skilled trades workers in America. Here’s a link to that:
As far as I know, the fund is well-sourced, and the money does seem to go where it’s promised to. It’s still a young charity, but I haven’t heard anything negative.
What a lot of misunderstanding and posturing. Shocking for the internet.
What I see is that Starbucks paid the Uni a pile of money to give their employees discounted access to their online degree programs. I never saw anyone from the coffee chain claiming that they were paying for their employees tuition, fees, or even giving them time off… to finish college, just providing an easier course to -finish- college. As I read it it’s not a 4 year program, it’s for those who already are a lot of the way there… which most of the Starbucks baristas I know, are.
Again though, i guess they’re assholes for doing anything, according to those who have, AFAIK, done nothing.
Yep - this program is replacing a similar program in Seattle at City University of Seattle or Strayer University which is getting phased out in 2015. They already spent $6.5M up in Seattle, and now they’re trying to spread the money around to a new state.
Horrors.
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