Will companies hire you if you're a graduate from The University of Phoenix Online?

Answer 1

Answer 1: I love it when this question is asked because despite the fact that University of Phoenix (UOP) is "regionally" accredited by one of the US's big six "regional" accreditors approved by both the US Department of Education (USDE) and the USDE-sanctioned Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) (which kind of accreditation, incidentally, is considered the "gold standard" among academicians)...

...UOP, nevertheless, has a bad reputation among many employers and others. And so, the short answer to the question "will companies hire you if you're a graduate from the University of Phoenix Online" is probably yes, but maybe no.

Here's the long answer...

To establish my credibility, here, I am a management consultant with pushing 40 years experience. Most of my consulting has been in high-tech, though about a third of it has always been in general management, and even marketing. As my consulting began to include distance learning technologies some 20 or so years ago, I also got into more generalized educational consulting areas, including accreditation; and one cannot get involved with such things without also coming to understand, all too painfully well, how good-for-nothing degree and diploma mills work; and so I am also an almost-well-known activist in that ugly area, too. I know, in any case, what I'm talking about, here; and because of that, I usually sign my posts, here, with my full name and contact information because it is the imprimatur of that which supports what I herein write. So, then, see that signature at this post's end. Anyone who wants to add anything, please do it as a separate answer, separated from this one by a horizontal line.

First, let's just get this clear, right off the bat: It matters not whether any college degree was earned online or in the classroom... at UOP, or anywhere else. There is no difference -- and I mean none -- between a course taught online, and one taught in the classroom at any school that is accredted by a USDE- and/or CHEA-approved agency. Period. The content and requirements are exactly the same, as are the exams. A degree earned online, then, is just as rigorous and credible as one earned in the classroom. In fact, in a 2009 study commissioned by USDE, distance learning students were found to be more serious and committed, more focused, and more self-disciplined, than their in-classroom counterparts; and most distance learners tended to do better, too.

The reason that some persons -- including some employers -- think that distance or online learning is sub-standard is because the degree/diploma mills have given "online" learning a bad name. And the reason is because all degree/diploma mills are online; and the reason for that, simply, is that it's a heck of a lot easier for a con artist to create an impressive-looking fake college/university website than it is for him/her to create an impressive-looking physical campus. In the minds of those who don't know any better, though -- which mind, sadly, can sometimes be those of HR persons at employers -- "online" is synonymous with good-for-nothing degree/diploma mills.

Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. Even Harvard and Yale, now, offer entirely-online degrees. So do most real and accredited colleges/universities, now; or, if they don't offer entire degrees, they at least offer some online courses. So, then, it's an "all thumbs are fingers, but all fingers are not thumbs" sort of thing, to wit: All degree/diploma mills are online, but not all online schoools are degree/diploma mills.

So, then, the very first thing that any employer needs to understand is that as long as the degree was earned at a school accredited by a USDE- and/or CHEA-approved agency, then it matters not one whit whether said degree was earned online or in the classroom.

And that's true about UOP, too. Its online programs are no different from its in-classroom programs. So, then, if a UOP course is a good one in the classroom, then it's also a good one in online mode. However, in UOP's case, therein lies the rub: UOPs courses are fairly well-known, in most of academia, to be of the absolutely bare minimum quality that will be acceptable to a regional accreditor.

So, then, while it matters not whether a UOP course is delivered online or in the classroom...

...what can matter to an employer is whether or not said course, no matter how delivered, was of very high quality. Oh, sure, all UOP courses are at least good enough to satisfy the school's accreditor, else UOP couldn't retain its accreditation. However, remember that accreditation is a minimal, and not an optimal standard. Accreditation ensures that a school's standards are, at minimum, good enough that its coursework is generally transferrable to other accredited schools; and/or that its degrees are acceptable to other accredited schools as requisite for entry into said other schools' higher-level degree programs. Accredition simply ensures that the school's standards have not dipped too low.

Simple proof of that may be seen in the fact that both Harvard and Yale hold the exact same type of "regional" accreditation as one's local community college; yet no one who hasn't fallen on his/her head too many times in life would ever dare consider one's local community college to be even close to on par with either Harvard or Yale. So, then, again, accreditation is a minimal, and not an optimal standard.

But it's still a good one... what many consider, again, the "gold standard" of higher education accreditation. Though I would argue that "national" accreditation is just as good; and that all schools, be they regionally or nationally accredited, as long as they're accredited by a USDE- and/or CHEA-approved agency, should, pursuant to the goals of CHEA's Higher Education Transfer Alliance (HETA) program, routinely always accept one anothers both credits and degrees in transfer...

...I nevertheless concede that there is a profound (and profoundly irrational, in my opinon) "regional" accreditation bias among most colleges and universities out there, and among most employers and government. And so, sadly, my advice to students tends to be to just stick with schools that are "regionally," and not "nationally" accredited. So doing will ensure that the greatest number of both employers and other schools -- as well as government, for any purposes for which it requires a degree -- will accept one's degree.

It's a pity that that's the case; and it always pains me to so advise. But I cannot mislead anyone. Getting a nationally-accredited degree, instead of a regionally-accredited one, can result in the nationally-accredited degree holder losing-out on some opportunities in life; not being hired for something, for example, despite that his/her nationally-accredited degree fully qualifies him/her for the job, simply because the hirer has an insensible "regional" accreditation bias; or because it's the kind of job which requires a state-issued professional license, and the relevant state law actually requires that the degree be "regionally" accredited. Of course, most of the time such laws were just poorly written by legislators who thought that the phrase "regionally accredited" and simply "accredited" were more or less interchangeable. But now I'm digressing into another matter, altogether. Sorry.

UOP is "regionally" accredited; and some of its programs have impressive "national" programmatic accreditation, too. On paper, then, UOP looks darned good! Yet it is still looked-down-upon by many employers, as well as many of its fellow regionally-accredited schools. I've even heard some higher education consultants candidly shay (and, from the hip, shoot) that the surest way to get one's resume thrown into an HR person's trash can is for said resume to have a UOP degree on it! Yikes!

UOP suffers from several problems, two of the most recent of which being, first, that it has had to close 115 of its campuses due to declining enrollment and other issues; and, second, that a peer review team from UOP's regional accreditor issued a draft report in February of 2013 recommending that UOP immediately be put on probation through 2014.

However, even before any of that, UOP has had primarily three ongoing and chronic problems:

First, it has had some scandals in its past... things, like, for example, some of its employees literally selling degrees for money; taking cash from students in exchange for going into the school's computer system and showing that the student took a course, and got a good grade in it, even though s/he didn't. Stuff like that... and, believe me, much more.

Second, UOP is one of the for-profit schools that have been in the news in the past few years on account of their high-pressure recruitment tactics which often result in unqualified students enrolling, then flunking-out, but not before they've taken-out expensive student loans which may never, under the law, be discharged in bankruptcy (student loans, absent the lender doing a "loan forgiveness" procedure, and like credit card debt, may never be discharged in bankruptcy; so always think twice before taking-out any), and so which hang, like an albatross around the students' financial necks for the rest of their lives. There's an excellent PBS Frontline documentary called "College, Inc." which completely explains it, and which may be viewed, online, on the PBS website. Just Google "college inc" and it should show-up as the first search result. Watch it, and why UOP is so universally reviled will become painfully obvious.

Third, and finally, the academic rigor and overall quality of UOP's coursework is generally observably sub-par by most regionally-accredited schools' standards. I've seen it, in my consulting work, with my own eyes. Oh, sure, it's minally good enough for UOP to remain regionally accredited; but, honestly, it's not one bit better than that. Not one. The coursework of most other colleges and universities -- unless, of course, they're of the "for profit" kind described in the aforementioned PBS Frontline "College, Inc." documentary -- is measureably and palpably higher.

Though I've seen it many times since, my first time was when a client of mine, a registered nurse (RN), was trying to put her life back together after addiction had just about completely trashed it. She was the kind of RN who came-up through the old three-year, in-hospital-based nursing educational system. Whereas, today, most nursing boards want those who sit for the state RN licensing board exams (typically, the NCLEX) to have a "Bachelor of Science in Nursing" (BSN) degree. And so, many schools -- including UOP -- offer what's called an "RN-to-BSN" degree completion program: A program which grants three years of college credit for the three years of in-hospital nursing school that the RN once took, and then allows him/her to take just one more years -- 30 semester credit hours -- of coursework and, voila!, the RN suddenly has a BSN that s/he can put after his/her name.

California's nursing board accepts UOP's BSN program -- both its in-classroom and online versions -- and so my client, before she became my client, enrolled in the online version and took five of its courses... roughly half of the entire BSN degree completion program of 10 three-semester-credit-hour courses. But then her addiction sidetracked her, yet again, and she failed two of them (having completed, and passed-with-flying-colors, the first three).

As part of my work with her, I wanted her to complete the BSN program; however, she still owed it money, and she couldn't enroll in it until she settled-up. Also, I already knew that UOP probably wasn't the place from which she should do her RN-to-BSN; and so I hooked her up with the well-respected RN-to-BSN online program from California State University at Dominguez Hills (CSUDH). She enrolled, and, of course, because none of her UOP coursework would transfer (because UOP wouldn't allow it 'til she settled-up, financially), she simply re-took those five courses... including even the ones she had passed at UOP. And so, then, she was in the unusual position of having experienced both UOP's version of those courses, and CSUDH's version...

...and, ohmygod, what a difference! I could see it, with my own eyes, from looking at the course materials: The CSUDH versions where head-and-shoulders more academically rigorous than were the UOP courses. It was unbelievable! I was stunned. It was a real eye-opener.

Many people know all of these things about UOP... or, even if they haven't heard the details, they at least know there's something wrong with UOP. Heck, even the questioner, here, had heard... else, why did s/he even ask?

And so, even though UOP is regionally-accredited, and so, therefore, its degrees should be as useful and respected as those from any other regionally (or, what the heck, even nationally) accredited schools...

...they, nevertheless, are often not. And no amount of UOP's wishing otherwise will change that. UOP has a bad reputation among many people, including HR people at employers; admissions officers and registrars at other colleges, universities, seminaries, and even trade schools; and even people at government agencies who need for their employees, or their licensed professionals to have rock solid degrees.

Many of them have heard that UOP degrees are categorically suspect; and so, some of them don't take a chance and will just flatly reject them. I'm no fan of UOP, but even I say that that's not right. UOP is regionally accredited -- the so-called "gold standard" of accreditation -- and so if that standard is to mean anything, then UOP's degrees should be as acceptable to everyone as any other regionally- (or I say even nationally-) accredited degrees. If UOP's degrees are to be rejected, then someone needs to convince its accreditor to revoke its accreditation. Until and unless that happens, a UOP degree should not be looked-down upon by employers, other schools, and/or government. If individuals start taking into their own hands the assessment of degree quality, regardless of accreditation, then what's accreditation's purpose? That's my argument.

However, my argument notwithstanding, it is a sad fact that UOP degrees are routinely rejected. Period. Like it or not.

And so, then, the answer to the question, "will companies hire you if you're a graudate from The University of Phoenix Online," is, again, probably yes, but maybe no.

And all of even my wishing that that weren't true won't change it.

Get a UOP degree, then, at your own risk... maybe even at your peril.

And remember, again, that it has nothing to do with whether or not the degree is online or in-classroom. As long as the school's accredited by a USDE- and/or CHEA-approved agency, then either course modality is identical.

What matters is that whatever school one chooses must be accredited by a USDE- and/or CHEA-approved agency. Simple as that. As long as the school is so accredited, then it at least meets the dead minimum quality requirements of the accreditor in the general areas of financial stability, administrative effectiveness, academic rigor, and course/degree transferability. That's what accreditation ensures.

NOTE: Please do not confuse the regionally-accredited "University of Phoenix" (UOP) with the intentionally-confusingly-named, and good-for-nothing "Phoenix State University." The latter is a degree mill; see the link to an Answers dot com question about it in the "sources and related links" area, below.

Please see the relevant links that I have added down in the "sources and related links" section, below.