Expert Opinion on for-profit universities
Expert Opinion is commenting an AAAS report. The report takes the following view:
“(…) the nation’s number one producer of bachelor’s degrees in information technology and computer science (IT/CS) was not a major research university, but instead was Strayer University…”
Michael correctly observes that Strayer University doesn’t even care to pretend that they offer a Computer Science degree. What Strayer University does offer are IT programs.
Is Strayer University program any good? I chose to look at the Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems (BSCIS?). They offer lots of programming classes (Visual Basic, Java, C++, PL/SQL). Is this a good idea? Michael think not, but I observe that these are optional courses and I see nothing wrong with offering a bunch of programming classes as optional courses especially since you have other good choices including software engineering and operating systems.
Is this a good CS program? No. And they don’t even claim to offer a CS program. Overall, is this a good IT program? I cannot tell, but if I had to give my impression right now I’d say it has weaknesses and it doesn’t seem to follow ACM guidelines. It seems to be very focused on current Windows technology and generally doesn’t abstract out current technology enough.
And so, that’s the most important IT program in the USA? Is that it? It is a bit of a let down. How could this happen? On a hunch, I’ll say that the problem can be found in Micheal’s post:
Certainly, if we want to increase the number of women and minority members in the profession, we must attract them from the enormously larger traditional college student population.
Enormously larger? Michael, you are telling us that there are more full time 18 to 22 years old students than there are part time 18 to 65 years old students? Maybe in your school, but out there?
Quick: what is the largest academic institution in the UK?
That’s right. Mature students have been the fastest growing student population for decades. The traditional student population is not enormously larger, if it were, Strayer University’s IT program wouldn’t be the most popular.
It is not because you are a woman who decided to take care of your kids in your twenties, or a foreigner who just came to a new country in his twenties and had to work for survival, that you are dumb. If you manage to get a degree part time while taking care of the kids and keeping your full time job, you are most certainly not dumb. Non traditional students should not be looked down upon especially because there are many, many of those.
Disclaimer: I was a very traditional student, I completed my Ph.D. by the time I was 27.
Daniel, you are right; I was talking out of my ass there. (It’s really quite fun, everyone should try it some time.) However, if you consider the number of “full time equivalent” (FTE) students, I would still submit (which here means, “I’m still talking out of my ass, but would prefer that you believe me anyway” [you might guess that my kids are reading A Series of Unfortunate Events]) that the traditional students greatly outnumber the nontraditional ones. Yes, there are more 22-65 year olds, but then you need to take the fraction who are interested in getting a degree, and from that the number who are able to pursue the degree (financially and logistically), and from that group account for the fewer courses taken (hence the FTE label). I think it’s great to provide access to non-traditional students (my institution does), but they are not going to solve the issue of gender balance in our field, nor does the problem lie there.
Comment by Michael Stiber — 29/6/2005 @ 16:51