At a time when Washington’s higher-education budget is being slashed, some lawmakers believe a partnership with WGU could provide more access to college programs without costing the state any money.

(Ed. WGU reported to the IRS that it paid Robert Mendenhall  $689,150.  That impressive salary is above that of the current UW President. The salary also stands out  because WGU does not employ faculty. In fact, students have no access to faculty with expertise in the subjects being taught.

Instead of teachers with expertise, WGU provides  “mentors” who advise students which pieces of software to use and how best to study). Samuel Smith, former president of Washington State University and a member of WGU’s board of trustees, ….  believes WGU is different from other online schools because of its use of (these) mentors, many of whom are college instructors and the majority of whom have master’s degrees.  (Ed. hardly impressive credentials for a “university)”.

WGU students also can get credit for what they already know.  For example, a student majoring in information technology who has already mastered a skill on the job — one that isn’t reflected in his or her academic résumé — could get credit for that work after demonstrating knowledge of the skill, Mendenhall said.

(Ed.  This raises a fascinating question.  Does WGU charge for giving this credit?  If there are no faculty, who examines the students to determine their competency?.

IS WGU a HOAX?

I honestly do not know.  Currently they list 20,000 students and claim that graduation (with a bachelor’s degree) takes 2 1/2 yeas.  Perhaps this is true, however they also claim that they are graduating about 2000 students a year.  Is this low rate the result of rapid growth or is their dropout rate, as is the case for similar profit making schools, really that high?

WGU has gotten a number of major endorsements and support, including support and endorsements from the Gates’ Foundation. Numerous other government, business and corporate leaders are represented on the trustees.

WGU does appear to be accredited and brags especially about being accredited to educate teachers.  Unfortunately, the hoax associated with another accredited  online school, Ashford, raises serious issues with the accreditation of online schools.   Ashford got this credential by buying a bankrupt, but accredited campus. Nowhere on the WGU website does it describe their process of accreditation.

It is hard to imagine an employer or a graduate training program accepting more than a limited range of WGU credentials.  Even for for teaching, I find it difficult to imagine that WGU “mentors,” who are not teachers, can prepare a WGU graduate to teach elementary school  and even more difficult to see how these graduates are prepared to teach high school social studies or math. I suspect Microsoft would be more likely to hire someone with an associate degree from the  Seattle Central Community College than someone from WGU with a “Bachelor of Science ” degree.

A post on the web heightened my concerns.  A biology student from USC transferred her program to WGU  to accommodate having a baby and a move from California.  Some of her comments add to to my worry that WGU misrepresents itself.:

This is an online university and is accredited, so I thought it would be safe, but it is not. I had to relocate my senior year as a biology major at USC, so I was trying to find an online university where I could complete my last semester of college.

I start classes, if you can call the WGU intoductions to online education course a class. If you have an 8th grade education it is essentially busy work for a few weeks (cutting and pasting things from the school’s web site into Word documents to answer questions).

After this course was over I finally get what courses transferred and come to find out out of 115hrs of courses from a well-ranked state university about 12 classes transferred. I was enrolled in their education major to teach high school biology.

I was a biology major at USC (a school that has millions in NIH grants for science research) and all of my grades were As or Bs and NONE of them transferred! Instead I had to go to a local tech school and take online tests in the subject areas. Classes with actual labs taught by PhDs weren’t enough to transfer, but a book report and a test was enough to get credit through the school.

My advisor told me that I should be able to graduate in as little as 3 years! I could go to the local community college and graduate in 2 semesters. What’s accelerated about a program that doesn’t accept core class transfers from other schools (although they will lead you to believe that almost everything will transfer).

This school comes across as a diploma mill that makes you homeschool yourself and then gives you a piece of paper. The scary thing is that they are turning out teachers every day that could be teaching your children based on this sorry excuse for a curriculum.

To be fair to WGU, this is one student.  Still her comments seem to be consistent with what I saw when I went to their  very slick website .

Whether WGU actually has a faculty or not, Like Ashford and Phoenix, WGU seems to invest heavily in web based advertisement intended to attract paying clients. (here are some examples: Indiana, Online Advertising, YouTube Video ad placements)  Moreover, despite bragging about NOT having a faculty, graduation at WGU is eerily like that at a traditional college .. academic gowns and all.  A berobed cadre files in to the scratchy sound of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance.  Someone sings the Star Spangled Banner. Students get up and give impressive speeches, effusively thanking the school.

All of these trappings, the widespread web advertising and lack of faculty seem especially strange in a non profit.    Phoenix, the largest of the profit making online schools, is  now being accused of using similar  tactics to get federal funds to pay for student scholarships.

Like Phoenix, none of WGU’s courses involve teachers or faculty with knowledge of the subject matter; instead   ….WGU’s “faculty” …) construct a curriculum by searching for, and purchasing, courses already available online,…  WGU’s courses come from traditional schools that have created online classes, .. courses developed by textbook publishers, and  from training developed in-house by major corporations. “We use the technology to teach — not the faculty,” Mendenhall said.

(Ed. Supposedly all of this is overseen by academic councils.  Similar councils in normal universities are comprised of experts in the field.  However, I was surprised by the list of faculty on the council for liberal arts.  None of these people seem to have credentials in the fields we usually think of  as liberal arts:  Here is the list from the WGU website:

WGU Faculty Council on the Liberal Arts

This odd list raises  other questions about WGU.  If, as I assume,  grading is by machine graded text, does this mean WGU students never write essays? If they do, are these graded by what WGU calls “mentors?”

(A student commented that) all the different brands and sources of lessons have a steep learning curve at first because each one looks and operates a little differently. “It can get confusing — you have to have a good sense of what you’re going to do,” he said.

While this salary is comparable t what many supposedly non profits are paying their CEOs, it is well into the high ranks for a traditional university, especially for one that is seeking to be recognized by Washignton State as a public university. It may be very importnat to know whether this Universoty president also makes money from his postion on boards of for profit firms or holdings in comapnies that suport WGU.

State Sen. Scott White, D-Seattle, who opposes the bill, says WGU should not be considered a replacement for classroom-based education. But its supporters, including Sen. Jim Kastama, D-Puyallup, says WGU could help meet some of the worker retraining needs in the state now. Presumably this would come from the state’s worker retraining program.

Earlier this session, the House voted 70-26 in favor of HB 1822, which would create a partnership between the state and WGU, similar to a partnership WGU established last year with the state of Indiana. The measure is now before the Senate.If the bill passes, WGU’s  standing in the state would be solidified, likely helping it attract more students.  Mendenhall said. The bill also would allow WGU to be included in agreements for the transfer of college credits among Washington institutions.

(Ed. While supporters of HB 1822 claim the bill would not cost the state money,  I assume that designations as a Washington state university means that state funds will go there in the form of aid.  In fact the WGU website advises students to seek state and federal support. Tuition at the “university” is  $5,870.  The comment on their website is very odd:

$5,870 is NOT a low tuition. The resources of WGU, other than their impressive marketing resources, are comparable to one of Washington’s excellent community colleges.  (One  of these, Bellevue, is now offering four year degrees like those e offered by WGU and Cascadia in Bothell may follow this model).  .WGU’s $5,870  compares with the $3,000 tuition at a state two-year community college.  Even our full fledged state colleges, at $6,956. are only a $1000 more expensive .. a $1000 that goes toward faculty ranked at the top of  their peers in the USA.  Even the  University of Washington, the number 28 ranked world class university and one an elite US “public ivies”, costs about $8,700.  While these state schools do receive additional funding from government, it is hard to see WGU as the bargain it claims to be.

… seems to me that President Mendenhall is earning his $689,150!)  see related posts here.