Southern New Hampshire University: Diploma Mill or Innovative Education Model?
Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) has become a prominent name in higher education, particularly known for its online programs catering to adult learners. This article delves into SNHU's reputation, examining whether it lives up to its promise of convenience, quality, and results, or if concerns about it being a "diploma mill" are warranted.
Introduction: SNHU's Rise and Reputation
One of the best-known and most recognized names in higher education, Southern New Hampshire University makes its name on convenience, quality, and results. Southern New Hampshire University is a private, nonprofit institution of higher education that has become one of the most popular online colleges in the US. Founded in 1932 and located in Hooksett, New Hampshire, SNHU offers online programs designed to meet the needs of adult learners.
Accreditation and Non-Profit Status: Foundations of Legitimacy
First of all, SNHU is a non-profit private institution. Therefore, this institution is not allowed to distribute the profits among individuals. Instead, the money they receive is invested back into the program to make it stronger and more accommodating for its students. Moreover, SNHU is an accredited institution. The university is regionally accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC).
Accreditation in higher education is a voluntary system of peer review of an institution according to established standards. Regional accreditation is widely considered the gold standard for academic institutions in the United States. For students, this accreditation means that SNHU degrees are widely recognized by employers, graduate schools, licensing boards, and other accredited colleges.
Accreditation can happen when industry leaders band together and establish an independent body that can hold everyone in that industry to a certain standard. There are two types of higher education accreditation. Regional accreditors grant accreditation to institutions within a defined geographic region of the United States. The second type of accreditation considers individual programs.
Read also: Required Courses at SNHU
Eventually, colleges and universities within a region began to form their own accrediting agencies that evaluated members by an agreed-on set of standards. The 7 institutional accreditors became more important with the passage of The Higher Education Act of 1965. Department of Education developed financial aid programs, it needed to ensure students were spending that aid at quality institutions rather than at diploma mills. So, while it's still true that anyone can rent classroom space or put courses online and call it a college, students can only use federal student aid at institutionally accredited colleges and universities.
Each of the institutional accrediting agencies uses a formal set of standards. They are somewhat different at each agency, though they are similar enough that they are all recognized by ED, and students may be able to transfer credits from one institution to another across regions. The standards may be more or less rigid at different agencies. Fundamentally, institutional accreditation considers if a college or university is mission-focused and is organized to achieve that mission. Institutional accreditation doesn’t consider other activities, such as non-degree programs that don’t involve federal financial aid resources.
Program Offerings and Flexibility: Catering to Diverse Learners
Offering online, in-person, and blended learning programs, SNHU has a high level of flexibility, which makes it ideal for people from all walks of life. SNHU appeals to adult students, especially working adults who want to move up in their career, or start new careers. It should be no surprise, then, that SNHU’s most popular programs are in business, health administration, and psychology - fields with a strong job market where professionals can make a high salary with online master’s degrees. SNHU offers roughly 200 undergraduate, graduate, and certificate programs.
Job Placement Rates: A Challenging Metric
Another way to determine whether a worthwhile college is the job placement rate. Job placement is a difficult thing to assess because there is very little reliable data available. The federal Department of Education began requiring for-profit and Title IV institutions to provide job placement numbers publicly, but they can only do it through surveys of their own students - there is no centralized way to obtain data. So, at best, most job placement data is based on the students who chose to answer.
When it comes to this information, SNHU obtained graduate job placement data via its annual graduate survey. Based on the 91 eligible graduates, only 21 graduates completed the survey, which means the survey had a 23% response rate. Either way, out of the 21 respondents, 90.5% were employed, which equates to 85.7% full-time and 4.8% part-time. Like other schools, SNHU’s highest-paid graduates are those in business and tech - human resources manager, accounting manager, software engineer, and so on. These are jobs that benefit greatly from an online master’s degree.
Read also: Tuition Payment Options at SNHU
Graduation Rates: A Sign of Rigor or a Cause for Concern?
As of 2019, the graduation rate for SNHU was only 44%. When compared to other similar colleges, SNHU’s graduation rates are slightly lower. Either way, while there is clearly some room for improvement, a lower graduation is usually a sign that the school should be taken seriously. Some universities are accused of being diploma mills, which means virtually anyone can receive a degree without necessarily exerting much effort. The fact that SNHU has a lower graduation rate is a sign that students are truly being challenged to learn and improve their knowledge and skill sets. On the other hand, it may be a sign that the curriculums are lacking in some way. For instance, it is possible that the materials are too dense or otherwise confusing to students. On the other hand, this could also be a sign of subpar faculty and leadership.
Low graduation rates are not always a bad thing. In fact, it can be a sign that the college is properly challenging its students to ensure that they are learning the knowledge and skills required to secure great positions once they graduate.
Student Reviews: A Mixed Bag of Experiences
As with many colleges, the reviews for SNHU are mixed. Overall, student life seems to be the most highly reviewed aspect of attending SNHU; the average review for student life is an A+. On the other hand, diversity, the campus, safety, and campus life all received an A average. The location was given an B+ rating, and the party scene received a B+, while athletics received a B. Academics received a C+.
Some student reviews highlight positive experiences such as helpful staff and instructors. For example, one student "was a transfer student and finished my bachelor's degree at SNHU… In my experience, I have nothing but good things to say about SNHU. The staff is very helpful and friendly, and the instructors are very smart people." Another student "think[s] SNHU gives people the opportunity to excel at college… I feel like I got a high quality education and the degree I'm receiving means a lot."
However, other reviews express concerns about the quality of instruction, the relevance of the curriculum, and the level of support provided to students. One student wrote, "The online program is poorly constructed… I spend so much time trying to navigate poorly worded instructions and learning material." Another warns, "This university does not help students get professional jobs… SNHU does not have enough resources to help student get a job after they graduate." Still another claims, "SNHU advisors set you up for failure. The advisors and the school do not inform of you deadlines, requirements and expectations. The advisors go out of their way to prevent you from enrolling in classes."
Read also: Visa Information for SNHU Students
Loan Default Rates: An Improving Trend
In the past, SNHU graduates have had a higher student loan default rate, but things are looking up in recent years, with default rates dropping to 0% in 2020.
School Rankings: A Modest Position
Lastly, when it comes to school rankings, Southern New Hampshire University ranked #133-175 out of 181 Regional Universities North. Therefore, although it is not the highest-ranked school, it is certainly not the lowest. More encouragingly, SNHU ranks highly for specific programs, such as criminal justice. It is always recognized by Washington Monthly as a top choice for working adult learners and other nontraditional students, thanks to its commitment to convenience and accessibility.
SNHU's Transformation: Innovation or Standardization?
Over the past two decades, the cost of higher education in the United States has risen sharply, particularly at private universities. At the same time, the profile of the typical college student has changed. Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) has emerged as one of the most visible and influential examples of how higher education has adapted to these shifts.
The near demise and subsequent rebirth of SNHU offers a glimpse into the crisis facing American higher education. More than a third of American colleges and universities have deteriorating finances, according to a 2012 report. When LeBlanc took over in 2003, SNHU was struggling. It had poor name recognition and fewer students could afford its rising tuition. When the recession hit, enrollment dipped and it looked as though the school would have to make cuts to stay afloat.
In 2009, instead of cutting, LeBlanc asked the board to double down on the online division. He argued that rapid growth in online could quickly produce new revenues that could save the main campus in Manchester, N.H. But he was convinced by Christensen that there were no other options. “The business models implicit in higher-ed are broken,” he says. His solution was to tackle what colleges were doing poorly: graduating students. Half the students who enroll in post-secondary education never get a degree but still accumulate debt.
He set out to create an institution for the other 80 percent, one that was flexible and offered a seamless online experience. But in the process, he turned what had been a small New England college with red-brick buildings and a quad into something barely recognizable. The school spends millions to employ more than 160 “admissions counselors” who man the phones, especially on weekends, guiding prospective students into the right degree program. Click on an ad for the MBA program and you get a phone call from a counselor in less than nine minutes. It’s a strategy borrowed from the aggressive recruiting techniques of the University of Phoenix and other for-profit schools.
Just like many of the for-profit universities, SNHU tries to maximize efficiencies and scale up everything it does to drive down costs. At SNHU, online courses are created centrally and then farmed out to a small army of adjuncts hired for as little as $2,200 a class. The online courses themselves are a mixture of readings, practice problems, and videos (most under five minutes). Undergrad classes run eight weeks, with a new assignment each week and a final project. An instructor’s main job is to swoop in when a student is in trouble. Often, they don’t pick up the warning signs themselves. Instead, SNHU’s predictive analytics platform plays watchdog, sending up a red flag to an instructor when a student hasn’t logged on recently or has spent too much time on an assignment.
Steven Mintz, who heads the University of Texas’ Institute for Transformational Learning, says there is a lot that people might take issue with in the SNHU model, including the highly standardized courses, and adjuncts who act more like coaches than professors. But it’s also designed for an underserved segment of students who flail in the traditional system. Alumni object that SNHU’s slick TV ads cheapen the name by making it seem like it’s the same ilk as Kaplan or University of Phoenix.
Affordability and Access: A Key Differentiator
One of SNHU’s defining characteristics is its approach to affordability. In addition to tuition, cost-of-attendance estimates include housing, food, transportation, books, and personal expenses. SNHU also allows students to transfer up to 90 credits toward a bachelor’s degree.
LeBlanc insists that SNHU’s sole focus is on serving students. As a nonprofit, he says, SNHU can deliver a higher quality experience because it doesn’t have to satisfy shareholders trying to squeeze out profits. “If I need to put $1 million into academics, I do it,” he says. Certainly, SNHU comes out ahead on price. An online student with no transfer credits can get the equivalent of a four-year bachelor’s degree for about $37,000. SNHU boasts six-year online graduation rates of about 50 percent for bachelor’s students.
The College for America: A Competency-Based Experiment
SNHU is clearly determined to push the envelope of online education. It latest gambit is the College for America, which offers college degrees but has no courses and no faculty. Instead, students are required to demonstrate mastery of different “competencies.” These include the ability to display data by using charts and graphs, understanding of marketing terminology, and even the ability to “distinguish fact from opinion.” Here, the role of adjunct faculty is replaced by “evaluators” who determine whether a student project has cleared the bar. The most radical element might be the price. One six-month term costs only $1,250, and students can gobble up as much as they want in that time. The program is just getting started, with around 300 students.
tags: #is #snhu #a #diploma #mill #reputation
