Question by kham83: How do employers rate online graduate degrees?
I am looking at potential business schools to obtain my Masters in Management, or another related field. I was wondering where do employers rate online schools, such as the University of Phoenix, against other traditional business schools. Im guessing it’s not in the top-tier with Harvard, North Western, Standford and such, but is University of Phoenix seen as a respectable school at all? Thanks.
Best answer:
Answer by LadyRoo
One of the main points of going to business school is to build teamwork and communication skills, not to mention network and make professional connections. Those are all things you really can’t get through an online degree (and if for the type of person for whom those things come entirely naturally, they usually don’t ‘need’ the MBA in the first place). So looking at education alone, I think you’d be grossly short-changing yourself by doing it online….and then on top of that no, I don’t think employers look too highly upon online degrees (at least compared to the brick-and-mortar business schools).
University of Phoenix is notoriously looked down upon…whether that reputation is legit or not can be argued here by other posters, but the fact still remains that it has a murky reputation.
Add your own answer in the comments!
Nothing against University of Phoenix, but why attend there when there are plenty of other options.
It is my opinion that the best MBA degree is obtained from going to a traditional university and sitting in class. However, that is not an option for all people. If the only way you can further your education is to attend online, you should investigate many schools and not just the ones that advertise.
I recommend that you try to attend a traditional state university that has an online MBA program. If at all possible, go to a program that has AACSB accreditation for their business school. AACSB accreditation is widely regarded as the best business school accreditation. While University of Phoenix is accredited, it does not have this accreditation. An additional benefit is a degree earned online at a traditional school will be no different than a degree earned on-campus.
Here are some good schools that have MBA programs online:
http://www.distance.msstate.edu/mba/
http://www.mba.unl.edu/distance/index.aspx?bookmark=update
http://www.cob.fsu.edu/grad/
http://cepd.okstate.edu/dl/
http://outreach.uwyo.edu/ocp/executivemba.asp
http://www.uww.edu/cobe/distance/onlinemba/
http://www.webmbaonline.org/
Good luck,