I am currently attending the University of Phoenix. I have been going
crazy looking at all the other online schools available, Saint Leo,
Capella, AIU, ect. The problem I am having with UOP is the news
groups. I am finding that keeping up with all the email messages is
taking away form my learning. I am a new student to this type of
education, so maybe I will adjust. I just was wanting to know if the
University of Phoenix is the best online school out there. Thanks

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Clarification of Question by davidjohns-ga on 11 Oct 2002 13:06 PDT

I have just heard of another distance learing school called The
Ashworth College. http://www.ashworthcollege.com/academic. I want to
get the most for my money. Like I said I am new to all this online
stuff. Thanks for the comments. It does help me feel a little better
about UOP. However, they sure are sticken me for a huge chunk of
change, 1310 per class. Each class is 5 weeks long, I just dont know
if I am getting my moneys worth.

The only thing I could find which resembles the information you seek
is a May 1999 isssue of Fast Company. The ratings are as follows:

School                 Rating

Walden University        A
City University          A-
University of Phoenix    B
The Open University (UK) B
Baker College Online     C+

"Do These Online Schools Make the Grade?"
http://www.fastcompany.com/online/24/onlinesch.html

If you're "new to all this online stuff" and feel enstranged, you
might want to consider a conventional (not online) distance learning
program.

David,

I may be a bit biased because I teach online for the University of
Phoenix. I've done a good deal of research on this subject, and looked
into several schools for both teaching and for going back to get my
PhD.

The advantage of UOP is that it is by far the largest private
university in the country. So it has much more name recognition among
employers. Also, UOP is one of the few online schools which has a
substantial onground presence. Of the 130,000 students currently
attending worldwide, only 33,000 are online. I also think that you'll
find the other legitimate online schools to be priced similarly to
UOP.

There is a lot of newsgroup reading but that's true of any online
program. Frankly, I think students pay too much attention to this
aspect of the program. You don't need to thoroughly read every post
from the other students. Some can get rather verbose. Instead, skim
the posts you don't have to make, and see a kernel or two of interest
or which you'd like to respond to. I've found students really spend
too much time in this area. Invest your time in reading your texts,
writing your papers, and having fun!

Prof

Wow this is great. I wish I would have posted this question sooner. I
could have saved myself tons of time looking at other schools. This
was worth way more than 3 dollars. I dont know how google set this
whole thing up, but it is awsome to get some feed back form people on
a topic that has really been haunting me for a long time.