Is Westwood College a Diploma Mill or not?

[Virtual Bison]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F25CLL0x_o

Now Wikipedia says that its accredited and if there were anything phony about it I am sure that Tall Magic and his gang would be all over it.

It does have an MBA Program which I found interesting.

[Winston Smith]

[

Nationally accredited (ACCSCT and ACICS), not RA.  By definition a "trade school" not an "academic" program.  Hence typical difficulty in transferring credits to RA schools.  

But the real reason for the attacks is it's for-profit.  God forbid anyone should make a profit in the land of the free.  Efficiency, innovation, competition....yuck, how un-American.  

As the YouTube posters pointed out, if you want it cheap, go to a taxpayer subsidized JC.  But overpriced for value received doesn't make it a mill.  If anything, that makes it even more like your typical RA billion-dollar-endowment extravanganza

[Virtual Bison]

Nationally accredited (ACCSCT and ACICS), not RA.  By definition a "trade school" not an "academic" program.  Hence typical difficulty in transferring credits to RA schools.  

But the real reason for the attacks is it's for-profit.  God forbid anyone should make a profit in the land of the free.  Efficiency, innovation, competition....yuck, how un-American.  

As the YouTube posters pointed out, if you want it cheap, go to a taxpayer subsidized JC.  But overpriced for value received doesn't make it a mill.  If anything, that makes it even more like your typical RA billion-dollar-endowment extravanganza

I would say this much, for a trade school it is awfully expensive.

I did check out their price. Now Ashworth College, which is accredited also offers a lot of occupational programs. I actually graduated from one of their programs though I could not say it was all that good for getting employment. It was only good for adding something on my resume is all. But then again I only paid $800 for the program.

[WilliamW]

I would say this much, for a trade school it is awfully expensive.

It's like those wannabe fancy restaurants you go in these days, where instead of the menu saying like "Hamburger $3.95" it goes like "Salisbury Steak 21" with no dollar sign or decimals.  

If you're like me (a schmuck) you're thinking it's like the Item Number or Combo Number or something......so you go "I'll have that Number 21, and by the way, how much is it?"

So these trade schools are kind of the same way.  They aren't going to make it easy for you to save money, and if you aren't careful you can run up a big bill for the educational equivalent of a couple of skunky burgers.

[Virtual Bison]

I would say this much, for a trade school it is awfully expensive.

It's like those wannabe fancy restaurants you go in these days, where instead of the menu saying like "Hamburger $3.95" it goes like "Salisbury Steak 21" with no dollar sign or decimals.  

If you're like me (a schmuck) you're thinking it's like the Item Number or Combo Number or something......so you go "I'll have that Number 21, and by the way, how much is it?"

So these trade schools are kind of the same way.  They aren't going to make it easy for you to save money, and if you aren't careful you can run up a big bill for the educational equivalent of a couple of skunky burgers.

And lets face it, some things you cannot learn online. Can a person really learn to be a mechanic by taking distance learning classes?

[Martin Eisenstadt]

[RespectableGent]

Westwood's degrees aren't worthless.

The students attended class for several years to master their field. It's certainly nothing close to those pay-and-go places.

Westwood is a career school, and holds legitimate accreditation from a career school accredtitor. It's the type of accreditor which accredits barber colleges, business schools, technical schools, electronics schools, and beauty colleges.

Traditional schools typically don't accept degrees from trade schools because a substantial general ed curriculum isn't provided to the student. A career school typically cuts out the general ed and allows students to graduate in half the time as a traditional school.

The difference between a traditional school and a career school is that the career school focuses solely on the student's trade while at a traditional school 60% of a student's time is spent taking useless general ed classes and electives. A career school is a traditional school without all of the crap.

Westwood has been operating since the 50's and operates numerous campuses around the United States.

It seems the people in the interview have never heard of a TRADE SCHOOL and assumes that all schools are the same. If they took their Westwood undergraduate degree to another career school for graduate studies I'm fairly certain it would be accepted. Westwood is probably one of the larger career school chains in the United States.

I regularly recommend to friends and family members to attend career schools rather than traditional schools (although I wouldn't recommend Westwood because of its cost). At a career school the student only needs to study topics related to their major. Why should an Artist take Biology? Why should an English major know Calculus? A career school focuses solely on the student's profession so they can graduate in a shorter amount of time without a drop in quality.

These students are deluded if they think that they can successfully sue Westwood because their credits didn't transfer. No college is required to accept credits from any school. Should Westwood be obligated to accept an Excelsior degree which was completed with under three hours of coursework just because Excelsior is Regionally Accredited? No. Westwood has the right to reject or accept credits at its discretion just as any other college has the right to accept or reject Westwood credits at their discretion.

[RespectableGent]

[Armando Ramos]

It seems the people in the interview have never heard of a TRADE SCHOOL and assume that all schools are the same.

I think it's fair to say the current accreditation system is convoluted and not well understood by the consumer.  Most likely that's because the vendors like it that way, but that's another issue.  

The real question is when is some disclosure enough?  The video mentions that Westwood discloses the transfer issue in one paragraph in their >100 page catalog.  If it was ten pages of disclosure would it make any difference?  The average student doesn't know and doesn't care.

If they said HEY DUMMY, THIS IS A "TRADE SCHOOL" AND IT WON'T GET YOU INTO HARVARD would it make any difference?  I doubt it.  Any 17 or 18-year old aware enough to catch the issue probably isn't going to a trade school in the first place.  Not a knock against people who go to trade schools, just that the sharper pencils are usually in a different box.

A minute into the segment some overweight girl is complaining that she wasn't able to use her Westwood degree...

I think you caught the same thing I did when I watched that.  The annoying, whining fat girl can't find a job?  No shit!  It looks like all the jobs for tubby losers are filled this week, honey, try again next week.  If she had a degree in brain surgery from some Ivy League dumbass factory she would still be fat, stupid, unemployed and blaming it all on someone else.

I regularly recommend to friends and family members to attend career schools rather than traditional schools...A career school focuses solely on the student's profession so they can graduate in a shorter amount of time without a drop in quality.

There are a lot of people who would be better off in trade schools.  As you say, it gets people into the workforce quickly so they can start making some money, without the frills most people never need anyway.  It's really a waste of time and money for someone of limited financial means or academic skills to be screwing around in grad school when they could be out making some decent money doing something for which they are better suited.  

Plus, with distance learning making grad school accessible to everyone at any time, there's no reason an employed person can't hold down a full-time job and still pursue further education if they harbor those ambitions.  

This means advanced degrees are no longer a "now or never" proposition, so for people who weren't born with a silver spoon it makes sense to start making money now and take care of the extras under your own terms.

[ham]

It is the same old problem...degrees...any degree from any university is NOT a guarantee or assurance of getting ANY kind of job on ANY terms. Period. Sure, an Oxford graduate may have it easier (in theory) than a graduate from a rural college, but it all ends up with who you know, who your parents are or what kind of affiliations can you boast...unless -perhaps, just perhaps- you graduate top 1% of your class that year.
People should know by now that fliers or statistics put forth by schools to attract customers are as biased and fake as national statistics on poverty, inflation, crime etc.
Every school looks the best, with the best tuition and the best employment scores...
The good thing about DE is that it allows one to get a degree at a great price by cutting all the unnecessary extras...the rest is down to chance and personal connections.
Start saving that way and invest what you didn't have to spend...in 20/30 years you are likely to have more than by chasing futile dreams of prestige at top-shelf schools charging mammoth prices...only to see the guy with the right armband, family name, skin color or sexual orientation get the job...