Are for-profit nursing schools(U of Phoenix, Chamberlain)good or bad?

~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN · May 14, 2010

So, the June 2010 issue of Good Housekeeping has a big expose on for-profit colleges, article titled "School of Hard Knocks". It goes into a pretty good amount of detail on how these schools find their students (with recruiters that receive bonuses, usually titled "enrollment coordinators"), the poor quality of the staff, the expense of the programs, the non-accreditation of some of the programs, the job prospects that don't materialize, etc.
I am wondering if any of you went through any of these health-related or nursing programs and what you thought about them. I know the University of Phoenix is big for online RN-BSN. They also mentioned Chamberlain College of Nursing in the article. There weren't any nursing graduates featured in the article but they did interview a few sonography grads and medical assistant grads that were poorly prepared, non-licenseable, and unable to find clinical experiences or jobs. I have always been very skeptical of online nursing programs that seem wayyyyyy to convenient -- how can you actually get a decent, online, accelerated education with no clinical, preceptorship, or intern experience whatsoever from what are probably (so the article says) very underqualified instructors (one school actually had an instructor that falsified a nursing license to teach there)?
I am particularly concerned because my nurse manager (and, I have discovered, several other NMs in my facility) have received their MBA-HCMs (Health Care Management) at University of Phoenix. Now that I have seen an article like this, I am wondering if their degree is worth a hill of beans. I DO know that my boss worked full time, finished her MBA in two years, and was never out of the job market to intern or be precepted educationally (don't most MBA grads have to do something like that, or am I wrong?) That pace just doesn't seem like it should be an attainable goal for a reasonably academically adequate education program. I think to go to a real school, you would probably have to take night/weekend classes 3-4 days a week year-round to get done with an MBA that fast. It just seems like a joke. Do they really know anything more than I do now that they have the letters after their name?
I am interested in clinical leadership (not management.) I am working on an MSN at a respectable (not particularly prestigious) public university. I would never dream of going to a school where I couldn't meet and interact with an expert instructor.
Any thoughts?

I have never attended any of the schools mentioned, but I wanted to touch on the bold. From my understanding when clinicals need to be had the schools will have clinicals set up and have contracts with the hospitals.

There is a state college here that I plan on attended for my RN-BSN and then possibly MSN. Besides the first day of orientation it is all done online, it's a nationally accredited school and from my understanding a good school. A lot of our instructors got their MSN and BSN from them. (they are the closest state nursing school). It's very convienant and that is one of the selling points. The bulks of your clinical hours are done in your ADN or ASN to get the RN from my understanding or the tradition BSN programs. The RN-BSN is working on more of the managerial aspects which can be done online.

guiltysins · May 14, 2010

I have never attended any of the schools mentioned, but I wanted to touch on the bold. From my understanding when clinicals need to be had the schools will have clinicals set up and have contracts with the hospitals.
There is a state college here that I plan on attended for my RN-BSN and then possibly MSN. Besides the first day of orientation it is all done online, it's a nationally accredited school and from my understanding a good school. A lot of our instructors got their MSN and BSN from them. (they are the closest state nursing school). It's very convienant and that is one of the selling points. The bulks of your clinical hours are done in your ADN or ASN to get the RN from my understanding or the tradition BSN programs. The RN-BSN is working on more of the managerial aspects which can be done online.

Agreed. Though not all school have clinicals set up or contracts with hospitals, especially if you're doing MSN programs, usually they want you to find your own preceptor but in any case they do REQUIRE some type of supervised clinical experience like traditional programs. The RN-BSN is moreso of the non-clinical classes even though some do require clinicals in management, leadership and community but ADN programs are even beginning to add these clinicals in. They're also for the remainder of the liberal arts credits such as statistics and other classes you may not have taken which don't necessarily need to be completed on campus.

I would however, feel more comfortable doing a distance learning program through a college that has a real campus and are not completely "online" colleges. There are very good schools that have most of their nursing programs through online, one being Seton Hall University. I also have a thing about not doing it from a school too far away, it helps if it's in your area because they are more helpful with clinical sites. If I live in NY but go through a school based in Texas, they aren't going to be able to help much with clinical placements.

neutrophil · May 14, 2010

I am not sure if this question is about on line schools or private schools in general. I am an LVN, graduated from Kaplan College. Am very satisfied with the school. I work along with nurses from the same college as well as community colleges and some RN's as well. I passed the NCLEX first time around and am confident with my work. So a lot has to do with the student as well as the school.

I am attending community college for my RN. As far as on line. I have heard good things about Indiana state University, in CA they use Sonoma state for their clinicals. I understand your apprehension. Try college network, look for them online. Ask for nurses that went through their program that are now working. I am a firm believer in eyes and hands on. But gotta love new technology. Good luck.

CNL2B · May 14, 2010

I'm not really talking about online schools in general -- many nursing programs now have an online component. It's not 100%, but it's fairly substantial.

I am talking about these for profit schools that don't actually perhaps even have a campus, are super expensive, don't have very high educational standards, etc. The previous poster mentioned Kaplan. I think that was one of the schools mentioned.

Yes, it is the school's responsibility to set up clinical experiences and have contracts with local hospitals. However, this article says that in a number of schools, that DID NOT happen -- students were expected to set up their own clinical experiences, and a lot of the time, the clinics/hospitals turned the student down because the program had a bad reputation and for turning out unprepared students.

Trauma Columnist · May 14, 2010

Its all about accreditation: if they are accredited you will have no problems getting a job or getting ahead.

I did my ADN to BSN and then to MSN at University of Phoenix. It was a non-clinical MSN. I then did a post-MSN adult health CNS and am currently completing another post-MSN peds CNS.

Absolutely no problems with my education, none of my employers have complained, I have always gotten rave reviews, pay raises, pretty much any job I wanted.

TDCHIM · May 16, 2010

There are some excellent, in-depth news stories/reports about for-profit schools, in addition to the Good Housekeeping article. Frontline did a wonderful piece about this recently, and a couple of months ago, the New York Times ran an informative piece on the topic of for-profit schools and the sometimes predatory methods they use to lead or scare students into extremely costly programs. Here are the links for the Times and Frontline pieces:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/view/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/business/14schools.html?sq=for%20profit%20school&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=1&adxnnlx=1274007605-YuwQANrYEWOpmnCJ0m1M6g

As a student in a largely online program at a state university, I can testify to the validity and usefulness of online education in a variety of circumstances. When it comes to classes that involve a great deal of hands-on learning and skill/technique mastery, students need to be in the classroom/lab/hospital/etc., being carefully guided and watched by a knowledgeable instructor. That said, there's plenty of room for online teaching when it comes to the classes that aren't hands-on, as well as the lecture portions of hands-on skill/technique courses.

For instance, I just finished the online version of A&P I and I'll be taking A&P II online in the fall. Students are required to be on campus for the A&P labs each week, and all tests must be proctored (so you either take your tests during one of the exam sessions on campus or you fork over an extra $200 for the privilege of having a stranger scrutinize you online via webcam and microphone). I took many, many traditional-format lab classes in a variety of sciences at a comparable public university during my first round of college and my online A&P class compares well to them when it comes to level of difficulty and the level of material mastery and retention. The prof posted lectures as vodcasts and podcasts, provided study notes (but in no way spoon-fed students the exact material she planned to use on the tests), and offered several varieties of exercises and games to help with tricky parts of each module. It was a difficult, thorough class that was just as tough as several of the honors biology classes I had taken previously in a traditional setting.

ygv101 · Jul 9, 2011

In the past several years, University of Pheonix has been under law suits for it's insufficient educational contents provided to it's students who not only could not receive the desired college level education, butr also have to suffer a drop in their self esteem.

Msre23 · Jan 12, 2012

Any body have info on Kaplan college

anonymousstudent · Jan 12, 2012

I don't know about the master level programming. I do know that hospitals in my area are no longer hiring ADN's because of the poor results coming out of the proprietary schools around here. It's really sad.

nurseprnRN, BSN, RN · Jan 12, 2012

google (for-profit entity name) + complaints. read 'em and weep.

CDEWannaBe · Jan 12, 2012

Know this is an older post, but had to add a couple things:

* Some for-profit colleges have great programs, but you will pay a lot more per credit hour there.

* There are different accrediting agencies, some are good and some are not. Being accredited isn't enough.

* Best way to know if for-profit is a good choice is to contact the hospitals and companies you want to work for and ask if they hire graduates from these schools.

The Good Housekeeping article was well done and highlights a huge problem. Working at a community college, I meet students often who spent a year of their life and all of their federal financial aid benefits at for-profit schools and have useless degrees.