American Military University

[BravoHotel]

Anyone have experience with this institution? I am interested in their M/S in Space Studies program.

Most reviews I read online are decent. AMU's tuition seems reasonable. The online curriculum works well for my location.

Any thoughts?

 

[turbomax97]

I'm working on my Master's at AMU now. I'm pretty happy with it so far.... typical online coursework. They use Sakai for their web interface and it's built pretty well.

 

[Zidac]

Anyone have experience with this institution? I am interested in their M/S in Space Studies program.

Most reviews I read online are decent. AMU's tuition seems reasonable. The online curriculum works well for my location.

Any thoughts?

AMU is another one of those "for-profit" universities (see Phoenix, Kaplan, Strayer, Capella, Everest, Devry, ITT, etc) that I could never recommend.

I know nearly 10 people who "go" (log in) to AMU for both undergraduate and graduate studies and the easiness of coursework is a running joke. There are some real knuckleheads that are able to maintain 3.9-4.0 GPAs.

AMU is particularly good at suckering military members into their curriculum since, at least for undergraduates, they give generous amounts of questionable college credit for military training. I have gone through basic and advanced military training, and the vast majority of it should NOT be considered college-level academics by any stretch of the imagination. (There are some exceptions... Navy Nuclear training, for example.) It's a real shame that so many people are selling themselves short.

It is accredited so you will be able to fill that "checkbox" we hear so often about. But really, that's it. It's highly unlikely that a for-profit degree will get you ahead, and employers prefer a traditional brick & mortar degree nearly every time.

Don't think that AMU will always be the cheapest. In fact, for-profits are nearly always more expensive than their public school counterparts. Those high tuitions seldom lead to well paying jobs, causing for-profit students to have a significantly higher student loan default rate. That has lead the Dept. of Education to crack down on these colleges by implementing "gainful employment" rules that would restrict lending federal money to students of some of these institutions.

Since you are looking into online programs, I would recommend looking for a public state school that also offers online programs. You would be much better served that way.
(UND has an M/S in Space Studies. I would check that out first.)

I also recommend watching this:

 

[manny]

Zidac, let's NOT put college education IN A BOX !

I don't think AMU's class are "running joke" at all. Just so you know, I don't work for AMU and don't get paid by this institution. But so far I enjoyed having taken 5 or 6 class from the AMU's for my B.S. in Space Studies.

Sometimes we are mixing apples and oranges as we discuss these questions.

Let's break down into the following for the purpose of our discussion:

1. traditional brick-and-mortar colleges
2. online class from traditional colleges
3. for-profit schools
4. online class from a for-profit school.

The AMU's space studies belongs to that of category 4 above. So far, they structure the curriculum ENTIRELY as a DISTANCE LEARNING experience.

TWO questions that I believe most people should be asking:

1. Will the LEARNING FORMAT of attending a brick-and-mortar college suits my learning style ?

2. Will an online (or even classroom) for-profit school give me the level of IMMERSION I'm looking forward to?

To me, I already have a B.S. in E.E. more than 10 years ago from attending a traditional state university and never had an online class back in those days. But I can attest that taking online class from AMU in the last 2 years actually fills in the gaps lacking in my formal educations.

Ultimately, getting a good quality education is a choice. It is THE JOB of every student! We should educate them that they are RESPONSIBLE for HOW they PARTICIPATE, which will determine HOW MUCH they will receive.

Also, about that Frontline video that you recommended, I actually watched it last year summer when i was taking a business class in a local community college.

The instructor wanted us to think deeper about the pros and cons of the higher education and whether a good business model will help resolve existing issues or only compounding more.

Let's be optimistic about changes. While the debate of business oriented private charter school vs. public school is far from over, I believe the clash of for-profit school vs. traditional higher education institutions signifies the beginning of better things to come.

Besides, it was very obvious that Michael Clifford scrutinized in the frontline interview was set up to play the role of a villain throughout the video. It's just TOO EASY to assign blame of all the issues of these for-profit colleges to a few individuals and some extreme business practices.

In other words, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater!