Hello, my name Erica Gallagher and I am a graduate of the University of Southern California’s online Masters of Social Work program. Or to put it more accurately, I am a graduate of 2U’s online Masters of Social Work diploma mill.
2U is the Online Program Management or OPM company that runs USC’s online MSW program. When I decided to attend USC, I had no idea that the online MSW program was actually run by 2U.
I didn’t know that my classes were going to be taught by instructors who were hired specifically for the OPM classes, rather than USC professors, or that they would be using outdated materials to teach me.
I didn’t know that OPM employees were the ones assigning us field placements, many of which had nothing to do with our experiences.
I didn’t know that the admissions representatives and the counselors I was emailing on a day-to-day basis were actually OPM employees, and not actual USC staff. That’s because they went to great efforts to make students believe this was fully a USC program, even arming 2U employees with USC email addresses.
If I had known, I would have never enrolled.
From the moment I looked into the program until the moment I graduated, I was lied to. I was promised a USC education that would open doors for me, and that’s not what I got. Instead, I got a shady, but equally as expensive, version of USC’s on-campus MSW program.
It’s so important for people to realize how much this OPM model hurts students. It rewards greed and profit at the expense of a quality education. It incentivizes schools to sign up as many people as they can, charging top dollar for subpar programs, while hiding their deception and profiteering behind the nonprofit brands of well-regarded schools. 
The fact that they did this with a social work program — to people who were trying to build a career motivated by helping others — adds even more insult to injury.
Having this degree was supposed to change my life, but all it has done is complicate it. All I’ve gotten with this diploma is a mountain of debt and anxiety.
Related link:
OPMS: The Next Frontier of Predatory Practices in Higher Education (PPSL Blog)
2U Virus Expands College Meltdown to Elite Universities
Colleges Are Outsourcing Their Teaching Mission to For-Profit Companies. Is That A Good Thing? (Richard Fossey)
Borrower Defense Claims Surpass 750,000. Consumers Empowered. Subprime Colleges and Programs Threatened.
Damn! If it is true that "the online MSW program was actually run by 2U. [or that] my classes were going to be taught by instructors who were hired specifically for the OPM classes, rather than USC professors, or that they would be using outdated materials to teach me," then USC is violating accreditation standards and could lose access to Title IV, even subject to treble FCA damages!
ReplyDeleteI spent time emailing 2U some months ago, and they were very specific about NOT running courses, NOT staffing class instructors, NOT issuing grades -- all of which could be a violation of applicable accreditation standards.
Has anyone approached the institutional accreditor (not the programmatic accreditor) of USC? Here's where that journey starts
https://www.wscuc.org/resources/comments/ [[really complaints]]
This is why this person is wrong. Professors are hired and paid by USC. Course content is created by USC (layout is a combo). USC posts and issues grades. USC accepts students through the same steps for online students vs on campus students.
ReplyDeleteThe degree is the same degree.
2U has nothing to do with any of those.
Are the online instructors the same ones as those at the USC campus?
Delete