Wal-Mart University

Walmart, your source for cheap plastic sh*t and expensive academically challenged college credit!

I would need to better understand the details in order to offer informed content, but it seems to me that if the practical work experience were somehow linked to lab/workshop experience-- say, experience in the warehouse was used to teach about supply chain management-- then there could be some academic value to the 'educational' aspect of the program.

Such an arrangement would require a LOT of forethought on the part of APU, but really could be an innovative idea if implemented correctly.

hmm...assuming something seemingly good is sinister is usually Glenn Beck territory. Unless, of course, we're talking about Walmart, so I'm with you.

I'd be suspicious of tax breaks. It's a form of compensation that I assume is tax-free (any HR people here?) and I could imagine some other tax benefits might exist too. Could this be justification to lower (or not raise) salaries?

Hmm, let's see how this works. Wall Mart employees get college credits for doing the job they are supposed to be doing anyway, and from a, how shall we describe it, a remote learning institution, an internet version of a diploma factory? Wow.

Why not just award a B.A. to anyone who successfully completes four years of emnployment? And a Ph.D. for three more years of employment.

Dan

I'm not sure what to think either. Online, for-profit education is a trend in higher ed right now, and it has the potential to seriously threaten budgets at traditional institutions, particularly public universities and colleges.

The whole thing does have a company store ring to it, doesn't it? What I can't decide here is whether Walmart's involvement is the first step in 1) further stigmatizing online/for profit "walmart" degrees and cementing them on the totem pole below even community college for students who have any sort of choice or 2) somehow growing their enrollment to an extent that the threat to traditional higher ed is greater than it would otherwise be.

If Wal-Mart wants to help employees earn course credit, they should make arrangements to help employees take actual courses, preferably in a classroom setting.

It seems goofy to give people 45% of the necessary credits for a degree for doing what they already know how to do, and have to do repeatedly, with no additional learning, on a daily basis.

There's a big movement in adult education to get educational institutions to grant college credit for "life experiences" such as skills gained in the workplace. The thinking being that this will help working students complete college coursework more quickly and make them more likely to earn a degree. Obviously the value of Wal-Mart's program will depend on how well structured it is (which, being Wal-Mart, means it probably IS well structured), but it is a move in the right direction for people that care about adult education.

My general philosophy is any effort at education is worth it.
How would people feel if an employer sabotaged educational achievement by bending work schedules to make getting a degree difficult?
You get to keep cheap workers, but they're dumb workers.

The downside to having an APU degree depends on the person doing the hiring remembering that APU is the Wal-Mart college. There are tons of little-known colleges out there, plenty with equally generic names as APU. How many HR people will really notice this and downgrade an applicant because their resume says APU on it? I've never worked HR, so maybe they're more on top of this than I realize. But my guess is that the next job after working a Wal-Mart cash register or warehouse isn't going to be something that scrutinizes the college degree that much. And then the next job after that (assuming someone is working their way up the ladder) will depend even more on the past career history and even less on the past education history, so the APU thing becomes less and less relevant. Someone looking for a fancy shmancy job wouldn't want APU on their resume after this, but for the majority of regular Joe jobs, I doubt it'll have much negative effect.

PS: all that time in China and not one word on food? Maybe I missed something, and really it's not the biggest issue at hand, but you are Ezra, eh? So I've been wondering.

why doesnt walmart give employee scholarships to local community colleges?
many of our community colleges are experiencing cutbacks now.
perhaps this could be structured in a way that would be beneficial for community colleges, and the walmart employees could really take some meaningful vocational courses, english courses, courses in marketing, economics, computers, esl.
this could really make a difference.
this could be something really meaningful and innovative....and would help walmart's standing in communities and with employees, also.

The Walmart degree is pure PR (for WM) and it, like any of these for-profit education-less pieces of toilet paper.

The objective is supposed to be 'education', not just a piece of paper, and its clear that little or no education is going to occur of general value.

Next we will have federal tax credits and student loans being directed at fraudulent for-profit firms that are pure fraud.

Not that non-profit higher education hasn't seeded the ground already by turning the ship toward the corporate model of growth for growth's sake, and CEO mile-high salaries and bonuses for the 'high-value-added leadership'. The stink of profit, fraud and exploitation of customers and low-ranking employees is increasingly gag-inducing ponzi-games.

hmm...some googling shows that there is expanded Hope education credit for those working in midwestern disaster counties, which includes Benton County, Arkansas, home of WalMart HQ.

This is sort of fun. Like being liberal Glenn Becks. We need a chalkboard.

The objective from Wal-Mart's perspective is to attract a younger (thus, healthier) workforce, in anticipation of much bigger bills on the benefits side. It's actually a continuation of a trend at the company for several years.

Being WalMart, I expect they're getting a cut, from APU, of the tuition for the classes the employees take, and pay for, on their own.

See here: http://lehmann.typepad.com/in_lehmanns_terms/2005/10/adverse_selecti.html

I'm finishing my degree at APU actually. I did some research before I started there and spoke with someone I knew who was a student there. Everything looked good and so I signed up. For the most part I have been impressed. The professors are sharp and the work required has been just as much (or more)and as grueling than when I was sitting in a classroom. Sure there were some lame Profs, but that's not any different from a traditional school.

This, though, I'm not sure about. I'd have to know more about how exactly it's going to work before I could submit judgment.

Scam. Frontline had a great show on this:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/view/?utm_campaign=homepage&utm_medium=proglist&utm_source=proglist

And this sounds like it could turn out to be the worst of the worst.

Question: Would you EVER want your own child to receive college credits this way?

Of course not.

Therefore, why would you find this at all acceptable for others?

What Kevin_Willis and jkaren said.

Apparently WalMart wants to do to our education system what it's done to our manufacturing industry.

We already have a system for self-improvement in this country. It's called 'community colleges'. We don't need fake 'Public' schools when the real ones are so worthy of our support.

I'd imagine that it's a bad idea, unless Wal-Mart picks up nearly all of the tab and/or you as an employee didn't want to ever leave Wal-Mart. I know I couldn't take seriously a degree which has 'ringing up sales' making up half of the time/effort. If I saw that degree on a resume I'd probably wonder why they didn't get a real degree.

I don't think the point of this is education. As others have noted, it is probably about attracting the right type of employee, PR, a new metric to differentiate employees, etc.

If you want an associate to step up as a manager and you're concerned that they don't understand business in the abstract, have them read a few books. Most of what they need to know is learned on the job anyway.

APU will surely make such "students" pay for (i.e., PURCHASE) their college credits, meaning that Wal-Mart employees are going to get taken advantage of twice -- once for their low, low wages and again for their for-pay college credit.

Wal-Mart's destruction of people's lives just keeps getting better and better.

Is APU accredited? That's one way potential employers can check on the quality of a degree. If they have accreditation now, I'd say it won't be long before they lose it. Here's hoping WM's employees will smell the scam and stay away.

I think if Walmart really wants to help their employees advance and achieve, they'd pay better wages and offer scholarships so that their employees could afford to attend a bricks and mortar school that they choose, maybe a local community college or state school.

Just another sign that we are on our path to fulfilling our destiny of making Idiocracy a reality. In case you forgot, in the movie one of the main characters gets his Law Degree from Costco.

WalMart - proof that real innovation comes from private innovators and not government. If given a chance, they will put to shame the disgraceful public education system.

I hate walmart with a passion but if this is legit it could be good for employees.

Walmart may be a big box soul crushing devil but they are wizards when it comes to supply chain management etc. so it makes a certain amount of sense.

I think that Walmart is adapting a model the military has used to attract & retain a younger and cheaper work force. Educational benefits are a very appealing incentive. By tying the benefits to credits earned at Walmart they are increasing the incentives of workers to stay with Walmart while they are working on their degrees. Going part-time will keep them tied to the company for a long time.

There are important unknowns here: how many workers will earn degrees, and whether the degrees will lead to transferable human capital-- that is, increase earnings potential outside of Walmart.

Here's an interesting question:

Walmart is trying to bust into the Chicago market with a 2nd store, thus dragging down the wages and working conditions of employees at competitor companies, many of whom are represented by the good people at UFCW.

So, in order for them to grease the way so to speak, this monster corporation has flooded the airwaves with testimonials supposedly from employees of how awesome Walmart as an employer is.

I've heard the same commercial over and over again on the CBS affiliate WBBM the whole week.

Suddenly I just heard a 'news' report: it was about the wonderful opportunity Walmart was giving to employees through its Internet-based American Public University.

So here's the question, was it legitimate for a 'news organization' to run what literally was an 'info-mercial' without any of the doubts mentioned here for example particularly considering who's buying all the ads this week?

A for-profit school called "American Public University"? This just seems like a scam, for all the reasons people have said above.

This is from the Onion? Right?

Making the pursuit of higher education practical for the Wal-mart constituencies has its allures. Moreover Wal-mart will use this utility to seek outliers in their human capital. Wal-Mart will be in receipt of all favorable perks associated with the merger. The variables created by expediting the academic learning curve will reverberate indefinitely. First year students will receive loan inducements immediately via dubious OJT.

You do not need to be confused about what to think about this, Ezra, because studying at APU has nothing to do with "to pursue educational opportunities."

I am a college professor and curiously browsed some of the course and instructor info APU makes available online. In most cases (I focused on liberal arts subjects), the instructors have no credentials, and the lists of assigned books are not appropriate book-lists for ANY college course. Quick example: Univ. of Phoenix MBA teaches Shakespeare in the "English Dept."

Wal-Mart is not stupid or incompetent. If they wanted life-advancing educational opportunities, they could provide them. Wal-Mart KNOWS that it is doing something solely (1) to con its own employees, (2) to look good to outsiders.

The fact that the WaPo and NYT articles did not do enough research to conclude correctly that this is a sham -- or at least to find qualified critics to quote claiming it's a sham -- is an epic journalistic fail.

Neversaylie needs to brush up on his/her research skills.

Faculty at APU have credentials from universities such as Harvard, USC, U of MA, U of MY, U of Denver, etc. Additionally, many also have practical experience in the field in which they teach the intelligence field for example. I would be curious about what books are NOT college level and what U of PX teaching Shakespeare in its "English" department has to do with APU?

Given the trend that brick and mortar schools increasingly rely on adjuncts, many with only MAs, to teach courses, especially the English 101s (or their equivalents), how exactly is APU any different? The presumed superiority of traditional B&M is illogical. The same accrediting agencies accredit U. of CO and APU. APU is both nationally and regionally accredited. The real issue is the B&M are losing market share of students because they refuse to adapt. Students are making choices that fit with their needs and their desires. Meanwhile B&M are busy building fabulous recreation centers as a way to try to lure students to their campuses.

Getting college credit for work experience is nothing new. B&Ms do it all the time. Consider, for example, the internship. It is simply credit for work experience.

Don't lump all for profits together, just as with B&Ms, for profits can be either good or bad.

Finally, many community colleges are simply overloaded. Here in California, there is a very long waiting list for students to get into courses. States have repeatedly demonstrated that higher education is not a priority. They regularly gut the funding for the institutions and pay their faculty very low wages. One result has been that both faculty and students are leaving traditional institutions for online and/or for profit institutions. Are there abuses within for profits, you bet? But after spending 20+ years as a Professor in traditional B&Ms, I can assure you that these abuses exist everywhere.