NorthCentral University NCU NO END IN SIGHT WITH NCU Prescott Arizona

 I am an overseas American working at government university abroad, and have had good luck with PhD in Busn from NCU. I moved from private industry to academia over ten years ago and consider myself highly compensated. My opinion is, that getting bought out by the private equity firm did not help, and the school became less flexible and less consumer friendly. On the other hand, the degree has utility. My pay and prestige went up, and so did my level of responsibility and recognition in the academic world.

NCU helped to develop my publishing and research skills although there were other internal and external drivers. While I have yet to land a huge grant, I have been able to get my hands on host of smaller funding opportunities. I exceeded the maximum time of 7 years by a few weeks. At the beginning NCU was very flexible on attendance and allowed breaks in study, which really helped me as I dealt with some personal challenges. That perspective of NCU is past. Now tuition has skyrocketed since and with the ratcheting up of standards. As such, I am glad I was able to finish.

This university is a cash cow because it is a for-profit private university. A public university would allow up to 8 years to finish a doctorate degree but you have been with them for 10+ years. There are reasons why a doctorate degree should be done within 8 years. Therefore, this university does not care for education but wants to milk all the money they can from students. Unfortunately, you are screwed and you cannot take the degree you are working on to any other accredit university especially a public university. What you can do is to keep going and hope to graduate, and then hope that other employers will accredit the degree you got from them.

Because of proprietary schools like NCU, the federal Department of Education has suggested to the individual states that they develop rules and regulations regarding the operation of online schools (and more traditional brick and mortar schools from other states) operating within their borders. In Tennessee you can file a complaint with the Consumer Complaint Division (www.tn.gov/consumer/complaint.shtml) and I strongly encourage you to do so. You may not get any resolution but at least they'll be aware of the problem.

Good luck!