Sorry if I wasn't clear, but the bolded point is EXACTLY what I'm trying to get across. 

Everyone has certain challenges in life. Part of the regional campus' purpose is to address those through remedial classes and a slower-paced curriculum. This allows virtually any high school graduate or GED holder, no matter their skill level, to get on the same page academically with those at a 4-year institution. Or even allows those who are up to speed the opportunity to handle their extra responsibilities outside the classroom while taking classes, as you mention. To make it even easier, students can choose to stay at the regional campus and finish out a bachelor's degree program in certain areas, like nursing or engineering technology, valuable programs that'll get you a lot farther career-wise than a PolySci degree at the main campus ever will. So let me be very clear that I'm not saying one is "better" than another, per se, but Miami Oxford is definitely more academically rigorous than MUM or MUH.

If you want to call that elitism, fine, but it would be akin to calling the fact that I don't know how to do Organic Chemistry because I have never been in the class and learned the material elitist.

Well, I've been formally employed continuously since 14 and I have had 4 jobs (ranging from small business to a Top 10 corporation). I've had to navigate bureaucracy many a time, sometimes with success and sometimes without, to get what I wanted to get done done (apologies for the redundancy). I've also done intensive consulting/client projects for about 7-8 more companies on top of that, so I do have industry experience. So my perspective is not "purely academic", in fact it's quite far from it.

As for the college on the degree, I'm not sure. Acclaro might have mentioned it over in the other thread.

My perspective isn't elitist, it's pragmatic. And it is one that is only fair to Oxford students who work hard and pay a lot of money for the education they receive. My reasons are above, and for your convenience I'll re-quote them here:

I'm half tempted to start a counter-petition for the thousands of Oxford students like myself who see no benefit at all from the regional campuses having a Miami name, and want them separated into their own university. Heck, it happened at Wright State back in the 1970's. Anyone remember what it used to be called?

It used to be OSU/Miami U - Dayton campus. Let's make the Hamilton and Middletown branches their own university.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/students-worried-about-future-of-miamis-regional-c/nhtht/

It's starting to happen.....

Stanky, you got that right. I still hear people kicking that stupid title around. Anyone who's been to an Ivy league school can tell you Miami ain't no Ivy. We may have a bunch of 1950's era brick buildings (and nowadays, newer construction overshadowing the massive post-war buildout on this campus), but we ain't no ivy. 

You are right. Many Miami grads do not stay around here. Many of the largest recruiting companies on campus don't even have operations in SW Ohio. But they might be more willing to start operations if they knew they could pull "great talent", as is done by Ivy league schools on the east coast or by the top tech institutes on the west coast. Even the industry players in Columbus because of OSU's talent or the concentration of architecture firms in Cincy because of UC's DAAP program are good examples. Nothing of the sort at Miami. It likes to be a lot of things to a lot of people, small liberal arts college to some, major public U to others, research U, top-tier U, accessible U, etc. I say the market will start demanding some answers to what Miami is really about.

vietvet wrote: Don't be deceived. The answer to all things is not a college education. Be careful about placing that degree on a pedestal. That is only a part of it in the working world. I've seen many so-called college educated people, placed in management roles or leading projects/people that don't have the sense to come in out of the rain. Common sense, people skills, communication skills and logic must be a part of the total picture to be effective. At times, I have found, that as one rises in educational level....IE from a bachelors to a masters to a PhD, they seem to lose some of that common sense that plays a key role in the success of their work. Colleges can pump ones head so full of theory which may or may not work in the real world, that the person loses some reality. Don't believe all that is taught in the college classroom. Sometimes, you stand and scratch your head and wonder why 2 and 2 is no longer 4 in the workplace nowadays and, as a person taking direction from these so-called "intelligent people", you do work that you know will fail from the beginning, usually because you have done the same work for the preceding boss and your new boss insists that it will be successful under his guidance. Never is and previous data is not proof enough for them.

Couldn't agree more. There's a reason welders make more than English majors - welders have necessary skills, English majors, for a large part, do not. And yes, it's true that many people lack basic common sense, street smarts, or tact - and these people lie in all functions and have all different levels of education. I've met my fair share of genius people who have little to no formal education, and I've met my fair share of idiots who have lots of education. Being in a college environment while working as a dining center manager, I've also met plenty of people that fall right where is expected as well. Plenty of people don't have what it takes to continue education, or they lack the motivation and drive to see it through. If you are studying a good field in college, it should be a challenge. You should have to work hard to get those grades. Otherwise, you shouldn't expect your degree (or technical training, etc.) to get you much of anywhere. After all, we are only worth what we are able to do...

It IS a watered-down education. I've been there, I've lived it too (except for I had the Sinclair version, and I've had an online class from Hamilton campus). There are reasons why a MUM class cannot be as rigorous as an Oxford class:

1.  Different backgrounds. Again, it's an institution that has to take people from all walks of life, many of whom have been far removed from education and don't remember (or understand) the expectations. Getting these people up to speed takes time. 

2.  Students at MUM have lives outside the university, Oxford students generally don't. Because of this, instructors cannot as easily mandate outside work, like large group projects or the like, because they have to consider the fact that their students have a lot going on in their lives outside the classroom. These students also are more likely to have to skip classes, slow down the class, get worse grades, etc. because they have a lot of other things they have to do that aren't school. 

3.  Instructors are evaluated by their class averages, or in other words, the kinds of grades they give to all of their students over their class. Professors are rewarded for higher class averages. So they have to design the curriculum specifically so they give out a class average of 3.0 or whatever. And if this means watering it down by doing things like handing out an exact copy of the exam as a "study guide" a couple days before, so be it. This happened in multiple Sinclair classes, and my online class I took through a regional was held to similar standards. You're kidding yourself if you really think a regional class is equivalent to a class in Oxford, or a MU-Oxford class is equivalent to an Ivy league class.

So I say we need to stop looking at education in this nation as a competition or a privilege and start looking at it for what's it's supposed to be - a means to learn. Everyone has different strengths and learns at different speeds. Everyone has different abilities and skill sets. Why don't we start evaluations on what you actually learn, and peg one's ability to take a particular education program to their actual learning abilities in the field? It's not such a radical idea. If someone's a genius but can only dedicate 30 hours a week total to their education, great to hear they're a genius, but they need to take easier classes at a place like MUM so they don't slow everyone else in the program down to their speed. If maybe our government could figure out a way to enable this genius to cut other commitments (like work) so they can focus solely on their education, then the best programs possible should be open and accessible to this person. That's all I'm saying.

The regionals are excellent at what they do. But they provide a watered-down education. They have to educate all different types of people running at all different speeds. They don't get a relative consistency like you would have at Miami where most all students are fresh out of a high school which had to meet common education standards, and then be further distilled by meeting admission standards. Regionals also don't offer transferrable coursework beyond the sophomore level. They have their own Bachelor's degree programs. They serve an entirely different clientele. And yes, the university loses money on them every year. 

Don't get me wrong, that education is highly necessary. Heck, I have an associate's from Sinclair so I understand going there and doing that route. There is a need for local higher education. But who says that need has to be tied in with the state's best undergraduate residential college? If Miami really wants to reach the cream of the crop (which trust me, I've been there long enough to find out they do), its current 80+% acceptance rate has to go. The college is already getting a makeover to handle LESS students on campus. So something has to go. My guess is in-state students will get cut more and more.

I'd rather not see it happen, but it's the logical solution. Right now, relatively speaking out-of-state tuition to Miami is low. If they keep it at that price and go private, that alone would drive the student quality up. That in turn could benefit the area, with more intelligent and more ambitious graduates coming in to the local job market than ever before. And it wouldn't take a ton for the regionals to serve the purpose Miami does, on a micro scale, for the students of the state of Ohio. Those students will just have to get tech degrees and live in campus housing in Middletown or go to a different college in Ohio. Or even just keep a clear articulation agreement between the regionals and Miami, so if a student would go to the regionals and maintain ____ GPA and stay on good standing they would be guaranteed admission to Miami. Just like how the business school guarantees admission if you keep above a 3.0 GPA in your core classes - no difference. 

And also - yeah, agreed Spanish is important. I maxed out what I could do in high school of it. Got good grades, but I had a horrible time with conjugations, so coming into Miami I placed into basic Spanish, and decided I would be better off trying something new instead. Did Chinese, and honestly it was great! Wonderful language.