I have mixed feelings about it. I say this as somebody who considered attending. I don't really have much of a stake in it. My opinion is just one person's opinion and means nothing beyond that.
But my opinion is, the Purdue system - which I suppose is who decided to buy and rebrand Kaplan - *is* Purdue. They decide what the name means. They decided to apply it to PUG. That is their choice. It is legitimate. It isn't like some other university took advantage of a legal loophole to have a similar name. The people who made this decision had the proper authority to make it.
But, I do not think they should have made it, because I do not think "Purdue" is viewed the same way as "University of [insert state here]." Maybe some people assume that the University of Maryland Global Campus is the Maryland Terrapins, but I think anybody who knows much about higher education is aware it is separate. But with Purdue, since there is such strong identification with that one specific major university, I think 95% of people or more would assume Purdue University Global is the Boilermakers' online program, the way Penn State has an online campus. Of course, it is not like that. Purdue is selective. PUG is open admission or close to that. They have different missions and really very little in common other than the name, and the system governance.
If I was an actual Purdue graduate, I would be very irked by the branding confusion.
Since I am not, I would just say, I chose to steer clear of it because I think it is beneficial only when people misunderstand it, and maybe negative when people do understand it. I would not want to get a job because somebody made a bad assumption in my favor and I would not want to feel like I had to explain it to avoid bad assumptions every time. The name seems designed to invite incorrect assumptions, so much that I think that is part of the selling point of the university.
Again, that is just me ... my opinion is no better than anybody else's.
But my opinion is, the Purdue system - which I suppose is who decided to buy and rebrand Kaplan - *is* Purdue. They decide what the name means. They decided to apply it to PUG. That is their choice. It is legitimate. It isn't like some other university took advantage of a legal loophole to have a similar name. The people who made this decision had the proper authority to make it.
But, I do not think they should have made it, because I do not think "Purdue" is viewed the same way as "University of [insert state here]." Maybe some people assume that the University of Maryland Global Campus is the Maryland Terrapins, but I think anybody who knows much about higher education is aware it is separate. But with Purdue, since there is such strong identification with that one specific major university, I think 95% of people or more would assume Purdue University Global is the Boilermakers' online program, the way Penn State has an online campus. Of course, it is not like that. Purdue is selective. PUG is open admission or close to that. They have different missions and really very little in common other than the name, and the system governance.
If I was an actual Purdue graduate, I would be very irked by the branding confusion.
Since I am not, I would just say, I chose to steer clear of it because I think it is beneficial only when people misunderstand it, and maybe negative when people do understand it. I would not want to get a job because somebody made a bad assumption in my favor and I would not want to feel like I had to explain it to avoid bad assumptions every time. The name seems designed to invite incorrect assumptions, so much that I think that is part of the selling point of the university.
Again, that is just me ... my opinion is no better than anybody else's.
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