SLU MPH- Be Wary

[slucphsj]

Hi all. I was a frequent reader of the MPH Applied/Accepted/Rejected forums a few years ago and ended up choosing Saint Louis University for my MPH in a dual concentration. I am now a second-year and would not recommend this school to anyone seeking their MPH. I will preface this by saying I am one of the more involved students and am doing quite well in my classes- I don't have some unique grudge against the school that separates me from the typical student. Here are the reasons I strongly urge you against matriculating to SLU, in no particular order:

1. SLU has significant funding problems. This has led to major confusion over who is in charge of basic things such as advising, internships, and graduating. One of my instructors was even laid off midway through the semester.
2. Because of the funding problems and other issues, faculty have been leaving the university in mass quantities. I had an epidemiology professor quit two months into the semester and another quit two weeks before classes start.
3. Additionally, classes are constantly being canceled. My transcript looks nothing like the intended curriculum plan because I had to substitute multiple electives for required classes that were canceled due to low enrollment.
4. There is little transparency given to prospective students. For example, this year the Environmental & Occupational concentration was removed. Despite that this has (unofficially) been SLU's plan for over a year, the College still admitted new students to the EOH program who now have to take all of their EOH classes right now before the department is gone at the end of the year.
5. Online classes are outdated and rarely updated. I just finished a lecture for one class that was recorded in 2012 and referenced 2015 as being 'relatively soon' and heavily cited the Global Burden of Disease report from 2004.
6. Graduate assistants saw their tuition waivers reduced by thousands of dollars this year, and were given no warning that they would have to pay that extra out of pocket.

Though the school is currently ranked #23 in the nation, I am confident that this will decrease in the future. If you have any questions please let me know.

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[wwmmkk]

Sorry your program didn't turn out to be what you hoped it would. This does indeed sound like an objective-as-possible description of what's going on there. Thanks for sharing, and good luck in your future endeavors.

 

[MidnightCafe]

@sluphsj which program are you currently in?

 

[slucphsj]

bumping- still all of the same problems

 

[She-Hulk]

Hi all. I was a frequent reader of the MPH Applied/Accepted/Rejected forums a few years ago and ended up choosing Saint Louis University for my MPH in a dual concentration. I am now a second-year and would not recommend this school to anyone seeking their MPH. I will preface this by saying I am one of the more involved students and am doing quite well in my classes- I don't have some unique grudge against the school that separates me from the typical student. Here are the reasons I strongly urge you against matriculating to SLU, in no particular order:

1. SLU has significant funding problems. This has led to major confusion over who is in charge of basic things such as advising, internships, and graduating. One of my instructors was even laid off midway through the semester.
2. Because of the funding problems and other issues, faculty have been leaving the university in mass quantities. I had an epidemiology professor quit two months into the semester and another quit two weeks before classes start.
3. Additionally, classes are constantly being canceled. My transcript looks nothing like the intended curriculum plan because I had to substitute multiple electives for required classes that were canceled due to low enrollment.
4. There is little transparency given to prospective students. For example, this year the Environmental & Occupational concentration was removed. Despite that this has (unofficially) been SLU's plan for over a year, the College still admitted new students to the EOH program who now have to take all of their EOH classes right now before the department is gone at the end of the year.
5. Online classes are outdated and rarely updated. I just finished a lecture for one class that was recorded in 2012 and referenced 2015 as being 'relatively soon' and heavily cited the Global Burden of Disease report from 2004.
6. Graduate assistants saw their tuition waivers reduced by thousands of dollars this year, and were given no warning that they would have to pay that extra out of pocket.

Though the school is currently ranked #23 in the nation, I am confident that this will decrease in the future. If you have any questions please let me know.

I am sorry to hear about these issues, it reinforces in my mind that masters programs can be tempting big time money-makers for universities and there is an incentive to advertise much more than can ever be delivered. SLU is a supposed to be a decent university. It would be interesting to know:

1. Is the public health school at SLU underfunded or SLU in general? If there is turmoil specifically at the public health school then maybe that can be fixed in the coming years?

2. Do SLU graduates get jobs and/or do they mostly stay in Missouri?

3. The low enrollment problem might that many people don't want to relocate to Missouri but you can get a more affordable MPH at a fraction of the cost at other places?

Yes . . . SLU is ranked #23, but look closely at the numbers!

1 = Marginal
5 = Outstanding

So, schools like JHU have a numerical score of 4.8 which is close to a "5" of outstanding. University of Minnesota is a 4.0, still closer to outstanding. But then you have a step drop-off with BU being a 3.6 and Tulane a 3.5 . . . SLU is 2.6, so it is closer to Marginal than Outstanding.

Just saying that Top 10 and Top 25 doesn't say a lot for public health schools as there are so few of them, and fewer that strive towards excellence and more that are focused on making money for the university.

The problem is that for people wanting to do public health, it is a calling and people get blinded by glitzy universities that promise a lot, but how they feel about students and the education they offer is very different than what they want to project. Because people are going into public health to serve humanity, universities take advantage of this and applicants don't look at schools as realistically as if say you were getting a Masters Degree in computer science from whatever university as you move along in your career, those degrees might be more focused on hard skills and getting a job, whereas public health schools might be more likely to market the degree in generalities such as "changing the world" and other marketing techniques.

Everybody has public health schools they'd have serious questions about before attending, for me it would be BU, Columbia (huge price tag, but I'd want to know more), SLU, NYU (global health or the other program). I think there are some schools that are hidden gems, like USF, Brown, definitely Tulane, and others.

 

[plsmphepi]

Hi all. I was a frequent reader of the MPH Applied/Accepted/Rejected forums a few years ago and ended up choosing Saint Louis University for my MPH in a dual concentration. I am now a second-year and would not recommend this school to anyone seeking their MPH. I will preface this by saying I am one of the more involved students and am doing quite well in my classes- I don't have some unique grudge against the school that separates me from the typical student. Here are the reasons I strongly urge you against matriculating to SLU, in no particular order:

1. SLU has significant funding problems. This has led to major confusion over who is in charge of basic things such as advising, internships, and graduating. One of my instructors was even laid off midway through the semester.
2. Because of the funding problems and other issues, faculty have been leaving the university in mass quantities. I had an epidemiology professor quit two months into the semester and another quit two weeks before classes start.
3. Additionally, classes are constantly being canceled. My transcript looks nothing like the intended curriculum plan because I had to substitute multiple electives for required classes that were canceled due to low enrollment.
4. There is little transparency given to prospective students. For example, this year the Environmental & Occupational concentration was removed. Despite that this has (unofficially) been SLU's plan for over a year, the College still admitted new students to the EOH program who now have to take all of their EOH classes right now before the department is gone at the end of the year.
5. Online classes are outdated and rarely updated. I just finished a lecture for one class that was recorded in 2012 and referenced 2015 as being 'relatively soon' and heavily cited the Global Burden of Disease report from 2004.
6. Graduate assistants saw their tuition waivers reduced by thousands of dollars this year, and were given no warning that they would have to pay that extra out of pocket.

Though the school is currently ranked #23 in the nation, I am confident that this will decrease in the future. If you have any questions please let me know.

Thank you for sharing your insight! It's great that you thought of warning of prospective students -- I certainly wouldn't have wanted to come to this realization after spending thousands of dollars. Thank you.