BS EET from Devry in 2003. Cost me $50K for 3 years.
Went to CSUN in 06 for a MS Electrical Engineering. Had to take 9 additional classes to qualify for graduate studies because my Devry BS wasn't considered technical enough.
Because of my MS and other things I did when I was at CSUN (graduate research, published a paper, passed the EIT), I now have a six figure engineering job but Devry was a waste of time and money and I spent most of my 20's stressed out and poor because of it.
I'm probably one of the exceptions when it comes to Devry grads, who usually get stuck doing low level work for the rest of their life. Still I feel justified in telling anyone who asks me that the school sucks and they should just go to a 4 year.
As a former HR person, we had to look at one thing first which is experience. Experience is king much the way cash is king to a business. While it may favor older people and not be so friendly to some 20-somethings just getting started out, well then welcome to the real world of paying your dues. It sucks but in some ways I wouldn't trade those first few years for anything.
Experience on a resume was the first barrier and after that we can talk about education. When we saw education, we broke it up into HS grad, junior college grad, college grad, grad school, and certifications/licenses. Once we saw those, then and only then could we weigh a state funded school against someone like a DeVry or University of Phoenix. If we are talking a middle ranked California State University vs. a Devry, then it's about the same. But if the publicly funded school is a UCLA or Cal Berkeley, then those schools take a front seat.
It's a good thing you got your M.S. degree, but not so much because your bachelor's was DeVry, but more because your graduate education places you in a different category than most people with a bachelor's. However, if you went against an applicant with just a bachelor's degree, but from a very small list like a Cal Tech or MIT, then that other person would likely be seen as the better candidate, with all experience having been about equal between you and that person.
As to whether a person moves up, then the college degree means less and less as time goes by. Once you get your first job after college, you have to prove yourself if it is to look good on a resume. Not only do you have to hit the ground running, but it helps to move up the field as the years go by as well as have a good position currently.
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We arent talking public vs private. We are talking for-profit vs not-for-profit.
With that comparison, I tend toward the not-for-profit. It appears from those who went to for profit schools that the bottom line dictated the entire experience. At the end of the day, many years later when I and most of my peers have finished paying for school and may be retired, then what we remember that many years down the line is just that we finished that degree or degrees.
When we first graduated, the ones who were most in debt bitched about the loans they had (and especially those with an MD or DDS but still without a lot of patients), but as time went on and they were likely in a job that paid more than just a high school diploma, the talk was more about the company they got into, or how well they built a business/firm, or even the field. I can see where school or school reputation makes a big deal in your teens and twenties, but still talking about a school reputation at 35 or older sounds really fishy.
The older people I have met who are so into their school reputation are always the ones who never did anything with their education anyway. It's the successful high school graduate who is a millionaire or the very successful engineer who may have just gone to an unknown state college but is now a high earning senior manager who really have any bragging rights, but usually they are too busy making money along with those who went to a Harvard or Yale. And if you are a very senior manager competing for a CEO spot or a successful entrepreneur, the last thing you are going to worry about is where your competition went to school and on any terminal level of success it's what you have done over many years vs. what they have done.
