Can a State Approved Degree be Evaluated as equivelant to RA or NA by a Agency?

Discussion in 'Accreditation Discussions (RA, DETC, state approva' started by JNelson467, Aug 29, 2004.

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  1. JNelson467

    JNelson467 New Member

    Can a US State approved degree be evaluated by a outside agency to be equivelant to a RA or NA degree. basically, is there any organization that can re-evaluate a program from a school who has not chosen to seek accreditation thus far?
     
  2. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    I don't understand your question, which sounds self-contradictory to me.

    An "outside agency" that "evaluates" state approved schools and determines that they are "equivalent to a RA or NA degree" programs would be an accreditor. That's what the accrediting associations are.

    So you seem to be asking whether a school can be accredited without being accredited.

    Obviously, unless a particular field is regulated by law, individual employers and clients are free to make those kind of determinations for themselves on a case-by-case basis. But since most people are in no position to do that, they defer to the judgements of the accrediting associations.
     
  3. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    I agree with Bill Dayson . . . although, theoretically, an agency that requires RA degrees for hiring, promotion, salary determination, etc., could say, "We have decided that a California-approved degree also qualifies."

    I am not aware of this having happened. At the time when California-approved doctorates qualified people to sit for various state licensing exams, someone did the research that showed that of the other 49 states, 48 would not accept the California-approved degree for licensing, and one, Colorado, might on a case-by-case basis.
     
  4. Jeremy

    Jeremy Member

    yes

    New York is the only state approved degrees that are deemed equivalent.....

    Other state approved degrees for professional credentials may be accepted but to the best of my knowledge the degree evaluating agencies only look at education received outside of the USA not comparing within the US.

    The there is always the schools that have ACE recommendations that might be closer to being equivalent to but that is also a stretch
     
  5. tmartca

    tmartca New Member

    Can a US State approved degree be evaluated by a outside agency to be equivalent to a RA or NA degree. Basically, is there any organization that can re-evaluate a program from a school who has not chosen to seek accreditation thus far?


    If I understand what you're saying, then you want to have a neutral and respected third party evaluate the CA approved degree program (not the entire school) and determine whether it's equivalent to RA or NA.

    I don't believe there are any parties currently doing that specifically, although with a big enough demand I am confident that someone would step forward and fill the need. Maybe organizations that evaluate foreign degrees in terms of US equivalent would be looking to grow their business and expand into this new market.

    I would think that the biggest obstacle would be separating the degree program from the rest of the school. Then there is another issue, having this decision accepted by the people potential employers in your field.
     
  6. DesElms

    DesElms New Member

    You know... sometimes the closed-mindedness of the people around here really irritates the bejesus out of me. Heaven forbid anyone dares to mess with the status quo. Before continuing (and continue I will, believe me), I remind the reader that I am four-square in favor of regional accreditation (or, more accurately, accreditation by a USDoE/CHEA-approved agency) as the "gold standard." It is preferable -- by a good piece -- to nearly all other alternatives. But, personally, I think JNelson467's question represents a particularly intriguiging piece of rock-solid logic; and I'm a little disappointed in the summary rejection, here, of it and its tantalizing possibilities just because "such things are just never done!"

    When someone presents as an MA or MS applicant from East-Nooneseverheardofitistan to a regionally-accredited institution in the U.S., the first thing said institution does is send said applicant to a NACES (or equivalent) member credential evaluation service to determine how close the applicant's requisite bachelors degree comes to one earned at a regionally-accredited U.S. institution. The results of the evaluation are used to determine what, if any, additional undergraduate-level courses the MA/MS applicant might need to complete to bring his/her BA/BS up-to-par as requisite to the MA/MS degree for which he/she is applying. A similar thing happens when an MA/MS holder from a foreign country applies for an other MS or Ms or a Ph.D from an accredited U.S. school.

    The NACES member service's very job is to sort through the non-U.S. degree and all its many and varied peculiarities and to figure out how to label its disparate parts as either apples or oranges so that true apples-to-apples and oranges-to-oranges comparisons between the non-U.S. degree's components and those of a hypothetical, regionally-accredited U.S. degree may be performed.

    The whole process begs the extremely logical and perfectly vaid question: If a NACES member service can do a thing like that with a degree from an institution in a foreign country which no one in said service has ever even heard of, then why couldn't such a service do essentially the same thing with a degree from an institution in this country which everyone in said service has?

    The logic of it is facially unassailable. So when I read in places like this that the notion of it is just not worthy of consideration, it really irks me. I'm as pro-accreditation as they come. But I also know that there are schools out there that are not accredited but provide just as much rigor as any accredited institution ever thought of providing -- and, no, I don't mean Kennedy-Western or its likes!

    I agree that persons who graduate from unaccredited but nevertheless rigorous and easily worthy institutions should probably be asked why they would voluntarily put themselves through the inevitable argument about whether their degree is valuable in light of the fact that it's not accredited. However, the answer to that question is irrelevant to the fact that such graduates exist, and as long as their degrees were granted by institutions that were licensed by their respective states to grant degrees; and as long as pretty much anyone and everyone who ever dug into said degrees would agree that, indeed, they were earned via just as much work, and studying all the right things and in all the right ways, as would be the case at an accredited institution, then those graduates should not have the likes of a bunch of arrogant old cusses like us around here dismiss their degree out of hand as worthless just because said degrees are unaccredited. All accredited schools must endure a period before accreditedation when they're not; when they're operating as if they were, but they haven't existed long enough to even apply; or they're an accreditation candidate and they're just waiting for the big day.

    Are we saying that degrees from unaccredited institutions like that have no value? Of course we're not -- or at least we'd better not be!

    So why couldn't someone holding a degree like that go a NACES member service and pay to get an objective appraisal which accomplishes essentially the same thing? It makes perfect sense! If a USDoE/CHEA-approved agency, for whatever reason, won't (or, probably more accurately, either hasn't been asked, or has been but just hasn't acted yet to) declare it on-par with a degree from any other accredited school, then why can't one employ a NACES member service to do so? That is after all, what they do for a living! They might be more used to doing it only with foreign degrees, but why would they not be able to apply the same sort of due diligence to a U.S. degree for a fee? And, trust me, most of them could think of what kind of fee they'd like to do so. Money talks, after all, and bulls__t walks.

    Why? Hmm?

    Granted, it's unorthodox. And I think that, when it comes right down to ti, that's really what's tripping everyone up, here. I'm pretty sure this is what the phrase "thinking outside the box" refers to.

    Good job of thinking like a lawyer, there, JNelson467!

    I think you guys around here need to loosen up a little. Sheesh!

    EDIT: tmartca's posting occurred while I was still finishing this one, so he/she doesn't need to loosen up. :)
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 29, 2004
  7. Gus Sainz

    Gus Sainz New Member

    The answer is, more than likely, yes. As there are "outside agencies" (CCI and AUAP come to mind) that will evaluate degree mill credentials as equivalent to RA degrees, I see no reason why they wouldn't, for an appropriate fee, do the same for a US State approved degree. The problem is, of course, that none of the "outside agencies" that would do such a thing are legitimate or credible.
     
  8. DesElms

    DesElms New Member

    Re: Re: Can a State Approved Degree be Evaluated as equivelant to RA or NA by a Agency?

    Bet there's a NACES member out there somewhere that would do it.. and they're credible.
     
  9. tcnixon

    tcnixon Active Member


    The Short Version: It's not about whether you could find someone to do it. It's about whether, once it's done, it is worth anything. My guess is that you would still have to convince a whole lot of people.

    Getting it evaluated by a NACES evauator is, typically, for use in furthering your education. I get the sense, and I readily admit I have no idea, that the OP woud like to use it for employment. Would employers even know what NACES is?


    Tom Nixon
     
  10. Gus Sainz

    Gus Sainz New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Can a State Approved Degree be Evaluated as equivelant to RA or NA by a Agency?

    In light of the fact that NACES describes itself as “an association of private foreign educational credential evaluation services committed to formulating and maintaining ethical standards in the field of foreign educational evaluation” (see here), I don’t think so. The key word in their description is “foreign.”
     
  11. tmartca

    tmartca New Member

    In light of the fact that NACES describes itself as “an association of private foreign educational credential evaluation services committed to formulating and maintaining ethical standards in the field of foreign educational evaluation” (see here), I don’t think so. The key word in their description is “foreign.”

    They could evolve and establish themselves in a similar market couldn't they? It's like an established and well respected foreign institution seeking US accreditation.

    I remember not more than a few years ago thinking of DL degrees as a complete fraud equivalent to a degree mill. Now my opinion has changed, so much in fact that I am in an online program myself.
     
  12. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    I don't think that foreign credential evaluators should be confused with accreditors.

    Credential evaluators determine whether a program syllabus from country A corresponds to what is expected in country B. If that function were to be expanded into accreditation, then one would expect that elaborate institutional and programmatic studies would have to be made, including foreign site visits.

    If a school isn't willing to submit to the studies and site visits performed by the accreditors, then why should we expect it to be willing to submit to the studies and site visits imposed by your hypothetical alternative process?

    And assuming that your alternative process is competent and credible, then why shouldn't it be called 'accreditation' and the organization performing it an 'accreditor'?
     
  13. Guest

    Guest Guest

    These times they are a changin-----Dylan

    Amazing how the passing of time alters one's position on a given issue. There was a time when a degree earned via night school was viewed as suspect, a short-cut education, even millish. Although the same classes were taken as those enrolled in day classes, the same instructors were utilized, as well as the same course requirements, a common perception was that such degrees were somehow substandard.

    Distance education is going through a similar metamorphosis, becoming more mainstream by the day.
     
  14. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    Hi Gregg, ;)

    How about the answer, "It's possible although it hasn't been done, if it were done with full rigor and detail then it would be the same as accreditation"? If that sounds okay then explain the difference between my answer and Bill Dayson's post because they seem like the same answer to me?

    Regarding your answer, a weak point in your answer I believe might be that foreign degree evaluation count on the foreign country doing the accreditation. What the foreign degree evaluation agency primary job is to put that degree within the context of more familar RA degrees.

    If the person lives in Oregon or is the owner of the school then I thought that one option might be to use the ODA.

    Have funl,
     
  15. DesElms

    DesElms New Member

    Because, after all, the long version is the purview of... well... you know... me, right? :p

    I suspect that's an understatement.

    Almost certainly not; and that's an excellent point. I come from the "everything's negotiable" school of thought. I wonder if a logical next step, once one has the evaluation, might be to try to same to one of the big three and start cutting out-of-the-box-thinking sort of deals.

    Bet there's at least one. And, anyway, one wouldn't approach them in the normal way. This would be a groundbreaking, experimental sort of thing... just to see what happens. Someone would bite. Maybe they wouldn't agree to it until and unless the evaluation had a paragraph or two of explanation regarding the experimental nature of it... and that would be fine with me. Full disclosure heals many ills.

    Oh, I'm not confused. In the absence of accreditation, I'm proposing that there might (and the operative word, here, is "might") be a way around the problem via individual degree evaluation -- not to be confused with accreditation. The result of the evaluation, in my little paradigm, here, would be used to declare the degree either equivalent, or not, to one issued by an accredited institution.

    Exactly. I don't see how what I'm suggesting might be possible is not do-able roughly within that construct. In my paradigm, the program syllabus from institution X in country Z is compared with the program syllabus from institution Y, also in country Z.

    In my paradigm, we're not expanding it into accreditation. When evaluators try to figure out if a degree from East-Nooneseverheardofitistan is on-par with one of approximately the same title in the U.S., said evaluator is not doing elaborate institutional and programmatic studies... or foreign visits. Most of them do the voodoo they do within a few days. I'm proposing no more elaborate due diligence than that. The result would not be an accreditation. The result would be a declaration by the evaluator that the degree in question either is or is not equivalent to a similarly-named degree from an institution accredited by an agency approved by USDoE/CHEA.

    First, as established moments ago, there would be no site visits. And if the syllabus is complete, then it lists texts, names of lectures, etc. -- the sort of thing the evaluator uses to figure out what's what. It may not even require the cooperation of the school. But you're assuming way more negative or, worse, nefarious inclination on the part of the school than would almost certainly be the case in my paradigm. Remember, I'm not arguing that students should be able to take the crap schools like Kennedy-Western consider coursework and figure out what it's worth. The school issuing the degree being evaluated in my paradigm is going to exhibit obvious and unmistakable indications of credibility in the first place. I am not -- let's make no mistake about it -- advocating this methodology as a way for credentials from less-than-wonderful institutions to get some credibility via the back door.

    Nice to see that you grasp the messiness of it all, too.

    See my answer to Bill Dayson's post.

    These almost seem like conflicting statements to me.

    Indeed, when the foreign country has something equivalent to CHEA or a regional accrediting agency (let's say it's called the Foreign Country Accrediting Board or FCAB, for our purposes, here), then the job of evaluation is made a bit easier because the evaluator can begin by first figuring out if FCAB's standards are worth a damn, generally. Then he/she can figure out if the institution granting the foreign degree is approved and accredited by FCAB. That, alone, might get the job done... which, I think, is what you were referring to (or something thereabouts) with your first statement, "foreign degree evaluation count on the foreign country doing the accreditation."

    But with regard to your second statement, "[w]hat the foreign degree evaluation agency primary job is to put that degree within the context of more familar RA degrees," I ask this: When the evaluator tries to break the foreign degree down into components that can be labeled apples (versus oranges) so that he/she can then move to the next step of comparing the apples of the foreign degree with the apples of a typical U.S. RA degree (and the oranges, too), in what way, in that specific process, is he/she relying on the foreign country's accreditation?

    Well, yes, I guess that's categorically true. But that statement assumes that someone is trying to substitute the evaluation for accreditation in the same way that your earlier statements, to which I've replied above, did. Since that's not the case, it may not be as simple as that -- especially in the case of the person who cares about having the degree evaluated being the owner of the institution that granted it. I'm not envisioning that, really. That really does start to blur the line between this simple, degree- and degree-holder-specific evaluation that I'm talking about, here, and something weirdly like accreditation.

    I'm tryin', Bill... I'm tryin'! ;)
     
  16. JNelson467

    JNelson467 New Member

    Apologies for the length of this response

    I appreciate hearing some positive response to my question Des Elms.

    The point that I am trying to make, and again, I am in no way seeking to open up a can of never-ending whoopy here or name schools, but I must say that there are a few State approved schools that are, in my opinion, legitimate and mean well. Curriculum is thought out, measurable and a student may receive more direct attention and personal direction than through a BIG NAME university who has chosen to get into the Distance learning arena, because, after all, It's a BIG money maker and BIG business!!

    I do feel that there are a few reasons why a University that may have been around a while and has a modest reputation in a particular area of expertise may choose to not seek a NA or RA accreditation. Do I agree with their motives? Probably not, but I do understand from one perspective.

    If a school, lets say, tries to keep its number of enrolled students to a limit so that the entire student body will have adequate and a positive personal experience due to keeping the university at a proper size and LOW tuition costs, then I can understand their motives. Kind of like the public schools where you hear of a teacher in kindergarten teaching 35 students...GET REAL...that's a overkill and I would pull my hair out too.

    What I am referring to is if a school is satisfactory with the enrollment and inquiries into the schools program, they seek to keep tuition costs low and work to keep the # of enrolled students to a satisfactory range to provide better teacher/student relationships; then WHY would they seek to gain a accreditation that will require possibly a additional staff member just to maintain Federal and Student loans that are required to ALL students when holding a RA or NA accredited status, when the school is satisfied with it's capture rate or student inquiries?

    We all know that basic business sense tells us that to price a product or service, one tends to increase cost until you see a resistence from the potential market or consumer. This has always been about money and it always will be.

    If I operated a school and chose to take a accreditation, in addition to being approved and evaluated by a state ( a part of the United States ), I would also raise my tuition until I found a resistence point because I KNOW that Students who can obtain a financial aid loan are more apt to pay alot more in tuition costs because they can defer and get low interest loans..pay for it for the rest of his or her life if so desired.

    Again, I firmly believe that the intentions of accrediting bodies are to assist in securing a standard of equivelancy for educational programs and to prevent DEGREE MILLS from wrongfully awarding a degree for little to no work completed. please understand that I agree and believe in Regional and national accreditation and their initiatives and objectives.

    My apologies for my dissertation, but I want to go back to my original question

    If one has a degree from a State approved University and feels that although he or she does not understand why a school would not want to gain accreditation for whatever reason ( My idea being that they are satisfied with # of enrollies and do not want to mess with a additional body to also please, student loans, higher tuitions which now place them in the mix with all other schools in terms tuition price etc. and MORE competition). Can a individual seek a private agency to have his or her degree program evaluated for legitimacy of being equivelant to a RA or NA approved institution? mainly because they do not want to be seen as ILLEGAL in Mr. Contreras's or Oregon's eyes as being listed as a DIPLOMA MILL because of a lack of accreditation.

    Enough said.
     
  17. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    You don't want your process confused with accreditation, but its purpose is to declare non-accredited degree programs equivalent to accredited ones? That needs explanation.

    If all we want is a verification that a non-accredited school's syllabus resembles that of an accredited school, then fine.

    But if we intend to anounce that the non-accredited school's degree program is equivalent to an accredited school's program, we will have to pay some kind of attention to quality of instruction, to assessment standards and to whether or not paper features exist in real life.

    What's to keep a less-than-wonderful from simply reproducing a cool-looking degree syllabus on their website? 120 units, all the normal curricular requirements, everything? How do we know that anyone really took the classes? (Some degree-mills sell bogus transcripts along with their diplomas.)

    And what about all the schools that are somewhere this side of flat-out mills but nevertheless have a disturbingly high flakiness-factor? The CA-approved world is filled with schools like that.

    The problem presented by domestic non-accredited schools is kind of the reverse of that presented by evaluating foreign credentials.

    The foreign schools are generally overseen by their own local authorities. Their credibility usually isn't the problem. The questions revolve around the translation of their alien format into American terms. What should we think of Licenciate degrees? Is a Mexican Bachelaureate a BA or a secondary school diploma? How many American units should a student be awarded for completing a British "module"? Did the foreign program require general ed coursework? What in the world is a Higher National Diploma?

    The domestic non-accredited schools generally already use the expected American format. The problem with these schools is that they aren't overseen by their local quality assurance mechanism. Establishing equivalence with superficially similar schools that do have that kind of oversight is ostensibly the whole point of this exercise.

    My point is that we are talking about two rather different problems here. The methods helpful for one may not be appropriate with the other.
     
  18. Rob Coates

    Rob Coates New Member

    I've never heard this before that Colorado would accept CA-approved doctorates on a case by case basis. Do you know if this is still the situation in Colorado?
     
  19. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

  20. DesElms

    DesElms New Member

    Okay, here's the explanation: There is none... at least not for what you said... because it isn't what I said. I'm not talking about declaring non-accredited degree programs equivalent to anything. In fact I'm not talking about degree programs at all.

    There. Now you've got it. Er... well... sort of. It would go beyond the syllabus, of course. But that would be at least one thing they'd look at. And it wouldn't be for an entire program. Just one person's degree; a highly individualized thing. One person, holding one degree, from one unaccredited institution; seeking an evaluation of said degree from said institution; and a subsequent declaration of whether it's on-par with a similarly-titled degree from an accredited institution; and if there are deficits, a list of what they are so that the degree holder can figure out what he needs to do to make it on-par.

    Stop. We're back to entire "programs" again.

    One degree. Owned by one guy (or woman, take your pick). Requesting one evaluation of said degree owned by said man or woman. One time. Only.

    The results of said evaluation would not be a statement about an entire program. Anyone else with that same degree from that same institution can go pay for their own damned evaluation.

    This... this hypothetical thing I'm proffering, here... isn't an attempt to "accredit" via the back door. This is one person saying, in effect:
    • "Hey! You... over there... yeah, you... the NACES member evaluator. Didn't you just declare a BA in Underwater Basketweaving from East-Nowhereistan to be equivalent to a similarly-titled BA from virtually any regionally-accredited university in the U.S.? Cool! Listen, I just graduated from Suchandsuch University -- a 30-year-old unaccredited degree-granting institution, licensed by the State of California and with a reputation for rigor that everyone agrees is impressive. Could you please evaluate my degree in basically the same way that you did that other one and declare it on-par with a similarly-titled degree from any regionally-accredited U.S. school, too?"
    At the end of said evaluation, that one particular degree, owned by that one particular person -- and only that one particular degree, owned only by the one particular person -- will be declared either fit or unfit for presentation by that one particular person as a valid educational credential right alongside any other regionally-accredited degree presented by anyone else. No programs. Just one individual and his one individual degree. Paid for out of said individual's pocket. For his/her personal use and benefit only. Others like him/her can go negotiate their own deals.

    We're not talking about that, here. Every NACES evaluator knows who the diploma mills are -- and how to recognize any new ones that popped-up since the last time they reviewed the list. I'm talking about degrees from clearly substantial albeit unaccredited institutions that actually exist, that have reputations that are easily observable and verifiable, etc. I'm talking about someone with a degree from one of those places going to a NACES member evaluator and saying, "If it works for a foreign degree, why couldn't it work for one from a college you know is legit, but that is also, for whatever reason, unaccredited?"

    Under my plan, the NACES member evaluator would take the degree-holder's money and, once the check clears, issues a report that begins, "You've got to be kidding. That degree of yours isn't worth the powder it would take to blow it up because it's from an institution that just isn't solid enough for me to stake my good reputation on giving a degree from it a positive evaluation. But thanks for stopping by."

    Determinations -- to the last of them -- inherently more involved and difficult than simply comparing the rigor of one U.S. unaccredited degree to another U.S. accredited one. The NACES evaluator should discount its fee.

    Were this a college debate, you would have gotten high points for that one. Good show. Okay, so maybe the NACES member evaluator shouldn't discount its fee. Instead, it sound like maybe it should charge more. But, in either case, this thing is do-able. We've spent countless hours writing and reading posts in these threads identifying the characteristics that evidence legitimacy, and those that do not. The evaluator can apply those and numerous other common sense criteria as part of its due diligence to determine if the institution is even rigorous or not. Having determined that it is sufficiently rigorous (if, in fact, it is), the evaluator can then start the apples-to-apples process for the given degree owned by the given person. It's just not all that different from what that same evaluator does for a foreign degree.
     

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