Opinions re. Unaccredited Doctorate From Accredited School

I don't want to open up a can of worms here but what are people's opinions regarding the legitimacy or value of an unaccredited doctorate from an accredited school (such as can occur with CCU)? Would the fact that the school has achieved accreditation elevate the status of such a degree a notch above an unaccredited doctorate from an unaccredited school? I'm not talking about decieving any employers or trying to claim such a degree is acccredited. That's a whole separate issue.

 

It seems perfectly legitimate. The value of the unaccredited Ph.D. depends on why you want a Ph.D. In the business world it would have value. In the accademic world, you may have problems. If the Ph.D. is for personal growth and satisfaction, then it may have a great amount of value.
Jim

 

I am not specifically aware of the various programs offered at CCU and so my reply is unrelated to that school. That being said, I would think that you need to really think about what it means that some set of Undergrad/Masters degree programs received national accreditation yet the doctoral program did not. I believe that the doctoral programs were not even evaluated, correct? So what does it mean to the doctoral degree holders that the undergrad programs were accredited? I'd say it means nothing. Nothing good and nothing bad. Just nothing.
Jack
(maybe it shows a bit of potential)

 

Just be ready to answer a LOT of questions.

 

Technically, a doctorate awarded by the DETC-accredited CCU would be unaccredited. It is likely, however, that many people would miss this distinction, and I doubt too many CCU doctorate-holders would be quick to point it out. Therefore, I suspect there will be some (undeserved) benefit to them.

I feel DETC should have held off its accreditation of CCU until CCU graduated its doctoral students "in the pipeline." But that might not have been financially feasible, and I know we're talking about a small number of people. The benefit they get will be similar to that of doctoral gradautes before DETC accreditation. They won't deserve it, but they might see some.

If someone is willing to look at the situation with a sufficient level of detail to discern this distinction, then they should treat graduates of CCU's doctoral programs as they would graduates of other unaccredited DL doctoral programs, whatever that might be.

 

Would it be possible for current doctoral students to hold off on graduation for a couple of years, CCU to get its doctoral program accredited by DETC and receive an accredited degree?

 

My personal GUESS is that it will take more than a couple years for this. One would also run the danger of having to satisfy additional requirements or changes that might be made to the program.

 

It would be undeserved from the point of view of accredited doctorates and the fact that technically it is not really an accredited degree.

From the point of view of comparing it to the vast majority of unaccredited doctorates available which are nothing more than deceitful diplomas from diploma mills, a CCU doctorate represents more work. So the improved reputation is partially deserved. Although IIRC, didn't the ODA review the CCU DBA at one point and found it to be substandard and couldn't be used in Oregon?

 

IF DETC executes its pilot and IF DETC gets USDoE approval to include doctoral programs and IF the programs it is approved to include are some that CCU might offer and IF CCU wants to do it and IF CCU is successful and IF students can wait beyond their now-imposed time-in-program requirements, then maybe. But that's a lot of IF's.

More likely, students currently in the pipeline will run up against their time-in-program limits before CCU ever reaches that stage. We'll see.

 

The CCU DBA did not require any kind of dissertation, only a final exam, wheras the PhD from CCU requires a dissertation.

 

I'm not sure what the words 'legitimacy' or 'value' mean in this instance.

From what little I've seen of hiring at the doctoral level, accreditation isn't a big consideration. It's just assumed. What hiring committees seem to be most interested in is a candidate's dissertation topic, who they worked with, what they have published and so on.

I guess my point is that people at the doctoral level aren't being hired in quite the same way as people often are at the bachelors level, where possession of a degree may just be a generic requirement, a box to check off.

So to answer your question, I think that it depends on the school.

If somebody earns a Ph.D. from UCMerced before it gets its WASC accreditation, I don't see any huge problem. (It probably won't be granting degrees until it's a candidate anyway.) UCMerced will host real research and scholarship. It will be growing its reputation.

But if a back-in-the-pack CA-approved school known for churning out large numbers of doctors without contributing much of anything to the world of scholarship, subsequently drops its doctoral programs and is accredited by DETC, I don't see that as adding a whole lot of luster to the doctorates that it granted previously. It still has no reputation, it still hasn't produced any interesting work, and the accreditor DETC is not known for research scholarship.

Yeah, it probably would. It would probably quiet the suspicion that the school was a flat-out degree-mill.

But would that be enough to catapault graduates up to the level where others (particularly other scholars and professionals) see them as authorities on their subjects?

I don't know... In the CCU case I just don't see a whole lot of benefit.

If a CCU doctor is in a competitive hiring situation, the degree probably wouldn't work. That's regardless of any subsequent DETC accreditation. If the hiring situation isn't competitive, if it's just a friend hiring a friend or something, then the school's subsequent accreditation probably wouldn't be necessary. (Probably a doctoral degree wouldn't be necessary either.)