The CA-Approved Schools in the SF Bay Area

I just got done looking at the lists of California approved schools in the nine Bay Area counties. I was kind of interested in knowing what's available these days in my local area.

There were 486 of them, total.

Of these, I counted 87 that offer degrees at the bachelors level or above. That's 18% of the total.

These 87 fell naturally into three classes:

1. Those schools that have some form of recognized accreditation from an accreditor other than WASC. There were 33 of these, ranging from some ACCSCT vocational colleges to the University of Pensylvania's Wharton School. (They offer a remote-site MBA program in SF.) These represent 38% of the degree granting schools.

2. The non-accredited CA-approved schools that offer conventional BA, MA or Ph.D.-type degree titles. There were 23 of these, representing 26% of the degree granting schools. These are what Degreeinfo usually means when we use the phrase "California aproved". But they represent only (26% of 18% =) 4.7% of all the CA-approved schools in the Bay Area, most of which are non-degree-granting post-secondary vocational schools.

3. Finally, the 31 (36%) schools that only offer degrees with religious titles. I think that most if not all of these are operating under religious exemptions. Of the non-accredited degree-granting schools on the lists, 57% were these phantom seminaries.

 

The Non-Accredited CA-Approved Schools

Here's the 23 CA-approved Bay Area schools that aren't accredited and don't just offer degrees with religious titles.

1. Armstrong University- Alameda

This one used to be an RA business school in Berkeley. Then it lost its WASC accreditation and moved to Oakland where it was accredited for a time by ACICS. It apparently lost that accreditation as well and now is operating out of a suite in an office park in Alameda.

http://www.armstrong-u.edu

2. Andrew U. - Berkeley

This one offers Ph.D. degrees in Humanities. (That caught my CSUDH-Hux graduate's eye.) I think that it operates out of a church basement.

http://www.andrewuniversity.edu

3. Bay Cities Bible College - Oakland

It offers a BA amd an MA in Biblical Studies.

http://www.bcbionline.org/bcbc/

4. Center for Psychological Studies - Berkeley

This is one of the CA psych schools, grandfathered into the legislation that now requires new clinical psychologists to have RA degrees. It seems to have a credible looking program and some of its faculty also teach at UC Berkeley. But its success on the state psychology board exams isn't particularly stellar.

http://cpsphd.edu

5. Northern California Bible College - Pleasonton

It offers a BA in Biblical Studies.

http://www.ncbc.net

6. Sanville Institute - Berkeley

This used to be known as the California Institute for Clinical Social Work and it offers doctoral degrees. It seems to have a credible looking program, but I don't know much about it. I can't say what utility its degrees have in its field.

http://www.sanville.edu

7. Western Institute for Social Research - Berkeley

This is a tiny operation that offers doctoral degrees in higher education with a distinct activist emphasis. A former Degreeinfo regular was enrolled in it for his own interest (he was already a law professor) and he apparently liked it.

http://www.wisr.edu

8. Fellowship Bible Institute and College - SF

Offers a BA in Bible and Ministry. Only generated 2 hits.

http://fellowshipbibleinstitute.org

9. Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality - SF

They offer doctoral degrees and do research in their often-exotic niche field. (It's places like this that made California great.)

http://www.iashs.edu

10. Olivet U. - SF

This is a new college that offers a number of media related degree programs and has started a seminary. It's currently an applicant with ABHE (the former AABC). If they get candidacy they will move out of this list.

http://www.olivetuniversity.org

11. Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California - SF

They offer a Psy.D., but I don't think that it qualifies graduates to sit for the state psychology exam. It's noteworthy that most of the schools teaching psychoanalysis in California aren't accredited. Apparently Freud has fallen seriously out of favor among psychologists. (They probably resent father figures.) He was a demigod a generation ago. Cultural studies still loves him though.

http://www.pincsf.org

12. California U. of Protection and Intelligence Management - SJ

They offer bachelors and masters degrees in cool sexy stuff like counter-terrorism studies, but I'm not sure how credible it is. They have some kind of a martial-arts thing going and their website used to feature photos of men brandishing weapons. I've seen advertising posters for this stapled up on Silicon Valley area billboards.

http://www.cupim.org

13. Center Graduate School - Saratoga

I think that this thing is operating as some kind of resource center for teachers and doesn't offer degrees. But it has approval to do so.

14. Institute for Buddhist Studies - Mountain View

This one operates in Berkeley now, but the state still has it in the south bay. IBS serves as the seminary of the Buddhist Church of America, a 100-year-old institution among Japanese Americans. It's an affiliate of the Graduate Theological Union and it offers its master degree jointly with the WASC-accredited GTU.

http://www.shin-ibs.edu

15. Optimal Performance Institute - Sunnyvale

Offers a doctorate in sports psychology. It doesn't qualify graduates for the state psychology exams and appears aimed at coaches and trainers.

http://www.opi.edu

16. Saratoga U. - SJ

A DL law school that seems to have suddenly gone out of business, leaving its students stranded.

17. Silicon Valley U. School of Law - Santa Clara

This is a new law school that isn't accredited by the state bar. I don't think that it's associated with ACICS-accredited Silicon Valley U. in San Jose.

http://www.svulaw.com

18. U. E-W Medicine - Sunnyvale

This is an acupuncture school whose owner reportedly has a feud going with the acupuncture accreditor ACAOM. I think that it does qualify graduates for state acupuncturist licenses, though.

http://www.uewm.edu

19. Frederick Taylor U. - Moraga

This is a DL business college that's never particularly impressed me.

http://www.ftu.edu

20. So. Marin Bible Institute - Marin City. I couldn't find a URL for it.

May be religious exempt.

21. Hawthorne Health and Nutrition Institue - Cotati

Offers an MS in Holistic Nutrition, but I couldn't find a URL for it.

22. Institute of Imaginal Studies - Petaluma

One of the longer established psychology schools. It apparently has a pretty decent reputation among Jungians. They offer DL.

http://www.imaginal.edu

23. U. of Northern California - Petaluma

This one is kind of interesting. It offers bachelors and masters degrees in things like Optical and Photonic Engineering and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering.

http://www.uncm.edu

A notable development is the fact that the BPPVE no longer lists California Bar Association accredited law schools. I guess thats because the state Education Code assigns those school's to the bar association's oversight.