Carribean diploma mills

Discussion in 'Accreditation Discussions (RA, DETC, state approva' started by BA1, Mar 19, 2009.

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  1. BA1

    BA1 New Member

    Does anyone no what alledged diploma mills are approved by carribean nation legislatures? The reason I ask is because I plan to attend a school there through distance learning and just wanted to make sure it wasn't a alledged diploma mill. Thank You
     
  2. Randell1234

    Randell1234 Moderator

    What school?
     
  3. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    Here's the one-minute test, suggested in my book on degree mills*:

    Call the Registrar's or Admissions office of any nearby (near to you) college or university. Say, "I'm thinking of enrolling for a degree at ___________ . Do you accept their degrees, or their credits for transfer?" Registrars and admissions officers are, by and large, really knowledgeable. Their annual and regional AACRAO** conventions always have sessions on recognizing fake schools, fake transcripts, so on.

    And, of course, if you choose to identify the school, you'll surely get useful feedback here.

    * Degree Mills: the billion-dollar industry that has sold more than a million fake degrees ( by Allen Ezell and John Bear, www.degreemills.com)

    ** American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, www.aacrao.org.
     
  4. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    Very similar to John's suggestion here's how the ODA answers the question.

    Is there a single reliable reference that lists only legitimate foreign schools, screening out diploma mills? Not to our knowledge. Foreign school evaluation is complex. The best single standard to use for bare-minimum screening is whether the schools’ degrees are fully usable as credentials for employment and acceptable at other colleges within the home country.

    from http://www.osac.state.or.us/oda/faq.html
     
  5. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

  6. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Unfortunately, many of those states seem to copy Oregon's list, and Oregon has an unreasonable bias against Caribbean-based schools. A case in point is that St. George's University is on their enemies list, even though it's regionally well regarded and its graduates practice medicine both in the region and abroad -- including the U.S.

    I gather they're on the hit list because they had a center in St. Kitts, a country that most observers agree has accredited substandard schools. But you can't reasonably say that St. George's is unacceptable just because it was partly in St. Kitts, which accredited Berne. That's like saying Auburn University is unacceptable just because it's in Alabama, which approved Breyer State. (Yes, Auburn is also SACS accredited, but SGU is also subject to oversight in Grenada, its primary location.)

    But as has already been said, you'll need to mention the name of the school here to get specific information.

    -=Steve=-
     
  7. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    Steve, I'm not disagreeing with anything that you say but, BA1 requested warning for what could be an alleged diploma mill. Being on the ODA unacceptable list would in many minds put an institution into that category. A case in point is California Coast University. It was on the ODA list and many alumni took much flak and sufferred greatly from bad PR even though most posters here thought that CCU had academic standard programs, except for their DBA program. (To be fair, these problems were caused only in part by being on the ODA list.) Later we found out that CCU was on the ODA list specifically for their substandard DBA program.
     
  8. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    Steve - and Oregon has an unreasonable bias against Caribbean-based schools.

    K - you base this OPINION on what? St. George? Evidence baby, evidence!

    Steve - A case in point is that St. George's University is on their enemies list...

    K - Calm down Steve, there is no "enemies list." You're taking this all too personally.

    Steve - I gather they're on the hit list because they had a center in St. Kitts, a country that most observers agree has accredited substandard schools.

    K - Hit list? C'mon, be serious. There is no hit list. You presume? you surmise? But, you could easily be wrong. Again, no evidence.

    Steve - But you can't reasonably say that St. George's is unacceptable just because it was partly in St. Kitts, which accredited Berne. That's like saying Auburn University is unacceptable just because it's in Alabama, which approved Breyer State. (Yes, Auburn is also SACS accredited, but SGU is also subject to oversight in Grenada, its primary location.)

    K - You example is apples and oranges Steve and you know it.

    I don't really care too much one way or the other but if you're going to make a serious decision on these sorts of things then you should base it on more than conjecture, bad evidence and something that someone thinks they read someplace long ago.
     
  9. raristud

    raristud Member

    Is there a reason why St. George's University is on their list. A friend of mine attended St. George's University and had to return to the US due to a hurricane that hit the island a few years ago. She never returned but informed me that the curriculum is rigorous. This was a straight A student talking.

    If the below is true, then I believe that St.George's University listing is undeserved.

    - Medical education at St. George's University begins on the island of Grenada and is completed with clinical training primarily conducted in clinical centers and affiliated teaching hospitals in the United States and the United Kingdom. The School of Medicine is listed with the World Health Organization[1], as well as the ECFMG IMED/FAIMER database[2], and is fully recognized and approved by the government of Grenada to confer the degree of Doctor of Medicine upon students who fulfill the school's admissions requirements and complete the prescribed curriculum.

    - The medical program has been approved by the states of New York[3], New Jersey, California[4], Florida and Texas[5] for clinical training of St. George's students in clinical centers and affiliated hospitals[6].

    - The school additionally has affiliation agreements with hospitals in other states and in the United Kingdom[6].

    - The school has been site-visited and approved for limited registration status by the General Medical Council of Great Britain.

    - Student participation in community health research projects is also encouraged. Ongoing activities organized and run by St. George's University students include regular Diabetes Clinics, AMSA Health Fairs for rural Grenada, Fundraisers for Grenadian orphanages and Blood drives for the local Red Cross and General Hospital of Grenada.

    - There is also a premedical program which leads into the MD medical program at St. George's University (SGU). It is held in SGU itself and is called Foundations in Medicine. Another program is held at Northumbria University in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England. It is an alternative option for students who want to complete their first year of SGU's MD curriculum abroad. The program has been dubbed the Global Scholars Program. [8]

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._George%27s_University

    "Texas Medical Board. "Schools Whose Graduates Do Not Have To Prove Substantial Equivalence Of Their Education". http://www.tmb.state.tx.us/professionals/physicians/applicants/STDNHPSE.rtf. Retrieved on 2006-09-22." -- St. George's is on the list

    Not a diploma mill in my opinion.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 21, 2009
  10. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Not at all. St. George's being on ODA's list is a big mistake, and I can't think of another reasonable explanation for it other than that they were also active on St. Kitt's. If there's some other reason, I'm all ears.

    -=Steve=-
     
  11. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    Steve, stop arguing with me. If you've got an agument with Oregon then bring it to them, not me.
     
  12. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Okay, well, if you don't want arguing then I'll agree with you -- the way I referred to ODA's list could have been more dispassionate. And you're right that I do take this issue personally; it's just that it's hard not to be when I know enough Caribbean educators to be vicariously frustrated when their efforts get tarred by too broad a brush.

    As for bringing it to Oregon, well, Alan's known where I am on this for some time.

    -=Steve=-
     
  13. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    Approval by legislatures and being a diploma mill aren't necesarily mutually exclusive.

    It's entirely possible for an educational enterprise to be operating legally, with all the authorizations necessary in the jurisdiction where it is based, but nevertheless be perceived as and/or actually be, academically deficient and substandard.

    Tha can occur when local authorizations aren't conditional on credible academic quality assurance. We see that happening with state licensing in some American states, with approvals purchased from corrupt politicians in places like Liberia, and in jurisdictions where university approval is treated as an economic development matter.
     
  14. RXI

    RXI New Member

    St. George University and St. George University

    I believe you are confusing two different schools as one.

    The legitimate St. George University is in Granada and is one of the few medical schools where one can practice in the United States.

    http://www.sgu.edu

    The other school is St. George University International and was located in St. Kitts at 22 Cayon Street. This is the dubious one and should be the school you see on the Oregon ODA list.

    http://www.stgeorgeuniversity.edu

    however this is an old website address and the school has now evaporated.

    RXI
     
  15. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Right, the problem is that these are not differentiated on Oregon's list, which refers solely to a "St. George University International" located in both St. Kitts and Grenada.

    -=Steve=-
     
  16. DA1

    DA1 Guest

    ODA List Disclaimer

    As a matt of good practice and transparency, please inform your visitors that Oregon's ODA list is recognized as flawed by the State of Oregon. In fact, if you visit the ODA web cite you will read the following disclaimer (in bright RED print no less).


    PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT WE HAVE BECOME AWARE OF SOME QUESTIONS AS TO THE ACCURACY OF THIS DATABASE.

    UNTIL THESE QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN RESOLVED, PLEASE DO NOT RELY SOLELY ON THIS RESOURCE TO DETERMINE WHETHER OR NOT AN INSTITUTION IS PROPERLY ACCREDITED.

    http://www.osac.state.or.us/oda/accreditation.html
     
  17. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    That's not good enough. If even they know the list isn't solid, they should remove it at least until they think it is.

    -=Steve=-
     
  18. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    That's the ODA's own website that you linked to. The warning in red letters isn't talking about the ODA list. It's referring to the link that's immediately above the warning, entitled "Complete list of accredited U. S. colleges". That's the US federal government's effort to provide an online list of accredited colleges and universities, here:

    http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/Search.aspx

    The federal 'accredited' list was found to include the names of several very doubtful unaccredited things. I believe that it was Degreeinfo that first discovered that unfortunate fact. Perhaps the federal list has subsequently been cleaned up and has become more reliable.
     
  19. zanger

    zanger member

    If a government recognizes a university, does that make it defacto real? Even if it is a diploma mill, it is recognized by a national government. The real problem with these schools is that they way too expensive and always end up closing down. Imagine paying $3000 for a PhD then the school becomes nonexistent?

    Face it, one of the reasons people get a doctorate is for social reasons. It is really cool to go to a restaurant with a group and say "Reservation for Dr. YoYo."
     
  20. ShotoJuku

    ShotoJuku New Member


    Paging Dr. Duncan Yo-Yo, party of five, your table is now ready! :D
     

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