Exact pros and cons of California exemption?

Hello,

first, let me explain about my situation: I own a small art school in Geneva, Switzerland, and currently try to secure partnerships with foreign institutions, offer their qualifications here, and enhance my curriculum.

Thanks to the British Council's mailing list, I could make contact with some UK Colleges and Universities, or might try become an Edexcel centre later next year.

I've also been contacted with a school located in California. For the moment, they only offer Professional Diplomas through distance education. This school in unaccredited, but registered with the California Department of Education under the California exempt status.
I think they also have plans to start offering Associate Degrees from next year, but I haven't really delved into this when discussing with them.

They would charge me a quite high amount of money for each student that would be registered through my school, so you can easily understand why I'm more than a bit cautious about their status.

What I would like to know is, what are the exact pros and cons of that California exempt status?
As far as I know, main cons would be:
- impossibility to transfer credits (even though I think you cannot get transferable credits through vocational qualification anyway)
- impossibility to apply for jobs in the public sector, at least outside of California

I checked with local employers here in Switzerland, and they don't seem to be really bothered about this situation. So i assume that most cons would be US-only.

Still, advices and information are more than welcome.

Thanks,
Larry

 

California's private post-secondary schools, degree-granting or not, register with the Bureau of Private Postsecondary Education at the Department of Consumer Affairs, not with the Department of Education.

Department of Consumer Affairs - Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education

'Exempt' status means that the institution is exempted from having to satisfy most of California's post-secondary education regulations. They are free to do pretty much as they please. That's not typically a good thing.

Exemptions are most common with schools that teach nothing but religious subjects. The reason for that is that the courts have ruled that US Constitution's separation of church and state implies that governments aren't allowed to regulate religious education. California has a variety of other exemptions as well. Regionally accredited schools are exempted, since California trusts the accreditors' judgement in overseeing them. Schools run by the state and federal government are exempted since they already receive government oversight through different channels. And small schools that teach avocational subjects, schools that charge no tuition, employers' in-house employee education and such things receive exemptions from various regulations as well.

Unfortunately, there's another major problem. California recently went through a period of several years in which there weren't any state post-secondary education laws at all. During that period, many doubtful schools, some of them flat-out scams, started boasting California addresses (often just mail drops). When the state legislature passed new legislation, the many schools that had suddenly appeared during the interrregnum were given a temporary exemption as well and allowed to continue operating until the state had a chance to inspect them and pass judgement. I don't think that process is complete yet.

That would be very nice for them. I'm not sure what advantage there would be in it for you.

The most obvious full-frontal 'con' is that schools with exemptions aren't required to satisfy any educational standards at all. In a few cases they may be academically valuable, but typically they are worthless.

My thinking is that you need to be very careful with this. You might 'enhance your curriculum' as you hope, but the chances are probably just as good that you would discredit your school by questionable associations. The best advice that I can think of would robably be to contact the California BPPE through the link I provided and ask them some very detailed and pointed questions about what kind of exemption this particular school has and why. Ask them about the California schools they manage 'validating', 'franchising' or otherwise selling overseas institutions the right to offer California state-approved programs abroad. I'm not even sure if that's legal.

Be very careful.

 

That was the one I was talking about, sorry I made that mistake in my post.

I have already checked their status. They are exempted under
94874(a) An institution that offers solely avocational or recreational educational programs.
as they do not offer any academic qualification, but a range of Professional Certificates/Diplomas -- think of them as some sort of Sessions.edu, minus the academic programs.

They are a distance learning school, I think that's how they plan on offering a partnership, as they said I would be considered offering tutoring services. Haven't really pushed anything forward for the moment.

I'd much prefer to become an Edexcel center, but they are implementing a new QCF and I wouldn't be able to teach their qualifications before September 2011, at best.
On the other hand, I've also been contacted by a school located in the Seychelles, that lack any official accreditation.
So the Californian school fills the gap.

Still, if that's so easy to get exempted, I could just set up my own branch in California and the result would be the same for my students here in Geneva.
The more I think about it, the more I think it's rather pointless.