My Own Timebomb (sort of)

To everyone who thinks holding unaccredited degrees is acceptable in the workplace, I want to share a story with you that has cost me dearly.

In 1998, I earned a bachelors degree from California Coast University. At the time, I was not aware of accreditation issues and figured they were a pretty good school. When the admissions person at CCU told me that the school was "state approved" I assumed that meant accredited. Now I wish I would have known more.

Here is my horror story.....

I have been working the same job for the past 4-years as a customer service representative at a well known telecommunications company. Recently, a supervisor position opened up and after giving it some thought, I filed an internal application with the Human Resourced Department. I met all of the requirements for the job -- or so I thought.

After a month of interviews, it boiled down to me and one other person. During an interview with one of the hiring directors, the question about my CCU bachelors degree came up. I explained that I earned the degree via distance education. The director seemed most pleased to hear this, even saying that his own son was doing the same thing at Texas Technical Institute. I walked out of the interview thinking that I had most certainly got the job. Was I ever wrong!

The next day, HR called me into their office and explained that I was NOT eligible for the position. While they acknowledged my experience, good employment record, and hard work, they said I did not hold a valid bachelors degree. When I asked what she meant by "valid" she explained to me that it means a degree that is recognized by the US Department of Education. I told her that it was state approve, but she said it is still not acceptable.

I did not lose my customer service job (required only a HS diploma) but I DID lose credibility with the company. The managers that see me now walk around tight lipped with stone faces on and I know why -- because I look like a jack-ass.

This has caused me to start all over again with my education. I just enrolled at American Military University to earn a bachelors degree. I know people have different ideas about DETC accreditation, but had I had an AMU degree rather than a CCU degree, I could have at least said my undergrad was accredited and not suffered all of this embarrassment.

The only satisfaction I am getting out of this experience is that my employer IS helping me pay for the degree as part of their education assistance program.

Please listen to me if you are considering a non-accredited bachelors degree -- it is not worth it. Don't let a time-bomb go off in your face and cost you your reputation or future jobs. It is just not worth it folks. Don't go through the pain and suffering I had to go through.

 

Boom.

 

Thank you for your incredible honesty. By being willing to share what must have been a rather embarrassing situation, you most likely will convince others not to take the easy route.

In my opinion, and I'm well aware that I'm one of the more extreme on this point, unnaccredited degrees are just a poor choice. With a very, very minute percentage of these programs being worthwhile, most are just not worth the risk. James' story really brings this point home.


Tom Nixon

 

This is exactly what I am talking about! ---see thread Academia vs Acamania. Doesn't anyone think this sort of thing should change? James, did you feel your degree was valid and you did quality work to earn it? It was not a degree mill! Degree mills have probably caused much of these problems. You don't look like a jack-ass, they do, stone faces, tight lips and all.

 

recourse?

James:

I may be wrong, but I was under the impression the the UDoE does not recognize post secondary institutions, per say. Rather they recognize specific regional acreditors, the DETC and that the States have the authority to govern degree awardation. If this is the case, perhaps you have a legal avenue of recourse, as CCU is a state liscened and state approved post secondary educational insitution. Would your employer also not recognize Bob Jones, or a credible new school that has not achieved RA status?

Thanks,

RJT

 

Re: recourse?

Ummmm.....no. The employer has the right to set BFOQ's (bona fide occupational qualifications). If the employer wants to stipulate that an accredited degree is required, then he/she may do so, unless a protected group of people is discriminated against. Then, in a response to legal action, the employer would have to show the job-relatedness of the requirement.

There is no group being discriminated against. I don't believe the holders of degrees from unaccredited schools are a protected group under the Civil Rights Act.

Additionally, the employer has the right to make qualitative decisions about people with degrees from different schools, even if all of those schools are accredited. Two applicants, otherwise equally qualified, one with a degree from Harvard and one with a degree from Oregon State. The employer has every right to give more credence to the graduate from Harvard, even though both schools come from regionally accredited schools.

Finally, if the employer chose to accept someone with a Bob Jones degree, but not someone with a California Coast degree, that would still be okay. The employer has a right to make these decisions. Now, if the person promoted had a Bob Jones degree, and a person passed over had a degree from an accredited school, and the employer had a written policy stating that only those with degrees from accredited institutions would be considered, and if the employer had no means of considering non-degreed persons (which the person with an unaccredited degree would be considered), then maybe there would be some cause for complaint. But even then it would be difficult to prevail in court.

Bear reported awhile back about the woman who was selected over another candidate for a schoo principal position. The woman selected had a degree from an unaccredited, less-than-wonderful school while the other had one from an accredited school. The degree (master's, IIRC) was required for the position. It seemed very cut-and-dried, but STILL it was fought in court.

This business of "it's state-licensed so that's all that matters" is simply not supported in the real world. That fact is a fundamental reason we have accrediting agencies. Trying to do an "end-around" with mill-speak about state licensure doesn't serve the people who get burned by this faulty and unsupported logic.

N.B.: There were two distinct explosions from this bomb. First was the loss of a promotional opportunity. That passed quickly, and the opportunity is gone forever. Second is the loss of face in the workplace. That continues, and only time--or relocation--will heal it. Threatened legal action certainly will not.

 

Re: Re: My Own Timebomb (sort of)

It doesn't matter what the student thinks regarding the validity of the degree or the level of effort that went into earning it. Legitimacy, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. In this case, it ain't pretty.

 

Re: Re: My Own Timebomb (sort of)

Thank you

I learned my lesson! The big two are:

1. Make sure the school is recognized by a USDoE group.

2. Cheaper /Faster can hurt you in the long run.

3. State Licensed but not accredited mean NOTHING.

There is nothing more embarrasing than having people think you are trying to "get over" on them. This was not my intention when I earned my CCU degree, but it IS the perception now where I work. I can never repair the damage that has been done. I know this whole embarrasing incident was recorded in my HR file, documenting why I was denied the job.

All I can do is do the best job I can and ignore the judgemental looks from the management team.

The only good thing is that I am glad this happened now, rather then down the road. At least now I have time to earn an accredited bachelors degree and start all over again with another company.

 

Re: Re: recourse?

 

Ya know, I really struggled to come up with an innocuous comparative school that wasn't routinely discussed here. Sorry.

Safe to say that none of my schools compares to Harvard. Perhaps not to Oregon State, either!

 

An ironic thing about this story is that CCU is one of the better unaccredited schools. It is just that a large portion of the population equates unaccredited with worthless degree mill. The problem is that there are so many degree mills that they have given all unaccredited schools a bad reputation. It's a shame that a CCU degree doesn't have much more utility than a roaring degree mill but that is the situation.

Thanks for the story. Good luck at AMU!

 

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I haven't seen anyone mention Teikyo Loretto Heights College in Denver lately!

 

Greetings.

1) Knowledge is, ideally, important. The means that one obtains knowledge, ideally, isn't. If you're really the best man/women/thing for the job and they rejected you because of accreditation issues concerning your degree, then you work for boobs. If the boobs have degrees from accredited institutions, then it just proves how meaningless college degrees are. (See the quotation from E. B. Nyquist, which appears on pg. 1 of The Bears' Guide, 14th edition).

2) You might wish to gather up all your previous college work and see if Charter Oak State College (www.cosc.edu), or one of the other assessment colleges will accept the work via a "Portfolio Assessment" (http://www.cosc.edu/portfolio.htm). Assuming you set yourself to the task, it would be *much* cheaper and quicker, and you'd wind-up with a RA degree. It would also, arguably, make your supervisors look (more) like fools for having rejected your degree initially.

Good luck!


Cordially,
Richard Kanarek

 

Re: Re: My Own Timebomb (sort of)

(Going out on a limb here)

I'm one of the few here (perhaps the only one?) who would consider going to school at CCU for a terminal degree (maybe) or recommending the school for a Master's degree (in VERY rare cases).

I'd personally never consider them or even recommend them for a bachelor's degree for so many reasons. In cases like this I think that by even offering an undergraduate degree they hurt their own reputation more than help it.

 

Mmmm, gotta disagree with you (and E.B. Nyquist) on this one Richard. I agree knowledge is important, and the way it is acquired is meaningless, however, the issue of accreditation *is* important, especially at undergraduate level. Accreditation sets in place minimum standards whereby a student is provided the facilities, staffing and related resources to ensure the most optimum learning outcomes. Without accreditation, anybody could walk into the class and teach and could have Beano comics in the library for journals. Really, an unaccredited undergraduate degree is scary!!!

Cheers,

George

 

Nyquist wasn't making a case against accreditation, nor against traditional higher education. Rather, as the founding father of the Regents External Degree Program (now Excelsior College), he was making the case for giving credit for knowledge regardless of when or how it was acquired. That, of course, is the basis of Excelsior (and TESC and COSC, which were patterned directly after the Regents program).

Nyquist was a nontraditionalist, but within traditional academe.

 

Greetings.

Regarding your recent post:
Nyquist wasn't making a case against accreditation, nor against traditional higher education. Rather, as the founding father of the Regents External Degree Program (now Excelsior College), he was making the case for giving credit for knowledge regardless of when or how it was acquired. That, of course, is the basis of Excelsior (and TESC and COSC, which were patterned directly after the Regents program).
Nyquist was a nontraditionalist, but within traditional academe.

You know, just because one doesn't have a doctorate doesn't mean one can't read (it only means one doesn't read instead of being a productive member of society <g>).

As it appears in the Bears' Guide, Nyquist's quote proffers the opinion that it is possible to be a clever, useful bloke without having a (presumably accredited) college degree. (Yes, I'm condensing.) Surely, then, it is at least as possible to be a clever, useful bloke with an unaccredited college degree. If this rather unremarkable notion didn't occur to Mr. Lyons's supervisors, then they're boobs. If these boobs graduated from an accredited college... I'm sure you can see where this is leading (again).

Admittedly, Nyquist and I part company when it comes to how to give redress to clever, useful blokes. He would probably, as you wrote, give them officially sanctioned bits of paper with which those blokes could then use to get spiffy jobs. I, being a more efficient chap, am suggesting to Mr. Lyons's employer that they skip the paper and just give the best person the job.

Speaking of my opinions, I find the lack of response to my (more important) opinion -- that Mr. Lyons try to Portfolio Review himself into a proper RA degree rather than earn yet another (somewhat) poorly regarded degree (will he never learn? <g>) -- surprising. If I had a dodgy degree and someone told me how I could convert it into a proper one at a not-unreasonable cost, I'd be ecstatic. Yet Mr. Lyons has yet to express any opinion. Further, I'm always surprised that I am the only one to suggest Portfolio Review of legitimate, but non-RA course work. Is there something wrong with my stated strategy?


Cordially,
Richard Kanarek

 

Hi RK

The main problem would be that CCU course apparently consist of reading a textbook and taking a multiple choice unproctored test. It is not likely this could be used for portfolio. I would think the CLEP/DANTES route would be more direct.

 

David:

Greetings. I'm afraid I must disagree with you.

First, what could be better fodder for a Portfolio (which is used to document college level learning) then a statement that one has read a college level text book? Add oodles of answered questions for proof, and the Portfolio becomes, I'd think, irrefutable. I had attempted to get credit via Portfolio Review, with COSC, for two unaccredited, college-level courses I took. I gave up when I encountered the pointless, rigmarole of the process, but no one seemed to object to my use of the unaccredited work as proof. (I probably should mention that at least one of my courses -- maybe both? -- included more than just answering questions.)

I can recall sitting next to a group of college students at a local ice cream parlor. One chap was heaping praise upon another, crediting him and his cheating for allowing the first chap to pass a computer class. Clearly proctoring -- even when it's done by an actual college professor in a brick-and-mortar college -- is of limited value.

Cordially,
Richard Kanarek

 

It is not accepted in my case and AMU will not even look at the credits. I learned my lesson so no more unaccredited schools for me. My reputation was ruined because I did not bother to look into accreditation. Never again.