The accreditation process by a State-Approved and by a Unaccredited University

Hello friends, pardon my english, I am writing from Puerto Rico, this time I want to ask you about the accreditation process. Of these universities,whish has the opportunity of being accredited by DETC or by a Regional Accreditation ?


1-Atlantic International University-WY State Registered

2-Preston University-WY State Registered

3-Pacific Western University-CA Approved/HI Registered

4-Fairfax University-Incorporated in different States

5-Columbia Commonwealth University-WY State Registered

6-Stratford International University-WY State Registered




B.A. American University of Puerto Rico

M.A.Caribbean University of Puerto Rico

 

Or my personal favorite:

7. None of the above



Tom Nixon

 

I'll reserve my comments to regional accreditation.

1) If any representative of any of the above entities tell you that they are planning to seek accreditation, walk away as fast and as far as you can. Anyone seeking regional accreditation is forbidden to announce it until they have achieved "candidacy" status.

2) Any school that is legally registered in a state has the "opportunity" to seek regional accreditation IF and ONLY IF that school can meet the regional accreditor's criteria for affiliation. In the case of the Wyoming schools, you would have to go to the website for the North Central Association and find out for yourself what those criteria are. You could do the same for the California school by looking for the website of Western Association of Schools and Colleges.

Having said the above, most here would probably be surprised if any of the above schools were to achieve candidacy toward regional accreditation. Once again, if any school representative tells you the school is seeking regional (or DETC) accreditation, run the other way. If the rep tells you that the school is a "candidate" then confirm it by contacting the accrediting agency. By the way, DETC has no candidacy status.

Earon

 

Earon brings up a good point about contacting the accrediting agency if the school claims to be in candidacy or working toward accreditation. I did this with a school I was considering. The school claimed they were in the process of getting accreditation--the agency had never heard of them!

 

How about just saying "ICK!!!!!!!!" to all of the above schools and get a new list.

 

OK, I have to ask. It would seem from your screen name you are involved in law enforcement. I would think that in that field reputation will be one of the most important considerations both for advancement and for potential legal liability. Why in the world would you risk that with schools that are close to being degree mills? There are RA schools that are as cheap and probably not much harder to achieve a legitimate degree. I assume you are aware that the vast majority of legitimate schools in the US are RA. In any event good luck. While I understand this post is bit of a challenge I actually hope it is helpful to you.

 

Police: Of these universities,whish has the opportunity of being accredited by DETC or by a Regional Accreditation ? (list follows)

John: I would say "near zero" for all of them. But one never knows. Les Carr, proprietor of Columbia Commonwealth (who is saying he plans to apply for regional accreditation this year) said similar things when he was president of Lewis University in Illinois, and again when he was president of New College in San Francisco, and both times he was successful in getting regional accreditation.

It seems extremely unlikely to me that it would happen again, especially with Columbia Commonwealth, but things that I think are extremely unlikely happen all the time.

John Bear

 

CCU RA? Got to admit that brings a smile to my face. Is there precedence for a school acting so millish and then actually gaining RA?

P.S. I am thinking of the last 10-20 years. That fly by night Harvard school doesn't count!

 

I've speculated before that it isn't in CCU's business plan to become accredited. By not being accredited, they can offer streamlined degree programs that meet a much lower standard of quality, thus making it easier for their customers to obtain what they seek. This, in turn, keeps their costs--and, therefore, tuition--down. Unfortunately, my research shows that state approval--for whatever reason--seems to enjoy widespread (althought certainly not universal) acceptance by employers.

CCU has got to be raking in a lot of cash. Accreditation would interfere with that.

 

Frankly, I believe that your speculation (and your insinuated results) applies to nationally accredited schools as well. So much for my idea to petition my school to attempt RA.

Tony

 

I wouldn't make this leap in logic. National accreditation is much closer to regional accreditation in terms of meeting standards and degree acceptance than state-approval is to national accreditation.

Of course, as I've pointed out repeatedly, no DETC-accredited school has gone on to RA.

 

Actually Rich, this only affirms my leap in logic. If the school is that close in degree acceptance they have less of a reason to go for RA. Especially if NA is easier to attain and maintain taking into consideration all the variables. Your second quote affirms my leap in logic to some degree.

Regards,
Tony

 

Of course, a great many state approved schools have gone on to achieve regional accreditation.

Here in California in just the last year, Hsi Lai became a WASC candidate and the Intercultural Institute of California entered into a cooperative relationship with CIIS. Soka University (it has a $250 million endowment) and the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences (a member of the Claremont consortium) are almost certain locks on achieving RA in the next few years, my opinion.

So, my take on this is this: I think that the better state approved schools normally want accreditation. Most of these aspire to RA. That's plan A in most cases. But some of them run into difficulties of various sorts. The regional accreditors either turn them down or indicate in pre-application discussions that the school isn't acreditable as it stands. So these schools turn to plan B, a secondary kind of accreditation such as DETC, ACICS or TRACS. That means that the ranks of these accreditors might be weighted towards schools that aren't regionally accreditable for some reason, such as small size, their being 100% DL (in some regions) or having peculiar curricula.

In other words, if a school wants accreditation and can qualify for RA, why would it pursue DETC instead? But if it can't get RA, at least without dramatically altering itself and its business plan, then DETC would be more appealing. That would be an explanation of why DETC (and its cousins) usually seem to be a resting place rather than a stepping stone.

But I don't think that we should take this as a law written in stone. American Military University seems to be an academically credible effort with sufficient funding. It got shit on by SACS, apparently because it's 100% DL. But AMU seems to not be satisfied with their DETC accreditation, and has moved their address to West Virginia or someplace in an effort to get into the North Central Association's region. The NCA has already demonstrated a willingness to accredit schools like Jones, Capella, Walden (driven from the SACS region for the same reason) and so on.

And things can get distorted when we remember that some of the 'national'/'professional' accreditors (I'm unclear on the distinction) are more prestigious in their own fields than RA.

Some of these, like the AMA. ABA, ACS, NLN, APA or ABET, only accredit programs within RA universities. But others serve as the institutional accreditors of stand-alone schools.

The National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD) serves as the primary accreditor of a considerable number of stand-alone art schools like San Francisco's Academy of Art College. But NASAD is also the professional accreditor of studio art programs within countless RA universities like SF State. The Association of Theological Schools (ATS) does the same thing, serving as the primary accreditor of many non-RA seminaries. Most chiropractic schools seem to get their institutional accreditation from the Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE).

So in some of these cases, "settling" for national accreditation might have been plan A all along.

But the Academy of Art College does illustrate Rich's point. Part of its appeal is that it offers a solid studio art program to undergraduate students who don't want to bother themselves with all of those annoying history, math and science classes. NASAD is specifically an art accreditor, and it's less interested than the regional accreditors in general education. So it is almost certainly a business decision, a matter of positioning the product, for the Academy of Art College to pass on regional accreditation.

 

Actually, a small exception to this rule. The old Center for Degree Studies (CDS), now Education Center Direct for Degree Studies has been DETC accredited since 1974 (http://www.detc.org/content/degree.html#HLD). This of course includes accreditation under the prior DETC name of National Home Study Council. I have a transcript from CDS, from 1982 which clearly states at the bottom of the transcript, "The Center for Degree Studies is Accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools." This RA accreditation no longer exists and I do not know when they let it go. Nonetheless, I know of no other DETC institution that has done this.

John

 

Excellent, John. But it blows a perfectly good tag line for me. The truth can be a pain in the rear sometimes!

 

Rich, sorry to be the spoiler.

John

 

Bill in general you may be correct. With regard to TRACS however, they do not accredit 100% DL schools. Colleges/Universities/Seminaries must have a certain percentage of their program as a bona fide campus program. They also require a certain amount of library holdings, full time faculty, etc. In that sense Regional Accreditation especially by the NCA may easier in that RA (NCA) will accredit 100% DL programs with no library and accompanying physical plant. What is probably true is that TRACS is more affordable than RA and preferable to some schools because of their conservative religious perspective.

North