What about ACE? Question for Rich or others

Maybe a Rich Douglas, or Dr. Bear or one of the other members could answer this one. If California approved schools do not want to ga RA or even DETC, why would they at least not have thier programs evaluated by ACE?

It would seem to be cheaper and at least give some idea as to the value of the program. It also would allow the flexibility they want. Their degrees would never be totally accepted, but at least some courses may be transferable.

Even though I do not need any more undergrad credit, I took a course through the Baptist Seminary Extension, it is DETC but the University of Oklahoma will accept it as transfer credit if i wished based upon an ACE evaluation for 2 hours undergrad.

I am thinking of sending in some other stuff as I work towards a masters degree. It is a relatively inexpensive service.

 

IIRC, ACE doesn't evaluate programs. It evaluates individual courses.

While ACE evaluates a great many non-collegiate courses to recommend college credit, I don't believe they evaluate collegiate courses from unaccredited schools. But I could be mistaken.

 

Catholic Distance University is Virginia-approved and DETC, and has submitted at least some of their courses to ACE for transfer credit evaluations.

http://www.cdu.edu/accreditations.asp

The question I have is whether these ACE evaluations apply only to undergraduate courses, or to graduate credit as well. If the latter, who woud accept it? Most DL programs out there seem to be masters level, and masters programs are often fairly hard-nosed about accepting transfer credit, even from other RA schools.

It's interesting that lots of schools don't even seem to be set up to allow students to take individual courses. They emphasize their degree programs, and admission to those programs. Some of the non-RA DL numbers even charge flat-rates for whole programs.

Given the fact that DL makes hundreds of schools available to us and that TESC/WGU-type programs make credit banking practical, more non-accredited providers should think about offering individual classes.

They needn't even be universities. I can imagine an historical association offering one or two individual classes in their area of interest, an environmental group offering others, social advocacy groups jumping in, and so on. It would be a good way for professional, scholarly and/or political groups to spread their influence and agenda. Individual courses would be a lot easier to set up than whole programs, and an ACE evaluation would make them available to plug into students' programs elsewhere.

(Actually, I think that this is what the ACE evaluations were intended to do. I don't think that they were intended to become an alternate form of institutional accreditation.)

Yeah, I agree with Timothy. Getting ACE evaluations for their classes is definitely something that more non-RA schools should do. Besides giving the credits (if not the degrees) more utility, it would definitely add to the credibility of the institution.

 

The DETC site (detc.org) has a separate list of their accreditees who have gotten ACE credit for some courses.

When I was involved with Pearson, they decided to put all the courses of the Open College (then in Manchester, England) which they'd bought, through ACE. I was a part of the project. Took something like 50 person-hours of work to prepare the application for each of a dozen or more courses. Following review by ACE's commissioners, the face to face meeting the Open College administrators actually took place at DETC, not ACE, which seemed a little odd to me; they're only a block apart, however.

I'm pretty sure ACE does graduate level courses, and there are programs that do accept graduate level transfer credit, although not necessarily a whole lot. The Edinburgh Business School MBA, at least during the time of my involvement in marketing it, would accept 2 of the 9 courses if done in an approved equivalent program elsewhere.