OR-Approved Schools

Since we talk so much about what is and isn't legal in Oregon, I decided to look at the OR-approved schools to see what that state approves. The listing is available on the ODA site. The results were interesting.

http://www.osac.state.or.us/oda/authorized.html

There were 52 schools listed. The first thing that I noticed was that about 3/4 of the names were familiar out-of-state RA schools that operate some kind of remote program within Oregon. The U. of Phoenix obviously (they already have six branches on the Moon). Embry Riddle. Some degree-mill called "Stanford" (what was Alan Contreras thinking??)

Then there was a group of schools with recognized but non-RA accreditation:

AABC: Eugene Bible C., Multnomah Bible C. & Biblical Sem.

CAAHEP: College of Emergency Services

NASAD: Ore. C. of Arts and Crafts

ACAOM: Ore. C. of Oriental Medicine

ACICS: Pioneer Pacific C., Western Business C.

ACCSCT: Western Culinary Inst. (a Cordon Bleu school)

CNME: National C. of Naturopathic Med.

Which left a total of six schools for whom their OR-approval appears to be primary.

1. Gutenberg College. A conservative Christian college with a "great books" emphasis and an interest in homeschoolers. It seems to be new.

2. High Desert Christian College. (Yes, there are deserts in eastern Oregon.) This is a new Christian college that has just rolled out its first associates program.

3. Process Work Center of Portland. This is some kind of alternative psychology thing. I don't think that it offers degrees, just lectures and CEUs.

4. Salem Bible C.

5. Birthingway C. of Midwifery. This operates out of a house and claims to be accredited by the Midwifery Educ. Accred. Council (MEAC). I didn't see MEAC on the list of recognized accreditors, but since the school talks about financial aid and FAFSA's, maybe it is.

6. Kazakh-American Free U. This is a mystery to me. Apparently it offers DL though.

That's it. That's not a top six list, that seems to be all of them, as far as I can see.

Oregon also has a list of schools with religious exemptions recognized by Oregon, and I noticed Trinity College and Seminary's name on that list. So apparently it's legal to use Trinity degrees in OR.

My comments:

Since OR has less than a tenth of the population of CA, 54 OR-approved schools scales up to 540 in California. So there seem to be twice as many OR-approved schools than CA-approved degree-granting schools, per capita.

But the distribution in Oregon is way different. Most of the OR-approved schools are really out-of-state RA schools that do business in Oregon. Most of the rest have recognized accreditation. There are far fewer schools for whom their state approval is their only recognition. Six in Oregon scales up to 60 in California, per-capita, which is far below California's 200+.

Perhaps Mr. Contreras' office is pressuring the OR-approved community to find recognized accreditation if at all possible. Birthingway's website explicitly says that the state of Oregon told them something like that.

I was struck by the absence of California-style psychology and law schools, the missing state approved B-schools, and the lack of California's signature alternative religion schools. And where are Oregon's DL schools? California hosts hordes of them, Oregon virually none.

 

By rigidly controlling programs, innovation is restricted. California seems to have found a good mix of scrutiny and freedom to allow DE schools to thrive.

 

Thanks for all that work, Bill.

But where are the two California non-religious ones previously there: SCUPS and the University for Humanistic Studies?

As for Kazakh-American Free University, the pride of Kamenogorsk -- I'd never heard of it, but the website says it was opened by the president of Kazakhstan. It's US presence seems to be a service office in Issaquah, near Seattle. No evidence that they do anything by distance learning.

http://members.aol.com/kafunet/