Senator Collins on "coin-operated colleges"

Senator seeks tuition-reimbursement investigation

 

According to the article Callahan had to at least take one test, and write a 2000 word thesis. While that is basically nothing compared to a traditional degree it is not as suggested here by others that she did no work whatsoever. Maybe in her mind she was qualified. Don't we all think we are really better than we are.

 

Its a good article except for the fact Oregon does not list diploma mills on its site. Even Oregon goes out of its way to say schools included on the list are unaccredited but not necessarily diploma mills.

 

She received 3 degrees (BA ma PhD) for 1 test and a 10 page paper?! And, you think she didn't know Hamilton was a degree mill?!

 

You do know that 2000 words is about a 10-page paper? This is a person who "earned" 3 degrees. This is the sum total of her work. Apparently she has a credit card that they will accept. There is no way, unless she is stupid almost beyond meaning, that she could not have known. However, she seems competent in her job, so I'm guessing she's reasonably intelligent. Just incredibly ethically-challenged.

She should be ashamed of herself. She works for me (and for you, if you're an American). I want her fired.


Tom Nixon

 

I thought she was fired!

I thought she was fired,or suspended or something to that effect.


Next, we will be hearing Diploma Mills offering a Phd in Homeland Security or Terrorism!!

 

Wow, a 2000 word thesis? As already mentioned, that's about 10 pages. That isn't a thesis. It's not even a decent graduate-level term paper for one class, never mind a "supersize" package of three degrees.

Am I better than her? In an academic sense, I certainly think so. In my graduate program (UMass-Lowell), every course except Statistics involved at least 20-30 pages of writing. That's for one course. I never made a final tally, but I estimate that I wrote well over 300 pages of research papers during my Master's program.

She's a complete fraud, and should have been fired yesterday.


Bruce

 

Coining new terms

"Coin-operated Colleges". I like that one as much as "umcampus"!

 

No, this is the same as no work. Additionally, how does anyone know she even did that much? Hamilton operates with no oversight at all. Would you set up a system where you had to evaluate a book report from each purchaser before you issued the degree?

Still, this is the same as no work at all. She bought and (worse) used three fake degrees while serving in a position of great public trust. I don't care what was in her mind. I care what was on her resume: lies.

 

My Learning Agreement for my UI&U Ph.D. program was 100 pages! My Program Summary, which details the work I did for the degree, is another 300. My dissertation is another 175. Puhleez!

 

T'anks, Bruce and Rich. Calling a bitsy paper "work" as though the utterance of the word magically confers merit is about like saying WWII and the Holocaust were okie-dokie because Hitler attained power by democratic means. In other words, initial nominal reality has no relation whatever to ultimate actual outcome; nothing has any moral weight; words have no meaning. Some mills do grind exceeding fine!

 

The heat is on dubious degrees - Meanwhile, more than 50 found to have iffy credentials

 

It's sad for CCU graduates that the author of that article painted CCU with the same brush that was used to paint all the degree mills. So even picking one of the best unaccredited schools is still dangerous!

 

Is it? Or is it just illustrative of what the real world (outside Degreeinfo) thinks when it contemplates unaccredited schools.

Unaccredited schools are degree mills to most. It is in places like here that finer lines are drawn.

 

Rich,
Why does UI&I require a program summary (seems like a dissertation in itself)? I was under the impression that UI&U had graduate coursework and a dissertation (or am I misunderstanding you)?
warm regards.........

 

The program summary details all of the work done to earn the degree.

UI&U does not offer "courses." Each learner's program is made up of the following components:

Residencies (Entry Colloquium, Seminars, Peer Days)
Major Learning Areas (what would be coursework in other programs)
Internship (at least 500 hours)
Personal Growth
Project Demonstrating Excellence (usually a dissertation)

The Program Summary documents all of this, and includes a hefty Reflection and Analysis section. But it also describes each of the above activities, what was learned and how, resources used, methods for demonstrating proficiency, evaluation methods, and who did the evaluations. Examples of learning accomplished can also be included, which can make the document quite large.

It is not as simple as taking some courses and writing a dissertation.

Hope this helps.

 

Good article -- Wait & Dizard come through again.

If Collins is successful we may be seeing a lot of the unaccredited schools pulling the government agencies from their advertising list on tuition reimbursement. Save those old unaccredited catalogs!

John

 

Yes it is sad that it is illustrative of what the real world thinks. There's a couple of reasons for the sadness.
1. The CCU graduates have apparently done as much work for their degree but will still likely not get the utility for their degree.
2. Since we do "draw a finer line" here there may be some individuals that see posts here about CCU and enroll there. On the other hand I suspect that most (hopefully all) that fall into this category were at least made aware of the dangers of the unaccredited route before they enrolled at CCU.

On the other hand there's some ironic humor in it as well since the unaccredited advocates here like to rant that many of us here are "RA or no way!". When in reality, the generally public is either completely oblivious to accreditation or if they've heard of accreditation are going to automatically assume that anything unaccredited is a degree mill.

 

I think this should be great incentive for CCU to get properly accredited. In the long run they will pick up more students.

 

CCU, from my perspective, operates a legitimate school, simply made customer friendly.

Unproctored exams save students the problem of finding suitable proctors. This may not seem like much but several threads here have been devoted to the topic. It is possible to get an R/A degree without writing a proctored exam. It is not possible with DETC.

CCU has abbreviated courses for those who have a background in a subject. If you have an undergrad course in a subject and face the requirement to take the same course as a graduate course, you get to take the shortened version.

The article in question quotes from the CCU catalogue showing their possible sources of credit. They do have real limits on sources of unconventional and transfer credits.

The question could be asked whether expectations are as rigorous as an accredited school. This I don't know.

All of the above become academic as they are applying for and should receive DETC accreditation.

I slipped in at the last moment and was among the last to apply and be accepted into CCU's DBA program before it disappeared.

I am going in knowing all the plusses and minuses. If CCU receives accreditation, at least you won't hear the phrase, diploma mill, again.