Is an unaccredited, state approved/licensed degree fraudulent?

Several recent posts have alluded to unaccredited degrees from state approved/licensed schools as being fraudulent. While the utility of such a degree is limited, does this make the degree fraudulent? There is a vast difference, for example, in a degree from CCU which allows one to practice psychology in California, or a degree from a solid unaccredited religious school which allows one to serve in a ministerial position, and a degree from a mill.

 

The degrees themselves may not be fraudulent, but the uses to which they are put may render them so. Anytime the holder of one of these degrees asserts, implies, or simply allows someone to believe that the degree is equivalent to a legitimately accredited degree he or she is putting his or her degrees to fraudulent use. At that point, the degree becomes fraudulent. Therefore, as very few individuals simply acquire one of these degrees and does not tell anyone about or put it to use, for the most part, they are fraudulent degrees. For example, putting a $100.00 bill through the copy machine may not constitute fraud. If you were to try to use that copy at the local grocery store, however…

Moreover, I object to the term "state approved/licensed." Contrary to what the proponents of substandard schools would have you believe, these are two very disitinct things.

 

A couple of California state approved degrees (non DL) that are widely recognised by many aerospace companies and government agencies are those taught by the National test Pilot Institute (http://www.ntps.com/).

 

The problem is that state approval/licensing means something different in almost every state. Here in Massachusetts, the Board of Higher Education will grant their approval to only legitimately accredited schools, or those on the accreditation track. In Wyoming, a school needs only a business license with no academic oversight at all. California falls somewhere in-between.

 

Bruce wrote:

> In Wyoming, a school needs only a business license with no
> academic oversight at all.

Then what's this "The board shall establish minimum standards for all schools" and "the board shall prior to issuing any license under this article and not less than once every three (3) years thereafter, inspect and visit" at http://legisweb.state.wy.us/statutes/titles/title21/chapter02.htm?

 

Re: Re: Is an unaccredited, state approved/licensed degree fraudulent?

The term "state approved/licensed" was used because each state has its own criteria and terminology for allowing an academic institution to legally operate.

 

Re: Re: Is an unaccredited, state approved/licensed degree fraudulent?

A California psychologist has earned the BA and MA from regionally accredited schools, while his Ph.D. was earned from Cal Coast University. He advertises himself professionally as John Doe, Ph.D., yet does not state that his Ph.D. is not from a regionally accredited school. Is his Ph.D. fraudulent, given the fact that CA law allows him to use the degree for the purpose it is being used?

Charles Stanley, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and long term pastor of First Baptist Church in Atlanta, earned bachelor's and master's degrees from regionally accredited schools. He then earned a Th.D. from Luther Rice Seminary, which at that time was not accredited (it is now TRACS accredited). Luther Rice was operating legally in the state of Florida when Stanley earned his degree. Is he using the Th.D. fraudulently when having "Dr. Charles Stanley" printed on his many publications, without a disclaimer that the doctorate is not from a regionally accredited school? In most all of his books he lists his degrees and where they were earned, including the Luther Rice degree.

 

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Russell, I was in Berean Christian Bookstore recently and picked up a copy of Stanley's new book. According to the jacket he earned both his master's and doctorate from LRS. I just pulled up this site and it confirms this.

 

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Besides his undergrad degree, Stanley has two master's degrees, one from Luther Rice and one from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (RA/ATS). The SBTS degree is actually listed as a "Bachelor of Divinity," which is what it was called at the time Stanley earned the degee. The B.Div., if I read this correctly, is actually an M.Div., i.e., the degree Stanley earned was basically the M.Div., but at the time he earned the degree the nomenclature was B.Div.

 

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Okay. I just know on the book jacket it states a master's and doctorate from LRS. Russell, how long after Stanley graduated from LRS did they become accredited?

 

'Fraud' is a legal term that suggests that damages were suffered as a result of placing trust in an intentional misrepresentation.

I'm curious about which posts have called state approved/licensed degrees 'fraudulent'. While some Degreeinfo critics claim that we all say that, I have rarely seen a post that actually did.

To answer your question, a totally fake and bogus degree is not fraudulent if nobody is misled and nobody harmed. But use of a fully accredited degree can be fraudulent if somebody suffers harm by believing a misrepresentation about it.

To address what I think your point really was, you know that I'm fond of a number of non-accredited programs.

 

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Do you see how many questions an unaccredited degree raises, the confusion that results, and how the answers never seem to be all that straightfoward to a layman?

 

Ah, it's always good to move on to a new topic. I think the answer is that there isn't an answer. At least not one that will be acceptable to most.

What do I believe? I believe that the state approval or licensure process in some places is a scam to collect tax dollars (and, no, I'm not stupid enough to tell you which ones; I prefer not being sued ).

I do not believe that a Ph.D. in psychology from Cal Coast, for example, is a fraud in any sense of the word. Why? Because it is acceptable to the state of California for licensure. Granted, that is if they can pass the licensing exam. Now, would I say the same thing about a CCU DBA? No, because there is no tested outcome and there is no dissertation (or wasn't last time I looked). Either of those, I believe, *can* show the legitimacy of a doctoral program.

The problem is that there is no standard against which unaccredited, but state-approved and/or licensed schools can be held. Does anyone really want to make the argument that California approval and Wyoming licensing are equivalent? I'm guessing all of our I.Q.s are indeed higher than warm toast, so it's unlikely that anyone would really want to make that comparison.

So where is the standard? It must be regional accreditation and in that comparison these state-approved schools come up short. The standard for RA schools is RA schools. The standard for state-approved schools is state-approved schools? For the sake of the few reputable ones, I hope not. My guess is that even CCU wouldn't want to be compared with many of the other state-approved schools.

I've readily admitted elsewhere that I think anyone that gets an unaccredited degree is likely making a mistake, perhaps a big mistake. I do recognize that there are a few exceptions to that rule (including everyone's favorite exception, the National Test Pilot School).

However, I support the rights of states to approve or not approve schools. The probably can be that it is difficult to differentiate between the real schools and the fake schools.


Tom Nixon

 

Readers beware!!

Opinions are not necessarily facts. This is an interesting thread but new members should understand that contributions in this thread are nothing more than individual opinions. Some of these opinions are nevertheless well informed. One point to note is that an approval to operate a degree-granting institution by the state of California is different from an approval granted by any other state.

Ike Okonkwo, PhD
(NSU)

 

As BillDayson points out, "fraud" is a LEGAL concept, or rather, a set of legal concepts. It comes, in other words, in flavors. There's contract fraud, which is a defense or a cause of action and can be intentional or unintentional. There's the tort of intentional fraud. Then there are multudinous types of criminal fraud, from knowingly passing a worthless check to doing insufficient disclosure in a securities issue.

The most obvious way that a degree holder could commit criminal fraud would be to knowingly misrepresent himself as possessing a particular academic degree for the purpose of depriving some other person of something of value, such as cash, based upon that misrepresentation.

There could be other ways.

 

Re: Readers beware!!

I forgot to add that an approval/accreditation granted by the state of New York carries the same weight as regional accreditation.

Ike Okonkwo, PhD

 

Alabama licensing

http://www.acs.cc.al.us/Guidelines/720-01%20guidelines.pdf

 

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I do understand that many questions arise when an unaccredited degree is placed in the equation. It remains true, however, that for a small segment of degree holders an unaccredited degree may indeed have utility, and the use of such a degree does not constitute fraud.

Regarding the questions over Stanley's B.Div./M.Div., this degree was earned at a RA/ATS school, not an unaccredited one.

John Bear has said that unaccredited degrees may work for "some" people in certain situations, and forum regulars such as Levicoff, Douglas, Dayson, Janko, etc., have stated that not all unaccredited schools are degree mills. A brief perusal of my DegreeInfo posts will reveal that I am not in the habit of promoting substandard schools, so this thread was not intended as a promotion of such. For the maximum utility RA is the route to take, but again, there are a few unaccredited schools which award degrees that have limited utility (e.g., CCU and some religious schools), and the use of such should not constitute fraud.

 

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I do not disagree with anything you have said except the part stating that only a small segment of unaccredited degrees have utility. I believe all unaccredited degrees have some kind of utility. It's just that in the vast majority of cases, the amount of utility of these degrees is in direct proportion to the apathy or ignorance of the person charged with evaluating the degree or willingness of the degree holder to deceive others.

Let us also not forget that there is big difference between state approved and being granted an exemption (usually for religious reasons). Exempt schools are not approved.

 

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Stated in a different way, but basically my position as well. While in the majority of cases the above statement may be true, there is that "minority of cases" where the opposite is true. Again, I refer to the hypothetical CCU Ph.D. holder (and similar cases).

This is true, however, religious exemption does not automatically mean substandard or lacking in quality. Religious exempt schools, which operate legally based on their religious oriented curriculum and programs of study, run the gamut from the Bob Jones/Pensacola Christian/pre-TRACS Luther Rice type schools to blatant degree mills which offer doctorates for a few hundred dollars. Certainly, the latter should be avoided.