What is the World Association of Universities and Colleges (WAUC)? I am interested in pursuing a graduate program and one of the schools that I contacted claims accredidation by the WAUC, which is according to this school,"one of two global accrediting agencies." Is this true and what does it all mean in terms of legitimacy of programs? Thanks.
WAUC is the most discussed accrediting agency on this forum (my guess). However, its accreditation is not recognized in any way (other than, perhaps, its member schools). There are several difficult aspects about this agency, including its practice of not revealing information (like phone numbers) of its schools. Accreditation by WAUC isn't the same as no accreditation at all, it is worse. When a school is open about its lack of accreditation, at least it's being honest. But when a school lists the WAUC as its accreditor, it only serves to fool people. And to alert others that it is a bad place to send money. Rich Douglas
WAUC has accredited a few decent schools, but the majority are less than wonderful, such as Cambridge State University, which was closed down as a diploma mill by the Attorney General of Louisiana, and moved their "campus" to a rented mailbox in Hawaii. In my book, I devote a fair amount of space to the interesting law suit filed by a former WAUC accreditee, Taft University, against WAUC, and what was learned in that action. What Taft president David Boyd later called the "most disconcerting" matter was that WAUC "was not able to provide any documented evidence they had ever conducted a site visit at any member institution." John Bear
WAUC also accredits three universities on Mars, two on Saturn, and one small distance learning school on Pluto. Degrees are awarded via alien abduction. Site visit records are kept in the X-files. Russell
Worth noting -- the president of WAUC, Maxine Asher, is also the president of "American World University" -- a decidedly less-than-wonderful school. It's has a mailing address in Iowa City for some years, but will be moving soon, now that Iowa is finally starting to enforce stricter regulations on school registration. Neither the WAUC or AWU website info on Asher mentions her involvement with the Ancient Mediterranean Research Association and her books and articles about Atlantis -- http://www.atlantisresearch.com/tapping_into_force.html ------------------ Kristin Evenson Hirst DistanceLearn.About.com
