Question - Please don't get all crossed

Before I began lurking (and posting) in this forum, and even sending the wife, I also visited http://www.online-college.info/ for advice. It is besides the point that no one was able to offer me sensible advice on the matter of DL LLB vs. DL JD vs. not at all. But there was a lot of trashing and bashing against this forum. I actually found the forum thanks to those posts.

Could someone explain why?

 

That forum is gone. It was populated by degree mill shills and their friends.

This board is here. It is populated by people who reveal degree mills and their shills. It also provides a forum for discussing DL.

 

Well, Floyd, that was the short answer. Here's the long (but well-worth-the-read) one...

There has been an ongoing battle in the world of distance learning between legitimate insitutions of higher education (be they colleges or universities accredited by a U.S. Department of Education (USDoE) and/or Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) approved agency, or be they simply licensed by their state as degree-granting institutions) on one side; and illigitimate entities which call themselves "colleges" or "universities," but which are usually just scams -- commonly referred-to as "diploma mills."

Yet another troublesome category of what some call "less than wonderful" schools (if you can even call them "schools") aren't quite as blatant as diploma mills. They operate in a sort of gray area wherein they appear to be offering legitimate education but, in fact, they're just making it look that way. They offer what appear to be real courses, but said "courses" are not really rigorous or equivalent to what a real college or university offers. Such "schools" typically also offer huge and unreasonable amounts of "credit" for "life experience." Of course many will argue with me about this definition, so I'll give a glaring example, to simplify things: Kennedy-Western University (K-WU). There, I said it.

The members of this forum tend to be people who understand and appreciate that a university's accreditation by a USDoE/CHEA-approved agency (preferably in the form of regional accreditation, but also national accreditation as well) is really pretty much where it's at; the "gold standard," if you will.

They believe that alleged U.S. "accrediting" agencies which are not approved by USDoE/CHEA are pretty much worthless. Such "accreditors" are usually nothing more than fake entities created by the diploma mill operators to make them look legit to those visiting their web sites who don't understand accreditation and who, therefore, often end-up being duped into purchasing said diploma mill's fake credentials.

The people in this forum see it as something of a public service to identify worthless "degree" grantors (like diploma mills and less-than-wonderful schools such as K-WU) and warn as many people away from them as possible. We refer such people, instead, to the legitimate degree-granting institutions that are fully-accredited by USDoE/CHEA-approved agencies. In the alternative, when appropriate, we refer them to the many equally-legitimate unaccredited degree-granting institutions which, nevertheless, offer honest-to-goodness educations that have rigor and have earned the respect of their peers and others; that are licensed by their respective states to grant degrees; and, most importantly, whose states require of them that they are really-and-truly a legitimate school, and frequently inspect them to make sure they're not tryin' to pull a fast one.

Okay, so that pretty much describes this web site and its forum.

Now, think about it, for a moment, Floyd...

Imagine all the diploma mill operators out there in the universe who have been exposed (and in many cases ultimately shut down) by things posted in the forums here.

Imagine all the people who have purchased degrees from those diploma mills and who have been using them to mislead people; and who have subsequently been "outed" by posts in these forums -- many of said outings resulting in their firings or sometimes even arrests.

And, finally imagine all the owner/operators of the less-than-wonderful so-called "schools" (like, for example, K-WU, just to name one... but there are many others) who are struggling to make people believe they're legitimate so they can keep taking people's money, delivering minimal amounts of coursework and granting "degrees" with no rigor; and also think about all of their hapless students who have obtained such "degrees" for not-so-much work and who now must and will do or say anything and everything to make others believe that the institution where they got their degree is legitimate... lest they, too, be considered fakers like a mere diploma mill degree holder.

Can you picture all those people in your mind, Floyd?

Can you see their angry faker faces?

Can you imagine how much the angry fakers might want to hurt us after we've exposed them for the low-lifes that they truly are?

Can you imagine how much money -- and in some cases even jail time -- this forum, right here, has cost them?

Have you got a good picture in your mind, there, Floyd? Can you see it?

Okay... now picture 'em all making postings every day in the online-college.info forums that you asked about in your thread-starting post.

That's right. All those angry, outed fakers are the ones who frequented that forum and did all the "trashing and bashing," as you called it.

So, now do you see, Floyd?

Stick with us, kid. We won't steer ya' wrong.

But beware: Once you become educated about such things as these; and once you begin posting here in a good-faith effort to help others who seek information as you are doing here today; then you, too, will become a target of the angry fakers. And they are a ruthless, heartless, vicious, mean-spirited bunch, to be sure. Since the online-college.info forums closed down, they've scattered to the furthest corners of the Internet -- a bit like roaches, actually -- to other forums and newsgroups; and they continue to post the very same kind of ignorant vitriol about us that you read (and by which you were clearly disapointed) over on that forum.

Many of them are psychopathic (or, at the very least, sociopathic). A lot of them are very young and immature, and obviously didn't get a proper upbringing. They're cowards, one and all, who, like most schoolyard bullies, would undoubtedly drop to their knees and beg for their lives if they ever actually met most of us in person and knew we had figured out who they were.

Pretty much all of them have a fairly classic criminal mentality. After all, let's not forget that they launched web sites selling worthless "degrees" and accompanying fake credentials for a few hundred dollars to unsuspecting (and in many cases, quite suspecting and intentional) people.

They're predators, plain and simple.

They know it.

They know that we know it... and aren't afraid to call 'em on it.

And it's got 'em really pissed off.

We can't control the whole world, of course. But we can try to control our little corner of it. In this forum -- and to the chagrin of the angry fakers -- we're doing our very small part to help protect society, generally, from:

• diploma mills that take people's money and give them nothing of actual value in return; and,
  
• diploma mill customers who don't understand how accreditation (or at least some modicum of institutional legitimacy, even if unaccredited) works and who, therefore, buy from diploma mills and basically get ripped-off; and,
  
• diploma mill customers who know damned well what they're doing and who fully intend to use their fake credentials to deceive others -- usually their employers or legitimate colleges; but the sky's the limit on whom else they may try to deceive and for what possible reasons (including pretending to be physicians, for example, which really can harm or even kill people); and,
  
• all the less-than-wonderful "schools" (such as K-WU, for example, but there are many others) which seem at first blush to be quite a bit more legitimate than flat-out "diploma mills, but which nevertheless deceive good people into believing that their sub-standard, unaccredited, non-rigorous, "degrees" actually have value in the real world; and,
  
• all the less-than-wonderful "schools" (such as K-WU, for example, but there are many others) which deceive employers into reimbursing the tuitions of their employees who are "students" at said less-than-wonderful "schools;" and,
  
• ...the list just goes on and on.

We keep the dialogue going which helps people like you get the straight skinny on this whole distance learning and diploma mill thing -- which is exactly what those angry fakers wish people like you didn't know and had nowhere they could go to find out.

The angry fakers sometimes come here and try to raise a ruckus -- forcing the moderators to take it for about as long as they can before finally throwing them out. Then the angry fakers go to other forums and newsgroups and complain that only those who agree with and suck-up to the moderators here are allowed to stay here... which is just silly. It couldn't possibly be that they're abusive, or violate this site's posted Terms of Service agreement, could it?

For as much as they hate us, though, they sure do seem to spend a lot of time lurking here and posting in other places about what we say. That's certainly curious, isn't it?

They complain that we've ruined their lives by exposing them. Of course, all criminals say things like that, don't they? Like nearly everyone of their criminal mentality, they blame others for their plight. People like that who, for example, are in trouble with the law because someone called the cops on them while they were committing a bona fide crime will never blame themselves for where they are and how they got there. Instead, they blame the guy who called the cops. It's classic. It's never-ending. It will be around until the end of time.

And so, quite possibly, might this forum.

For more information, go read this web site's "About Us" page by clicking here; and then follow the links on that page to the other "must read" pages. It'll all fall into place for you fairly quickly.

Good luck, Floyd... and welcome!

 

As if anyone would ever accuse you of giving anything but the long answer...




Tom Nixon

 

No one should fall victim to what is, out of necessity, tergiversation. The term “less than wonderful” is not descriptive of entities that somehow fall between degree mills and legitimate schools. The term “less than wonderful” is nothing more, nothing less, than a euphemism for “the ‘school’ is a freakin’ degree mill, but they seem to be litigious, therefore, I think I’ll avoid the hassle of an expensive lawsuit even though I am sure, in the end, I would prevail.”

 

What he said.




Tom Nixon

 

K-Wu

So....tell us how you really feel about K-Wu

 

LOL Thanks for the laughs, DesElms.