USA Today

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Byran Lee, Jun 21, 2001.

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  1. Byran Lee

    Byran Lee member

  2. David Boyd

    David Boyd New Member

    Notice in the Pacific Western ad the word "Not" is on a different line from "Accredited" and accredited is capitalized.
     
  3. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Lovely! USA Today is a haven for diploma mills. They unfortunately lend some credence to the institutions by advertising them. At least with the airline magazines you have a 50/50 split between unaccredited/ mills & genuine accredited programs. I will give USA Today this, they are consistent.

    I suppose as long as they get paid for the advertising space, they are happy.

    North

     
  4. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    David Boyd points out, "Notice in the Pacific Western ad the word "Not" is on a different line from "Accredited" and accredited is capitalized."

    Reminiscent of when the US-required cigarette warning was that packs had to say "Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health," and it was determined that on most brands, the word "may" was microscopically but perceptibly bolder face than the rest of the words.
     
  5. Actually, I think it's worse when there's a mix of worthwhile and worthless schools advertising. Seeing ads from legitimate schools lends some credibility to the no-good ones alongside them; seeing ads for no-good schools tarnishes the reputation of the good schools.




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    Kristin Evenson Hirst
    DistanceLearn.About.com
     
  6. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    I agree with Kristin that "... it's worse when there's a mix of worthwhile and worthless schools advertising. Seeing ads from legitimate schools lends some credibility to the no-good ones..."

    This is especially true with The Economist, where the bad guys are there every week, alongside big ads from Harvard, Oxford, etc. If the good guys would threaten to withhold their ads, it could make a difference, but this is very unlikely to happen.

    University Business magazine asked me to write the article "Diploma Mills: the $200 million a year competitor you didn't know you had" in hopes of getting the attention of the decision makers at the good schools -- and, from 50,000 subscribers, there were perhaps half a dozen letters of the "Oh dear, someone should really do something" sort, and that was it.

    (http://www.universitybusiness.com/0003/diploma.html)
     
  7. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Unfortunately, the general public will indeed
    see a certain credibility by the mere fact that such schools are listed in publications such as USA Today, The Economist, Psychology Today, Christianity Today, etc. This does not give credibility to questionable schools or their degrees, only that the unwary public often perceives such as being credible.

    Russell
     
  8. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Perhaps a more disturbing fact than this, is that the advertisement claims that PWU has over 24,000 alumni worldwide. This means that
    over 24,000 people are using a PWU credential, many of them professionally---and this is only one school. Multiply this by the hundreds of non-accredited (non-USDoE recognized) schools, and wow, there is probably a questionable degree on every block in America. [​IMG]

    Russell
     
  9. Guest

    Guest Guest

    I see yours & Kristin's point. As I fly a fair amount and read the airline magazines I was struck by the advertisements. Mixed in with Pepperdine were ads for less than wonderful schools. The ads for the less than wonderful schools looked quite good in many cases. It reminds me of some of the ads in Christianity Today. There are some accredited schools whose ads look very cheesy and then some from unaccredited schools which look much better by comparison. Certainly, Trinity Seminary (Indiana) has wonderful full page colour ads with the U of Liverpool seal and smiling happy people in the ad.

    North

     

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