Below is a quote from a letter that was sent to me by Century University. Does this actually mean anything significant or is it some kind of trickery? ############################################# To Whom It May Concern, We are pleased to advise you that Century University is listed by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Research and Improvement (NCES98-299, page 228). The "Directory of Post Seconday Institutions, Degree Granting, Volume 1, 1997" is a publication of the National Center for Educational Statistics. Century University is not regionally accredited, but is listed by the U.S. DOE (Department of Education). The U.S. DOE listing is the one most often used and relied upon by the U.S. Embassies and the various Ministries of Education worldwide. Yours truly, Donald Breslow, MBA, CPCM President
It means Century is still trying to trick people into thinking their degrees have any form of acceptance in the world of higher education. They do not. That listing is just a research project Century (along with some other very bad schools and many good ones) volunteered to participate in. No big deal; much like being listed in the telephone book. If anyone relies on that listing, they are in error. (The same with anyone relying on a Century degree to mean some form of academic accomplishment; it is not.) The U.S. Department of Education maintains a list of approved accrediting agencies; accreditation by one of them indicates a school's acceptance into the world of higher education. (The same goes for schools accredited by agencies recognized by CHEA). There was a time when unaccredited schools could be listed separately by the USDOE. This was in order to provide their students access to financial aid programs without requiring the schools to be approved by private accreditors. This type of listing no longer exists. Century never qualified. However, it is using this other research project as a means to confuse people into thinking the USDOE has somehow approved them. This simply isn't true, and goes to show just what an awful operation Century is and has always been. They and their apologists should be ashamed of themselves for this behavior, for it is purposely deceptive. Rich Douglas
The directory was apparently published 1997. 20 years from now they'll probably still be tauting their listing in the same edition. Scott
It is at best misleading. NCES 98-299 is simply a list of all institutions puporting to grant degrees. Inclusion in the list does not, by itself, signify anything about the legitimacy of programs. The information about each school was supplied by the school itself. Century's listing erroneously shows them to be accredited by North Central. I contacted the author of NCES 98-299 last year and asked him to comment on the error and why it wasn't corrected. His response was confined to stating that NCES 98-299 had been superseded by the IPEDS database. He did not address any of my specific questions and did not respond to a follow-up request. ------------------ Bill Gossett
He He He! Listed by the USDoE? Maybe its listed in a USDoE publication which describes schools one should avoid! Russell
