I'm currently in the military serving in the U.S. Navy. As a Personnel/Admin Officer I am constantly seeing junior personnel getting taken out of their hard earned money on scams. As much as we try to steer our folks in the right direction a sailor will always try to find an easier way, it's human nature. Now with web access I am constantly getting approached by sailors looking for the quick degree asking about it legitimacy. As much as I push them to work through the Navy College (and trust me I push hard) for programs like those offered by Excelsior or Charter Oak, you always have a few that take the easy way. Most these folks research enough to find out that the college/university/website may not be legally deemed at degree mill, thus jump at the chance of an easy degree from a less then wonderful school. I have checked out John Bears website, AED, and Kirstin Hirst's website and found a wealth of knowledge to arm myself with. A few schools still escape me to classify as a mill. These schools are Brown's International University, Almeda (who share enough association with Trinity C&U to probably add to the mix), Clayton, and Capitol. Does anyone have any hard info (non-opinionated) on these colleges/universities (or just plain website companies). Thanks, I truly appreciate your help. Just trying to keep my folks out of trouble. Regards, Tom ------------------
I hope and trust you'll hear from others here about how truly awful some of the schools you mention really are. What saddens and distresses me is the fact that Navy Times regularly runs ads for so many of the phony and useless schools. Don't they know (or care) what a terrible disservice they are doing to Navy paople? Has no one ever told them? John Bear
I wonder if it has been the case that no one has ever told them about these schools. It's quite possible. Or they could be taking the same stance as some other publications (it seems) that they don't really care. Tom Nixon
Navy Times is a great source of information but at the same time it's nothing more then another supermarket tabloid. Like most tabloids Navy Times (and Army Times and so on) do no research into advertisers listed in their publication unless the legitimacy of that advertiser is brought to light by the readers, the BBB or a legal case action against the advertiser that results in a public awareness that the advertiser is indeed a diploma mill. It's a shame for most of the military folks if they realized what they already had as "real" credits in pursuit of a "real" degree. Most military schools/courses result in the individual gaining ACE credits for what the military has already taught them. On the average a person that's been in for at least eight years probably already has 32 credits (upper Baccalaureate and lower Baccalaureate/Associate) towards a degree (In my case I had 62). Excelsior utilizes your full ACE credits in addition to a life-learning portfolio. You could easily CLEP your way to your degree. Anyone have any comments on the schools (or businesses) that I listed in my original post? Brown's International sounds too much like Jone's International. I have no clue on how legit Brown's is. As I previously said I can't force my folks to stick with a program that the Navy recognizes but I can tell them that the program they are applying for is a known diploma mill and they can not enroll in their practices. This is why I'm curiuos which schools are more legit (even if shady) then others. Take care and stay safe! Tom
Brown's International: Vapor. Read this outrageous statement from their website regarding the legality of their degrees (they also list spurious accreditation elsewhere on the website): The Brown's International University degree is legally bestowed as a registered incorporation in Panama, Central America. As evidence of this, BIU provides graduates with sealed copies of our official document filings and registration forms. Applicants who succeed in earning BIU's degree should stress to employers and others that the degree is justified by BIU only after making a thorough and professional assessment of your qualifications through distance learning and assessment methods. What they mean: "It's fake and it's your problem." Trinity C&U has been disected thoroughly on this site. By Clayton, do you mean Clayton University? If so, they operate without recognized accreditation, nor even discernable legal authority. The school was once a seemingly legitimate attempt at a nontraditional university based in Clayton, MO, a suburb of St. Louis. Eugene Stone founded the school, and made some headway with the RA (NCA), but that collapsed in the early 1980's. He's now selling Clayton degrees from Asia. Regarding the Navy (and Army and Air Force) Times: these are published by the same company. They have no official connection to the Department of Defense, though there is a symbiotic (incestuous?) relationship. The services use these papers as cheesy propaganda with the troops and the papers soft-peddle military issues. Even Stars and Stripes is more independent and objective. The Army/Navy/Air Force/Federal Times have a long, tawdy history of classified advertising. Many bad schools that would/should not qualify servicemen for Tuition Assistance, nor be recognizable for entry into service records, have advertised over the years. For example, the proprietor of Southwestern University advertised his "school referral" service there, referring all of his clients to....Southwestern University! The FBI shut them down eventually and sent Anthony Geruntino to prison. But the Times keeps taking similar advertising. As an Education and Training officer in the Air Force--and later as a commanding officer--I learned long ago to inform when asked, but not to push. There are so many opportunities for servicemen to get scammed; they have to learn to deal with these things on their own. Rich Douglas (USAF Retired)
In the latest issue of Air Force Times, TUI has 3 full-page ads. At least they are ads for some legit schools.
