i realize this school is controversial vis a vis this board.i recently recieved the following correspondence. berne claims assoc with theintnl assoc of universitys--unesco--student eligibility for for federal loans and veteran admin loans as well as st. kitts accreditation.???are they now in the legitimate ranks or is this mill hyperbole.
They are little better than a degree mill. Call any RA university and ask if they will accept their credits. There are too many RA universities with DL opportunities to squander money at Berne. ------------------ Howard Rodgers
Howard put it pretty succinctly. Let me expound a bit more. Accreditation by St. Kitts and Nevis authorities is virtually meaningless. Repeated efforts over many months have failed to produce any meaningful response from the Minister of Education as to what (if anything) is required to gain accreditation in St. Kitts. The UNESCO handbook relies on accreditation by governmental authorities such as St. Kitts to determine a school's eligibility for listing. So, by extension, being listed in the UNESCO handbook by itself is really no better than St. Kitts accreditation by itself in determining legitimacy of a school from that region. Eligibility for student loans at Berne is a joke. Yes, they are eligible for student loans... for full time residential students. Since Berne *has* no full time residential students, it has no one eligible for financial aid. The school is (or was, as of a year or two ago) operated from a one-room office in New Hampshire. It has very little, if anything, to recommend it. As Howard said, there are so many quality programs out there with legitimate, unquestionable accreditation, it's hard to argue in favor of the less-than-wonderful programs such as Berne.
If you go to the official State of Oregon site at http://www.osac.state.or.us/oda/unaccredited.html you will learn that use of a Berne University degree in that state is illegal, and subjects the user to a substantial fine and/or a prison term. Note: for mysterious reasons, the Oregon site is always accessible through Internet Explorer and only occasionally through Netscape.
