Reasons for pursuing an unaccredited degree II

If I was looking to obtain an education I would focus on the quality of the school and not on its accreditation status... accreditation status is almost meaningless in evaluating academic quality.

If I was looking to purchase a credential, I would make sure that the credential I bought would serve my needs (a utility/value for money thing). Unaccredited degrees do have utility on business cards, book covers, job interviews (accreditation is seldom checked), etc..

 

Interesting assertions, Ken.

Funny. If I were looking to obtain an education, I'd move to an area with a fantastic (and free!) public library system and take up new employment (on a volunteer basis, if need be) that would expose me to the great figures in my field of interest. I'll bet that I wouldn't need to spend a dime, or complete instructional modules from a far-away country, or sit exams at an approved site. And I'll bet I could find many of those great minds in my own neighborhood right now, teaching or researching at US RA institutions.

As far as assuring academic quality: Do you have a better system than accreditation in mind for those poor sods who have to go the other route and actually show a degree for employment or professional practice? And have that degree recognized as meaningful?

Agreed. It only makes sense. You've clearly picked something up in your business studies.

And I could get utility out of claiming to be a clairvoyant on my business cards.. but it wouldn't do much for my credibility in court, which is where I'd spend a great deal of my time the defense bar thought my honesty could be called into question.

As for accreditation seldom being checked? I'd be interested in seeing some reliable figures to support that idea. The largest employer in North America confirms the educational claims of thousands of applicants (or current employees up for periodic re-investigations) each year. They DO know which schools are accredited. And they DO care.

 

But not, fortunately, if my typing could be called into question. The "new and improved" board WILL have an "edit" feature, right?

 

Have you completed your HW-MBA?

 

I starting to think we'll have a virtual lynching if it doesn't (which it will).


Bruce

 

Great joke, Walter! I needed a good laugh before retiring this evening.

I am getting ready to have some new business cards printed at Office Max, which should be ready in 3-5 business days. Just think, if I rush to the post office with my registration fee, I could possibly have my Degree Mill Ph.D. in 3-5 days as well. And you are right, it would look good on a business card.

Russell

 

How so? What constitutes evaluating academic quality and what don't the accreditors do?


If I was looking to purchase a credential, I would make sure that the credential I bought would serve my needs (a utility/value for money thing). Unaccredited degrees do have utility on business cards, book covers, job interviews (accreditation is seldom checked), etc..

[/QUOTE]

I think this is the problem. You don't look at purchasing a credential you "earn" it.

John

 

Originally posted by WalterRogers:
If I was looking to obtain an education I would focus on the quality of the school and not on its accreditation status... accreditation status is almost meaningless in evaluating academic quality.

<Yawn.>
This is some of the oldest millspeak in the book.

Accreditation status most certainly implies a minimum level of academic quality. Within the realm of regionally accredited programs, academic rigor will vary tremendously, with the rural community colleges serving a population that is not generally college-bound having a necessarily lower academic standard than, say, Brown or Yale or Princeton. But at the basic level, one can have a reasonable degree of assurance that an RA school will have a certain level of quality.

The same cannot consistently be said for unaccredited programs, even in states like California, that ostensibly have quality standards in place. A significant portion of the DL programs in California are laughably poor quality. The same simply cannot be said for the RA schools in California. And for an even more extreme example, look at, say, Montana or Louisiana or Hawaii.

RA may be imperfect, but it's the best measure of educational quality that exists in the U.S. at the moment, and until something better comes along, and is bulletproof enough that the fraudulent programs won't find a way around it, there really isn't any other meaningful option.

And, of course, if learning is the only objective and the degree doesn't matter, then finding an excellent scholarly library and one or more experienced mentors can be as good as (and often better than) a college experience, whether DL or classroom.



If I was looking to purchase a credential, I would make sure that the credential I bought would serve my needs (a utility/value for money thing). Unaccredited degrees do have utility on business cards, book covers, job interviews (accreditation is seldom checked), etc..


The same can be said for a credential you print yourself on your own laser printer. It, too, will look great on a business card, book cover, or job interview... and it will cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars less than the credential you buy from a fraudulent school... which seems like a great value until somebody checks it out and discovers it's a fraud. Then your entire career/credibility/standing in the community/whatever can go out the window in moments.

The point is, a bogus degree you buy is no better or worse than one you make up yourself. Both are good to line your birdcage, but not much else.

And as for the "utility" of these degrees... one of the coming attractions at the new degreeinfo will be a section on exploding time bombs. Hopefully, those considering the fraudulent route will reconsider once they have the opportunity to read about the misfortunes of others who have made that choice.




[Note: This message has been edited by Chip]

 

MILLSPEAK! I love the term, Chip. A whole new genre has developed as the advocates of degree mills postulate their theories.

Russell

 

If I were the kind of dreamer who believed that what is best always prevails over what is the status quo, I would say that my ideal system would honor and respect the words of Chip above.

I would like to see a system that realizes that there are alternatives to the cookie cutter approach, and rather than the accreditors refusing to accredit programs that have a clue about this, I would like to see real research done as to what alternatives to traditional methods exist. (I consider the notion of waiting for committee approval before starting one's serious research a "tradition" -- DL and residential.) For example -- to be concrete -- is it possible that a protocol for evaluating just how effective such a mentorship was in a learner's life? Is it possible to have this process done at cost, rather than at some inflated expense? If 1000 questions could be asked of such a learner -- what would they be, for a given field?

The co-author of my most recent computational linguistics paper is the man who has been dubbed by more than one branch of the American media as "The Smartest Man in America." He has a mind that can pick apart the universe. His IQ is in the 1 in 100,000,000 range, according to ABC's 20/20. (BTW: I find it to be somewhat amusing that ABC News was contacted about me, since the co-author of my latest paper was interviewed by 20/20 and given the title "one of the smartest men in America" by them.) If I chose to be mentored by him instead of Joe Local Professor -- what are my options? Another who has been of great help to me over many years is the inventor of the C++ programming language. If he chooses to put up with me and mentor me over the years ... what if the square learner refuses to fit into a round hole? (I'm not implying that I am anywhere near the brilliance of these two individuals. I am merely stating that they have mentored me.... or at least guided me.)

If learning is the only object -- the learner will be penalized in the current system of "acceptable" education. Learning ought to be the only object ... but it is not. (For reasons I can understand, I will add.)

Anyway ... how can my experience benefit others, as regards alternative routes? (After all, I am only one person of six billion worldwide. There are plenty more in the world beside me who need alternatives for reasons entirely unlike my own reasons.) What can be done to correct a system that creates artificial hurdles? Can higher education be examined in terms of what needs it truly fills, and then can protocols be developed that assure those needs are being fulfilled credibly? Can regional accreditation bodies examine alternative education in a light that permits doctoral programs to be more holistic in their approach? Can the criteria that are satisfied by currently acceptable means be satisfied credibly in other ways that respond to the personal learning styles of those who chose to be individuals? Can the autodidact become seen as credibly qualified when held alongside the hoop jumper?

I don't know the answers to these questions. Exceptions like me don't disprove a rule, but they do ask for the rule to be re-examined.


------------------
Quinn

 

As I see it, what we call 'higher education' has two distinct functions. One one hand, it educates. On the other hand, it certifies. Lectures, seminars, labs and guided independent study are education. Examinations, portfolios, grades, course credits and ultimately the degree itself are certification.

Education needn't occur in a formal context. We learn throughout our lives. Our jobs are probably as important to our education as is our schooling. If we have academic interests, we read books and articles. We have friends and acquaintances that we learn from. We have hobbies. Education in that sense is a private and personal thing.

But certification, by definition, must occur in a more formal context. It is inherently social. Certification is only as good as the recognition that the certification elicits among other people. Supporting the credibility and wider social recognition of certifications is probably accreditation's foremost purpose.

'Accredit', from the Latin 'accreditus', past participle of 'accredere', 'to give credence to'.

Of course, education and certification overlap. Certification certifies that an individual knows a certain body of material and is able to employ that information in the expected ways. That is dependent on, and a measure of, prior education. In fact the education and certification usually occur simultaneously and interactively.

So I think that "WalterRogers" (Ken Lewchuk?) is wrong when he says that "accreditation status is almost meaningless in evaluating academic quality". Accreditation is what provides objectivity and credibility to the certification process. Certification informs the wider public that education has met some standard. Academic quality is presumably some vaguer and more global measure of effectiveness in imparting education, measured against a standard.

But I do think that "Walter" has a point. The non-traditional nature of DL has allowed education and certification to become more clearly separated. Some schools, the "big three" and WGU for example, are basically certification organizations. You bring them your education, wherever you acquired it, and they certify it against the expected standards.

And I would like to suggest that some of the non-accredited schools may have great value when seen as the "big three's" mirror image, as being educational but not certification organizations.

Take Hsi Lai University. They are a non-DL CA-approved school near Los Angeles that teaches Buddhist studies. Their faculty listing is definitely impressive. It includes Ph.D.s from from Yale, the U. of Wisconson, the U. of Chicago, Trinity College Dublin, the Australian National University and many more. The chairman of Whittier College's philosophy department teaches there. The former chairman of UCBerkeley's Buddhist Studies program teaches there. A whole host of professors from the Claremont Graduate University teach there. HLU administrators include luminaries such as a former Sri Lankan ambassador to the United States.
.
http://www.hlu.edu/faculty_rel.htm

I'm not promoting CA-approved degrees. They have serious shortcomings that we are all aware of. But I am suggesting that if a student takes advantage of this faculty, he or she can probably have a very good educational experience.

The problem is that we have litle more than this faculty listing to go on. HLU degrees are an unknown quantity. Who knows what they mean? When a student moves beyond his or her individual educational context into the wider social sphere of certifications, HLU begins to break down, at least outside a small community of those familiar with it and disposed to accept it.

 

Yes, I have an MBA (doesn't everyone?). However I did it years ago the old fashioned way. I do know a couple associates who are in the HW program though.

 

There is such a thing as GAAS (generally accepted academic standards). RA does not ensure a generally accepted level of output standards... it protects a minimal level of process standards.

Yes, RA provides a minimal level of consumer protection but does little to guarantee generally accepted academic standards. That is how you have such a wide variety programs and standards in terms of the same degree.

Getting a RA degree is like making sure your auto mechanic is a member of the better business bureau... consumer protection but no assurance of quality.

 

The bogus degree you print yourself, the bogus degree you buy, the bogus degree you get by taking a few tests over a period of 4 weeks, or a degree through a profit making degree factory... a degree that doesn't measure up to generally accepted academic standards is just that... everything else is just referring to varying degrees of inferiority.

 

That doesn't make sense.

Your statement that "a degree that doesn't measure up to generally accepted academic standards is exactly that" is a tautology. It's going to be true no matter what standards you propose.

And the subsequent clause, "everything else is just referring to varying degrees of inferiority" suggests that all those programs that fail to be substandard are inferior.

Kind of interpolating what I think you meant to say, my response is to ask you what these "generally accepted academic standards" are. Who established them? How are they determined? Perhaps most importantly, why should we abandon the standard implicit in regional accreditation in order to adopt your alternative standard?

The regional accrediting associations are composed of the heart and soul of the American higher education system, almost 3,000 colleges and universities from coommunity colleges to research universities. Most of the country's professional associations and employers defer to their judgement.

Most standards are arbitrary to some extent. In most cases it's possible to suggest a different (and arguably 'higher') standard. The question is, why should we? What's wrong with the one we have?

 

Oh Man! You mean I've got to give back my American College Ph.D.? I gave exactly $199 for the entire course of study--which consisted of 5 courses and a dissertation:

Dissertation: Researching/Writing the check.
Course 1: Mailing it.
Course 2: Buying a gold leafed frame at Wal-Mart.
Course 3: Waiting 5-7 business days.
Course 4: Framing the beautiful diploma.
Course 5: Proudly hanging it in a conspicuous place.



Russell

 

And one of them is Ken Lewchuk?

 

No Ike, I have no idea who this person is but I strongly suggest you seek therapy to resolve your feelings of inferiority with respect to Nova and your apparent myopia with this person.

 

It's okay to drop out of HW-MBA. It's also okay to deny that you have never pursued HW-MBA. But it's not okay to say that your name has never been your name. It's like self denial. Methinks that this guy is hidding something.