Graduates of unaccredited colleges CANNOT get Pell Grants

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by zanger, Jan 2, 2010.

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  1. zanger

    zanger member

    Graduates of unaccredited colleges CANNOT get Pell Grants. This means if the student went to some of these schools like Mid-Atlantic Law School which basically exists as a protest for freedom and is entirely ran by a radical libertarian out of his house all by himself, you cannot get a Pell Grant. (Mid-Atlantic is called Mid-Atlantic because it is supposedly located in the middle of no-where as in the middle of the ocean.)

    So does that mean the Federal Government recognizes the degrees people grant out of their houses real degrees? Federal law says after all that they are college degrees and as you can read below it is even the position of the Department of Education.

    The reason given by the Department of Education is that people should not get a grant to get two degrees at the same level.

    From the Department of Education FSA Handbook:
     
    zanger, Jan 2, 2010
    #1
  2. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    zanger: "So does that mean the Federal Government recognizes the degrees people grant out of their houses real degrees?"

    Rich: Not necessarily. The government recognizes that there are unaccredited schools, but that's not the same as equating them with accredited schools.

    Lots and lots of people attend unaccredited, residential schools, primarily for religious reasons. I suspect that clause is meant for them, should they go the secular route. Just a hunch.
     
    Rich Douglas, Jan 2, 2010
    #2
  3. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Mid-Atlantic School of Law seems to be run from North Carolina, which is a little south of what most people would call mid-Atlantic, but only by one state.

    Anyway, devil's advocate question here, let's say a person did a program through an unaccredited school. How would the feds even know? If they weren't part of Title IV, then there'd be no record of it in the student aid system. And since the student wouldn't have been able to deduct it from their federal income tax, it wouldn't be in that record either.

    -=Steve=-
     
    SteveFoerster, Jan 3, 2010
    #3
  4. zanger

    zanger member

    Lying on the Pell grant form is a felony. The form asks if the person graduated from somewhere. If a so-called friend knows that the person got a degree years earlier at unaccredited XYZ Bible College, and is now on a Pell grant, he could drop the dime on him.
     
    zanger, Jan 3, 2010
    #4
  5. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Okay. I realize it's against the law, and I wasn't advocating it -- doing that would mean there's a timebomb that might go off in your future, and those are obviously better to avoid. I was just pointing out that it's sort of a dumb rule for them to make, since there's such a significant enforcement problem.

    -=Steve=-
     
    SteveFoerster, Jan 3, 2010
    #5
  6. rickyjo

    rickyjo Guest

    I agree with Steve. There are too many laws about everything.
    Besides, if the feds didn't help you get your first degree then there really isn't redundancy in providing aid so they should chill out. They aren't losing any more than they do on the average person who goes to school partially on their dime. It almost seems like an attack on those who do want to go to seminary or vocational schools that offer degrees. I think it's outrageous.
     
    rickyjo, Jan 3, 2010
    #6

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