Western Governors U. Wins Regional Accreditation

I thought this was worth a new thread: Western Governors U. Finally Wins Regional Accreditation

 

And we never get to hear Rich again say that no DETC accredited school has gone on to regional accreditation.

 

Thank you for posting the link.


"Earning regional accreditation is important for colleges because it allows students to receive federal financial aid and helps students transfer credits to other institutions".

I favor accreditation all the way. However, I am now concerned that accreditation is only necessary so that students can receive financial aid and also transfer credits to another school (recognition opportunity). Judging from the above excerpts, my question then, is a college a bad school if it chooses not to be accredited especially if the students obtaining their degrees from these schools do not need financial aid and do not need to transfer their credits? This is quite interesting.

Cehi

 

cehi: "is a college a bad school if it chooses not to be accredited especially if the students obtaining their degrees from these schools do not need financial aid and do not need to transfer their credits?"

John: in a perfect world, people would be judged (academically) by what they know, and accreditation (and degrees) would be irrelevant.

You're a high school dropout and want admission to my Ph.D. program. Sure. Just show me that you are operating at the level of my other first-year students.

You're a job applicant for a middle management position at my company. We used to require an MBA. Now we've seen the light, and want you to demonstrate that you have the necessary skills.

Until this utopia arrives, accreditation is a consumer thing. A school that chooses not to seek it is telling its students, "We're not going to do this thing that will make your life much easier."

Final point: I do get an awful lot of sad mail from people who say, in effect, "Back then, two or even twenty years ago, I did not believe I would need an accredited degree. But now, my plans have changed, or my company has a new policy, or I've decided to go back for a higher degree, or I'm unexpectedly in the job market, and the degree I did back then does not work for me."

 

They have an intriguing model, and I wish them well. But the fact that they have only 36 graduates after five years suggests things have not been booming.

They have 750 current students. An improvement, perhaps, but still fewer than 40 students per participating state.

The accreditation article says, "Officials at the university believe this will legitimize distance education and competency-based education in the eyes of other institutions."

Hello? Do they think it was not legitimized before? That nearly 30 years of regional accreditation for Excelsior, Edison and Charter Oak have not done this legitimizing already? (Answer: it has. My survey of registrars and admissions officers two years ago found that more than 90% always accept such degrees and all of the rest usually do.)

 

DETC transfer to RA

Re: http://www.wgu.edu/wgu/union/transfer.html

What does this mean? Some graduates from DETC's institution can now transfer to receive higher degree from RA WGU ?

 

Now that WG is RA will they accept their own DETC credits?

John

 

Dr. Bear, thank you for sharing your wisdom on this issue.

 

That's probably a function of:

A) The fact that it wasn't regionally accredited. To this point it's been sort of a prototype.

B) Its over-ambitious model, which not only involved creating a new school, but also a new inter-regional accreditation arrangement and new kinds of competency assessments at the same time.

C) Inadaquate funding. I think that many states wanted to be on board, but none of them wanted to appropriate any funds for it.

D) Reduced demand. The popping of the internet bubble and the ensuing recession took a lot of the sizzle from this thing.

E) Inadaquate marketing. Many students who might be interested in WGU enroll in the University of Phoenix, because they think that the UoPx IS distance education.

F) The fact that for much of its life, all WGU offered was a handful of associates degree programs.

WGU was almost a lock on becoming regionally accredited, so this news is certainly no surprise. Nevertheless, I congratulate them on this milestone.

The task for the member states now that WGU is RA is to make the school better known to prospective state university students and to direct interested students to it. WGU also needs to increase the pace with which it rolls out new programs. It's not an experiment any longer, and its programs are not prototypes and test-runs. It's finally entered production and it needs to scale-up.

But all in all, given the tiny investment that each member state has in this, the risk-reward balance could be very attractive indeed.

 

It's interesting to note that the Inter-Regional Accrediting Commission disbanded immediately after accrediting WGU. Does anyone know why the Inter-Regional was formed in the first place?

WGU is now accredited through Northwest. Why couldn't they simply have applied to NW directly? (It's true they operate in a number of states, but so do many other RA institutions.)

 

This is interesting. Northwest makes sense, since WGU is based in Utah, and Utah is NW's territory. I think IRAC was formed because none of the regionals wanted to shoulder the political pressure alone -- and none of them wanted to carry the blame for breaking their own accreditation guidelines if they caved in to the pressure.

 

SPOT On with all of BillDayson's critical observations; that's how I, too, see the situation.

During the tech boom, there was great concern in Colorado that demand for degreed adults, especially in many science and technical areas, would outstripe the supply. WGU was conceived as a demand filling gap degree provider. States like NEvada, Utah, Colorado, evenIdaho, with so many new residents arriving in the 90s, with few new B&M insitutions to fill demand, and so many new employers demanding an educated work force inspired its sudden creation.

Now that the boom went bust, an alternative identity for its future is needed. But from the outset, a sense that Illinois' Governor's State degree model, expanded to meet regional membership with more modern (e.g., the Big Three) means (competency based ed), was the early apparent model is evident in the name chosen itself.

We wait to see what direction this most significant publicly supportted distance educational effort goes. However, contrary to David and others perceptions, the WGU goes into the North Central Association, as well as into the Southwest's (South Central?--I'm forgetting the accreditors' map myself!) territory. I think the Northwest Accreditation choice was more of a debate than an obvious "no brainer," as he thinks.

Will WGU seek other region's accreditation?

--Orson

 

[QUOTE*clip*
Will WGU seek other region's accreditation?

--Orson [/QUOTE]

No, why would they?

Tony

As an aside, it is interesting to me as a Utah resident, that Governor Leavitt (UT) seemed to be the biggest spokesman of WGU. What is really interesting, is his involvement in transforming Utah high schools into a competency based model. Although this may strike some as going too far, how many of us slackers in high school (I know there are a few on degreeinfo, like myself) became dissillusioned by the lack of movement and utter stupidity of the student body as a whole (trying not to paint with a broad brush)? I believe competency based high schools are a very good idea.

Tony

 

Western Governors U. Gains an Accreditation