More on Cal Coast and DETC

The following Memorandum is being sent to prospective students:

[Start]
The Board of Directors is preparing to file an application seeking accreditation with the Distance Education and Training Council (a nationally recognized accrediting agency), in June 2003.

There will be many changes to programs, policies, and procedures that may affect students who enroll after that time. A few of the significant changes are:

*Admissions Department will no longer accept applications into the Doctoral degree programs
*Admissions Department will no longer accept applications into the Engineering Management degree programs
*Admissions Department will no longer accept applications into the Health Care Management degree programs
*Proctored Examinaton will be a requirement
[End]

While I had heard they would discontinue doctoral programs, I was not aware of them phasing out the Engineering Management and Health Care Management degrees.

 

I guess this means that Cal Coast is serious about earning DETC accreditation. Good for them!

And good for their students.

 

Does this mean prior CCU students will benifit from their accredidation? Or, does it just apply to students after they get DETC.

Best Regards,
Bill

 

A degree received a day after accreditation would be an accredited degree.

 

they should furthermore firstly improve their extremely unprofessional webpage plus rethink their customer behaviour (they were telling me some bogus thinks that exemptions were possible but not a reduction in tuition fees for the waived courses due to CA laws -> what wonder two other CA based RA universities do not seem to know this CA law and would OF COURSE reduce tuition fees when getting course waivers and only having to pay the rest of the courses) when they want to be taken serious...

(just my 5 cents about that school...)

trigger

 

No tuition reduction for waived courses but their tuition for a whole degree is about the same as a few courses at many other schools.

 

I wish them the best of luck with it and good for them.

I guess judging by what they sent that the current exams are not proctured?? As I recall they are m. choice and so I guess folks are just on the honours system.

North

 

Maybe their multiple choice exam(s) are not the majority of the grade.

Perhaps, they put most of the weight of the grade on essays, research papers, group discussion, etc.

Best Regards,
Bill

 

In the past CCU students have reported classes consisted of one text book and grade was based only on the non-proctored multiple choice tests. It is good to see them improving.

 

Sending this, of course, violates a DETC rule:

Q. As an applicant, may we mention the Accrediting Commission or our applicant status in our literature?
A. No. This would be inappropriate and has the potential to mislead the public about your institution’s affiliation with DETC.


I wonder if DETC is aware of this flagrant violation of their rules. I have no doubt that a memorandum would be considered part of their "literature."

Granted, they are not applicants yet, but I'm not sure that would/should make much difference. To my mind, that is worse (and something that less reputable schools have gotten in trouble over).



Tom Nixon

 

unfortunately not,
with maximum credit exemption, i get a RA or a GAAP degree at the same price... (what I do now)

 

Not a hard question.

Get an RA or a GAAP degree.

 

Prior degrees would not actually be accredited, but in the real world, it just depends on who is doing the checking. I would guess that in employment situations, there would be little difference. We know that many employers do not understand or verify accreditation. Of those who do, how many actually check the date that accreditation was granted versus the date the degree was earned?

 

Re: Re: More on Cal Coast and DETC

On the other hand, Cal Coast is completely redesigning its offerings in order to comply with DETC's scope, and those changes do have to be announced.

I suppose that DETC could insist that they just announce the changes but withhold their reason for making them.

In actual practice, that would probably devolve into lots of "back channel" talk and "private communications" accompanying and explaining the intentionally opaque official literature. So they would simultaneously be announcing and not-announcing it, which is kind of two-faced.

Personally, I prefer the open approach, but its hard to know what DETC thinks.

 

Re: Re: Re: More on Cal Coast and DETC

This forum is a perfect example of why schools are not allowed to advertise their attempt to gain accreditation. There are already members of this forum congradulating CCU, jumping up and down waving banners, lighting fireworks, etc. The fact is CCU, as of this date, is another unaccredited school. How many students will now be recruited based on the possibility of accreditation, which may never happen. Maybe it will, who knows. But I would advise any future student to proceed with caution. There are any number of RA schools available, why take a chance with your time and money based on a school's future plans. Even if CCU gains DETC accreditation, it is still a degree of limited value.

 

Guess what I do!


(already applied and been accepted to one (GAAP))

Greets,
Trigger

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: More on Cal Coast and DETC

And this is exactly why DETC has the rule. If someone were of a mind, they could notify DETC of this violation. It would be interesting to see what, if anything, would happen.

I should mention that most days I'm reasonably pleased with DETC (in particular, their high school diploma programs are quite good). I think that there is a place for them at the table. I still wish that they would divide their programs into two categories (academic and vocational). Most days, I have little opinion on Cal Coast. I'm not overly impressed with their curriculum, but I spend little time pondering their fate.

However, it seems clear that CCU is using this as a marketing tool.


Tom Nixon

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: More on Cal Coast and DETC

While your point is valid, I haven't seen any fireworks
Just the guy in the orange vest telling me to slow down because there's road construction ahead.
Whatever,
Jack

 

Hi Tom et al: On the topic of DETC separating programs, are you referring to a regulated separation of some sort? The DETC started listing the programs separately, on their website at least - so that degree granting, high school, postsecondary and military programs each have their own category some time ago which is what prompted my question.

I can't speak to the issues of a regulatory separation, but can imagine it is not easy task - but as you can imagine I was a strong advocate for providing separate listings.

Mary

 

Has CCU changed its procedures in terms of how it offer their courses? (in order to comply with DETC requirements)

Are Multiply Choice exams still the norm or are research papers, discussions etc. now required as well?

I'm thinking about doing MBA with them.

Any info would be helpful..

Thanks.