Is there room today for unaccredited schools

I realize that this argument gets a good airing every so often as it is, but I think it deserves mention at this point.

The burden of defending the unaccredited school does not generally fall on the school; it falls on the STUDENT.

However unfair some may think it, this is a plain fact. The holder of an unaccredited degree will spend a significant part of his professional lifetime DEFENDING the degree.

There are exceptions, I guess. A California lawyer with an unaccredited degree has the "rehabilitating" credential of a law license but the few anecdotes I have received suggests that even such as these are called upon to justify their choice of an unaccredited school. Unlicensed graduates in any subject lack even this much legitimacy.

For this reason ALONE a legitimate school will seek the best accreditation within its grasp. The school OWES it to its students. To do otherwise is to exploit rather than nurture.

 

Nosborne hit the nail right on the head. Look at CCU as an excellent example that tells the truth of his words. In this forum we knew that CCU was one of the very few example of a decent unaccredited schools. Do a search on the Internet. You will find multple articles of journalists that wrote that CCU was a diploma mill and a CCU degree held by someone that was a subject of their article was questionable or bogus. If a student chooses an unaccredited school (even if it is good which the current crop of supporters of can't point out the good habitually unaccredited schools) you will likely be forced to have to defend your degree.

 

The establishment of the Department of Education shall not increase the authority of the Federal Government over education or diminish the responsibility for education which is reserved to the States and the local school systems and other instrumentalities of the States.
20 U.S.C.A. § 3403 § 3403. Relationship with States

 

So?

 

Education is wonderful.
Someone knows how to search using keywords.
Someone knows how to cut-and-paste.
I am awestruck.

 

During my Union program, I met a peer learner who had a Geshe on his committee. The learner had to go through significant steps to demonstrate to Union that the adjunct member held what was an equivalent to a Ph.D. Ultimately successful, the learner was thrilled to be working with such an eminent person. (All I had was the leading author/personality in nontraditional higher education, John-something-or-other, and a provost at a very progressive RA school. )

 

I am very troubled by the idea that seeking, or not seeking, accreditation is somehow a "business decision".

I don't think it should be. I reminds me of Ford Motor Company's "business decision" not to spend an additional $20 or so on each Pinto for a firewall in front of the gas tank. Their internal memos actually SAID something like "it would be cheaper just to pay the estimated number of wrongful death claims than make this assembly line change."

This is an extreme illustration, of course. I don't think that refusal to seek accreditation is nearly as heinous as FoMoCo continuing to build and sell the Pinto. However, my point is, it can't always be about MONEY. Sometimes the principal of the thing has to trump greed or even competitive advantage.

Deliberately refusing to seek available accreditation seems irresponsible to me. And as I said, it's the STUDENT who suffers and SCHOOL that profits from this "business decision".

 

There is nothing inherently wrong about a degree-granting entity not being accredited.

However, since the great majority of named, unaccredited entities that issue degrees are fake or substandard by any reasonable definition of either term, unaccredited entities that choose to stay that way face the "lieth with dogs, waketh with fleas" problem.

Any unaccredited supplier that chooses to stay that way cannot emerge from the cloud of fleas except through exceptional effort.

The only exceptions are the religious schools that serve a social culture that is flea-proof by virtue of a hermetic doctrine. The fleas become invisible and their bites either undetectable or a sign of virtue.

 

As long as accreditation is defined as voluntary it remains voluntary.

Now if new laws pass and require Universities to become accredited by law then it's a deferent situation.

Times do change and in order to combat mills and assure quality of education laws may need to be change.

And yes it's more than business choice it's a standard of academic
delivery that can be measured and reviewed etc.

But by law it's not mandatory and some institutions reserve to academic freedom that they believe is limited by accreditation practices and the cost associated with that.


Learner

 

The Namgyal IBS website's 'about' page says this:

In 1575 Sonam Gyatso, the Third Dalai Lama, officially founded a monastery, which later came to be known as Namgyal Dratsang (Victorious Monastery). Since its inception, the monastery has assisted the Dalai Lamas in their public religious activities and performed ritual prayer ceremonies for the welfare of Tibet. From the beginning, the monastery has been a center of learning, contemplation and meditation on the vast and profound Buddhist treatises...

After the Chinese invasion of Tibet and the 1959 popular uprising, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and one hundred thousand Tibetans fled to India and Nepal, among them 55 monks from Namgyal. Namgyal Monastery was re-established just outside the residence of His Holiness in Dharamsala, India, where the Namgyal artistic and intellectual traditions are being preserved and continued today.

As it was in Tibet, the novice monks must first pass a series of challenging entrance examinations and, if accepted, undertake years of study...

In relation to these special requirements, His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama has introduced many innovations, including a new syllabus and program of study, which is becoming a model for other Tibetan monasteries...

The program takes thirteen years to complete, at which time a "Master of Sutra and Tantra" degree, which is unique to Namgyal, is bestowed upon those who successfully pass the final examinations...

The program is experential as well as intellectual, and there are periodic meditation retreats in addition.

The cycle of retreats might take up to six years to complete

So... according to the innovative new faster "streamlined" syllabus, it still takes 19 years to complete the new Master of Sutra and Tantra curriculum!

It may not be accredited, but I wouldn't exactly call this a quick and easy degree.

(It's one master's degree that really does make you a master of your subject.)

Obviously they are nowhere near offering that whole program (which includes monastic ordination) here in the United States quite yet.

Getting back to the topic of this thread, I don't know that any form of American accreditation would be appropriate for this. (No, not TRACS.) Nor does it really need any accreditation. Those who would be interested in it already know what it is. Those who wouldn't be, needn't be.

 

Well, the law IS gradually changing to require accreditation or proof of equivalence.

But the "business decision" usually isn't really a just decision to not seek voluntary accreditation, is it? It's REALLY a decison, in most cases, to deliberately offer a substandard educational program resulting in a degree title that can "pass" for representing a level of academic achievement that it does not, in fact, reflect.

This raises moral issues to me. An honest educational institution owes a duty to the world of scholarship to assure that it does not cheapen the credentials whose value derives from the honesty of the academic world.

It owes a duty to the student and the student's potential employers to make certain that its academic degrees meet or exceed the generally accepted standard for academic achievement as represented by the degree.

The "business choice" to issue degrees and diplomas that are not what they claim to be is as immoral as anything Enron execs did, whether technically legal or not.

Where, as with, say, BJU or SCUPS Ph.D. in psychology, there is a particular reason not to seek accreditation, it should be the school's duty, and not the student's duty, to show the world that the school's unaccredited status is not merely a smokescreen for hiding fraud.

To that extent, yes, accreditation IS voluntary. Maintaining minimum acceptable academic standards, however, is NOT voluntary because failure to maintain them is fraudulent conduct.

 

I partly agree with you.

The assumption that institution of high learning makes a choice to offer substandard program is flawed.

The choice is that institution makes is to offer an educational program that was not validated by proper body as being or meeting minimum standard required.

So we don't know if its substandard or above standard or simply deferent standard that is better or worse.

Accreditation cost money and it is a business decision in the end.

Why State when it's issuong approval or license to the institution to operate is not mandating that the institution must achieve accreditation whithin specified tome or shutdown?


Lerner

 

But one thing we DO know is that it had no external evaluation, therefore there is no way for an employer presented with one of its degrees to know anything about the supplier except through rather extensive research that the employer will in almost all cases not do.

 

Some employers don’t rely on accreditation only and do perform their own research.

And also the deference in acceptance of DETC accredited degrees in comparison to RA.

Employers know that not all accreditation is equal even if they are recognized by USDOE and CHEA.


And Alan I think that if unaccredited school has a higher percentage of graduates who become licensed in their field
can make a statement of quality in education that they provide.

Some degree value diminishing with time, specially in IT.

So even fully accredited 20 year old degree in CS may be considered substandard today.
And will not qualify a person for a job.

I always had an opinion that degrees should have expiration date and if one wants not to deceive potential employers has to keep current like in professional licensing with CEU's.