List of Diploma Mills from The Australian

Re: Safeguards

So RJT, did you sign a statement acknowledging that you understood Kennedy-Western University was licensed by the Wyoming department of education in accordance with W.S. 21-2-401 through 21-2-407 but that neither the department of education nor the Wyoming state board of education had accredited or endorsed any course of study being offered by Kennedy Western University?

If so, they you know full well that the state of Wyoming (in no shape or form) approves, accredits or endorses Kennedy-Western University. If, on the other hand, you did not, then KW is in violation of the licensing statutes, and therefore cannot claim to be legal.

Which is it?

 

Proud

A State DoE is not in a position to acredit or endorse. The Liscencure, is achieved by meeting compliance, of the on-site audits, and program review. K-W has passed both. While there are some who find fault with the school, just read the Pub and you will see that K-W is not a mill. There are difficult courses a student must pass, as well as the development of a Thesis, which at the MS level must be bound and copyrighted. I'll be proud to display my K-W Degree, to all those that come a greeting, becuse I have the personal satisfaction of knowing that much hard work went into the effort.

 

Re: Re: Re: Proof

In my opinion, RJT is not sufficiently concerned with the truth in his posts. He continues posting things that are untrue even when he's been responded to multiple times with the truth. He makes outlandish claims and statements and has refused to provide a shred of evidence or explanation when asked. He has apparently claimed to be the director of recruiting for two business units of Unisys yet he was incredulous that a company in California could reject resumes just because they had CA approved degrees and thought that this might violate fair hiring practices. I do not believe that he is who he pretends to be.

 

RJT, you seemed to have missed this most reasonable post. Perhaps because of the switch to two pages for the thread? Can you please respond?

 

I think the links RJT has posted today are very useful. It's clear to me now that Wyoming explicitly does NOT approve, accredit, or endorse KW or its programs, but that it licenses KW to operate based on compliance with certain administrative requirements.

It's also clear that calling KW "state approved" (let alone "SA" in analogy with "RA") is disingenuous at best.

 

picky picky picky

Here's a bit of textual criticism: there has been a poster on another ostensible dl site who kept using the word "whore" as an epithet over and over and over. Total Schweinerei, IMHO. Wanna bet the letter-writer about the "Whorestralian" is the same fellow?
Hint: eas is eas, and ...

 

Hi uncle!

Here's what RJT said,
"How can you go into the mind of the HR person who slipped up and accepted the State Approved Degree, verses the Regionall Accredited Degree?

There is no slip up, as the State Approved Degree is legal, .... I will state, that K-W is a WY State Liscenced and Appoved Post Secondary Eduactional Insititution, legally operating within the United States, as such, thus able to confer degrees by meeting the WY DoE Requirements."

Note that RJT did not accidentally say "state approved" instead of "state licensed". He said, "State Liscenced and Appoved".

The only approval that K-W apparently goes through is once a year K-W hires someone to review their academic classes. This is bogus from many perspectives. Here's a few.
1. This is no way close to an independent report.
2. I don't believe that these reports are even published nor is the criteria published as to what will be looked for and what it is being compared against. I don't believe that K-W even publishes whether or not they passed their little internal review!
3. One thing that makes K-W substandard is insufficient and unpublished graduation requirements. This isn't even part of this silly self-imposed "approval" process.

 

Quite right, Bill. My post really had more to do with the earlier stuff from "The Australian" and Dr.Bear's helpful information/spelling test. hee hee

But while I'm at it...If I wanted a b.s. degree in my field (small b,small s), I could send cold cash over the border to Indiana...I'm hardly an expert in either liscensing (!) or apruval (sounds like a tranquilizer), but between RA, NA, & legit overseas schools (SA, Australia, etc.), there are plenty of options that don't involve feeding the sharks. To borrow a phrase from Nosborne, I don't have a dog in the K-W fight, but it sure sounds like throwing good money after bad for no really worthwhile reason. It's not the effort I question, but the wisdom.

 

Re: Re: Spice to the Stew.

What deception is involved in using an unaccredited degree? It takes five minutes on the Internet to determine whether a school qualifies the candidate for the job or promotion.

Dave

 

Re: OBJECTION, your honor!

Hey, slow down . . . . . . USD 199 = AUD 361 !!!!!

CFr

 

Re: Spice to the Stew.

I agree, US State approved/registered/authorised/licensed Universities & Colleges can NOT be referred to as MILLS.
Lower class institutions, yes, - but not mills.

CFr

 

Re: Re: Spice to the Stew.

They certainly can be referred to as degree/diploma mills, and often are. Even legitimate, even accredited, schools are sometimes labled such, rightly or wrongly.

There have been several degree mills shut down by federal authorities, despite the fact that these "schools" were operating with full legal authority in their respective states. Go back and do some research on DipScam.

Sorry, but being licensed by one's state simply isn't enough to avoid being a degree mill.

 

Re: Re: Spice to the Stew.

I disagree. In my opinion state licensed schools can definitely be mills.

Obviously that depends on how we are defining the word "mill". We usually smear several different issues together at this point.

*Legality: Frangop seems to be suggesting that if a school is operating within the law, wherever it is, it can't be a mill. I emphatically disagree. A legally operating school can be a mill if it lacks...

*Academic quality: This one is kind of like beauty; it's hard to describe but we recognize it when we see it. I think that this issue in turn breaks down ito two different subissues:

**Quality of the instructional program: This depends on the personal needs and desires of each individual student. If a school meets a student's needs, it might not be a mill *to him or her*. I can think of some very flaky schools that nevertheless might be of value to somebody.

**Credibility of degrees and qualifications: But education is not only a matter of private interest. It also exists in a public context because students earn degrees that they try to use in social contexts.

Employers and clients depend on degrees to tell them something about an individual's educational preparation. So if a school is granting "degrees" that bear little or no resemblance to what the public expects a degree to be, in my opinion you could have a mill.

If an employer or client suffers damages through reasonably assuming that a degree actually means something, then I believe that the ingredients of fraud may be present. That's true whether or not the school that granted the degree was operating legally wherever it was located.

*Accreditation: So, how can one know what a particular school's qualifications actually mean?

We might be familiar with the school itself, know its faculty and the work being done there, and personally trust it. In other cases, schools prepare students for professional licensing examinations, and success on the examination is an indicator of the adaquacy of the schooling.

But there are thousands of colleges, universities, institutes and specialized schools in the United States. Probably nobody in the country is familiar with all of them.

Even if a student knows and trusts his/her particular school, their employer or client might not have a clue. So the employer or client may need to rely on the judgements of the educational and professional communities that have checked out the schools. That's accreditation.

Lack of accreditation doesn't prove with complete certainty that a school is a mill, but it greatly increases the probability that it might be. That probability may rise so high that it becomes prudent to treat all non-accredited schools as if they were mills, at least until they can provide some mitigating evidence in their own behalf.

 

State licensed and diploma mills

Rich: There have been several degree mills shut down by federal authorities, despite the fact that these "schools" were operating with full legal authority in their respective states... Sorry, but being licensed by one's state simply isn't enough to avoid being a degree mill.

John:

For instance:

At the time Ernest Sinclair went to federal prison for mail fraud, his California Pacifica University was a California-authorized university.

At the time James Kirk (aka Thomas McPherson) went to federal prison, having pleaded guilty to mail fraud for his LaSalle University, LaSalle was licensed by the State of Louisiana.

 

Re: Re: Proof

Can anyone tell me WHY they are in prison? I thought they serve their sentence ONLY because they had evaded taxes and got caught by the IRS, and NOT because of running a diploma mill, which would have been legal due to its incorporation as a "university" business / legally licensed in their resp. states.

Looking at Dr. Bears's post, what exactley does "MAIL FRAUD" mean in this context?

adelheid

 

Here in California, I can legally manufacture small round gold-colored objects with a mechanism inside, commonly called a wristwatch for, let us say, $5.

If I sell them for $25, as a gold-colored wristwatch with a 30-day warranty, I am probably legal (if I honor the warranty).

If I sell the same watch, by mail, as a solid-gold Swiss-made timepiece, certified by the Swiss Society of Horologists, handmade from titanium in a hygienically clean factory in Basel, identical to the one worn by Hillary on Everest, guaranteed for 30 years, etc. etc. etc., the same grand jury that indicted Kirk, Sinclair, and others might well decide that I was guilty of mail fraud. And if I sold them by credit card, wire fraud. And if I didn't exactly pay my taxes on the profits, tax fraud. And if I was in cahoots with my uncle in Cincinnati, conspiracy.

 

Good Question ...

Good question. Perhaps it was because they ststed they were accredited when they were'nt. Incidently, K-W does NOT CLAIM ACRREDITATION, they state they are State Liscenced. As far as approval, the state of WY is not in the business of approving any school, even RA schools. However they did conduct an audit in 02/01, to quote the University " In Feburary of 2001, ... K-W underwent an on-site visit and inspection by the WY DoE, .... their findings were highly positive, stating that K-W complies wholly with the WY State Board of Education's rules and regulations."

In review:

K-W makes a student complete 5-9 difficult but work specific courses, provided they transfer in with a AA and credible work experience.

They make ALL Stuents complete a challanging Research Thesis.

There is a minimal period of one year which must be completed before degree award.

They are recognized and reimbursed by many employers - who DO investigate the school (I'll send the PUB link).

They are not a degree mill, in any way. The school does not claim to be accredited, rather the school is factual, and states that they are state liscenced, and that there may be limitations.

I firmly feel that K-W is a good and viable option, for someone who has achived the experince to recieve a degree, yet wants a challanging option.

Yes the school is not RA, but neither is Bob Jones, Cal Pacific, and several other positive choices.

The bottom line I feel is that there are many on this board who can not contend with a school that succeeds (37,000 grads), yet operates independenty and legally.

 

RJT: "...In Feburary of 2001, ... K-W underwent an on-site visit and inspection by the WY DoE, .... their findings were highly positive..."

John: Wow, then it was exactly one month after that visit that Andrea Foster, reporter for our most prestigious educational publication, made an unannounced visit, and wrote (Chronicle of Higher Education, March 23, 2001):

"An unannounced visit to Kennedy-Western reveals a quiet and stark basement office. No one is seated at the front desk to greet visitors. After several minutes Stephanie Baty, whose business card reads "Wyoming Admissions/Coordinator of Alumni and Corporate Development," appears in the foyer. She says she is not authorized to answer reporters' questions, and says the office is primarily used for data entry. One other person works there with her..."

What are we to make of this?

 

John:

The audit was conducted at their operative offices in CA. The site is also being utilized in WY, as I have spoken to several administrative, who were on their way to conduct mattters in WY. Regardless, the point is, K-W passed the inspection.

While the school may not be as highly regarded by memebers who are biased, for no apparent reason, the school is definity not a mill.

They are operating legally, and have a measure of QA to sustain.

 

So shall we take out of the list Trinity College & University, they also have a country license (Spain to issue degrees Reference: JPA(L)130/10/2-6kit.128 ) and they offer a course work based MBA. So according to RJT definition, they are also not a diploma mill.

http://www.trinityeducation.com/