Does anybody know if this university is "real". I came across their site during a search (on Google) for USC at Berkeley. http://www.berkley-u.edu/index.html If you click on the above link you will find BERKLEY UNIVERSITY's web site. (I'm sure Rich or Dr. John Bear will have comments about this one)
This school has been discussed at great length on this board. You yourself mentioned it on January 14th. Whether or not it is "real" depends on your definition of "real." It is real as opposd to imaginary. But it is not a real university, as even a cursory glance at its website would reveal. No faculty or staff, no learning materials, no curricula, no legal authority to grant degreees, yada, yada, yada. Personally, I find their pandering to--and deception of--military personnel particularly disgusting. I hope active duty members do, too.
Rich, I don't recall having mentioned this university before, but you may be right. I probably forgot about my previous postings. However, your analysis is the same as mine. This is just another diploma mill.
Well, it's Berkley not Berkly. It is a near north suburb of Detroit. There is no university there. None. Nowhere. Period. The building is an office building in the adjacent city of Southfield, in an area of declining real estate values and substantial rental office vacancy rates.
It was in a thread you started about Bircham here: Click For the record, our analyses might be the same, but our conclusions are not. I did not call them a diploma mill. They might be one, but I didn't say it.
I too find this "school's" dishonest marketing toward military personnel disgusting. We try to ensure everyone utilizes the expertise of our education experts when they make a decision to invest time and money on educational pursuits. My servicing Navy College Office does an excellent job in warning Sailors and Marines about the diploma mills and other scams. Another common scam on service people, others too, is the marketing of exam preparation material by unscrupulous individuals. Whereby the victim signs a contract and becomes legally bound purchase less than wonderful exam-prep material at outrageous prices.
I was also unable to find any trace of the "Society of God" or "Society of God (Church)" which is mentioned as the religious sponsor of this organization.
U of Berkley U of B is actually physically located in the Altoona, PA area which can be indicated by searching the origin of their telephone number. I heard from Dr. Bear a long time ago that they had a little shack behind a garage, so they really do have a building of their own. They are sort of a gag operation by some local actor whose name I believe is Victor Pancrev. They also used to have a Chicago residential area phone number in their printed catalog, I know this because it was the same area code as my own. They do have "real" people that you can speak with if you call. I knew a fellow in Singapore who had sent them some money and later was contacted by the FBI some years ago and he never got his degree, but apparently they were never closed down. They do not pretend to be accrredited which may be the reason they are allowed to operate. I too think that they are just an expensive mill. One could do better with Earlscroft or Trinity.
Charles Fout: "My servicing Navy College Office does an excellent job in warning Sailors and Marines about the diploma mills and other scams." John Bear: Could Navy College Office possibly have some influence on Navy Times? One of the real outrages here is that Navy, Army, and Air Force Times continue to run ads from fraudulent schools, even though they have been told many times, and well know, that the degrees advertised are useless to service peronnel. PS: Let us not forget that in addition to the University of Berkley (whose campus is a mailbox rental store in a mall), there is also the University of Berkeley (two blocks from the real campus in Berkeley), and Berkeley International University in San Francisco.
John: Could Navy College Office possibly have some influence on Navy Times? One of the real outrages here is that Navy, Army, and Air Force Times continue to run ads from fraudulent schools, even though they have been told many times, and well know, that the degrees advertised are useless to service peronnel. Rich: Doubtful. The Times newspapers (all published by the same company) are run privately. My experience (I retired as an Air Force officer with a career in Education and Training) was that knowledge about diploma mills was poor and spotty, much like it is in the civilian world. The military never took much interest in the topic, probably considering it either a fringe problem or not one at all. Are these degrees useful to readers? Certainly, in several ways. None of which are legitimate, though. First, enlisted education records, at least in the Air Force, are managed at the local level. Some clerks in an administrative roles (with absolutely no training in higher education) are making decisions about whether or not degrees will go onto personnel records. (Officer records are screened centrally by more capable personnel.) Second, many readers of the Times newspapers are either transitioning out of the military, or already have. They very often feel pressure to "upgrade" their credentials to compete in the civilian job market; diploma mills are a convenient shortcut. Finally, the fraud factor. Some customers of degree mills might actually believe they're dealing with legitimately accredited schools. Military personnel aren't any different in this regard. Of course, if military personnel attempt to obtain tuition assistance or GI Bill benefits, those attempts should be rejected when the schools in question are not properly accredited. But again, in the case of tuition assistance, there are untrained clerks making these decisions. I'd love to audit tuition asssistance records and personnel education records in a search for bogus degrees. I'm positive I'd find some juicy entries. As for the Times and their advertisers, those operations must be making money from their ads; have schools have been advertising in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Defense Times since at least the 1970's.
