Accreditation agencies why isnt legit?

If a private accreditation company that is solely Christian and only accredit private school's. Why is it a problem? There was a similar organization to years ago but many were saying it was the same one and was accrediting schools for less progress. aci has a policy and procedure also for accreditation. They stick with being non secular. Yale Divinity School compared some of these accredited school's aren't biblical. Power to the people. Reading is so awesome. Head knowledge is wonderful

 

In the academic context, accreditation means quality assurance. If a company isn't doing that credibly, then it isn't a credible accreditor.

https://www.ats.edu/accrediting/standards-and-notations

You are confusing doctrinal orthodoxy (in your case to some sort of fundamentalist Protestantism) with academic soundness and credibility. Religious traditions different than your own can still be taught poorly or well.

The accreditors provide peer review for institutional soundness, educational and degree standards. They don't (with the exception of TRACS) concern themselves with whether a Christian program is suitably "Biblical" or whether it teaches particular church doctrines correctly.

Accreditation just tells you that an institution is credible and that it seemingly teaches its material to an acceptable standard. It doesn't tell you whether the material is to your liking. To assess that, you need to settle on a denomination or a wider religious community of some sort, and then inquire into which schools that community favors. Most churches operate their own seminaries or have opinions on which ones they are most in tune with. They can guide you.

Or alternatively, make the judgement for yourself.

Personally, I'm not a Christian, so my judgments would probably be very different than yours. I do agree with you that the Ivy League divinity schools aren't necessarily the best places to study the traditions and approaches that most interest me. In some cases the Ivy League schools aren't very suitable for that purpose. I can actually think of unaccredited schools that I think are superior. (I've made some posts about them in the past.)

 

First of all, how do you know what types of schools that ACI "accredits"? Their website doesn't list the schools that they accredit, and they have refused to release a list of those schools. Additionally, they do accredit secular schools, Westbrook University being one example, they don't even offer any religious degrees.

http://www.westbrooku.edu/westbrook_endorsements.htm

 

I have attended a few unaccredited programs in the past only just for edification and learning. Not to pursue a degree. There are legit and sound unaccredited programs like third millennium ministries, the Urban ministry Institute, evangelical training association, zondervan academic, American association of Christian counselors, Whitefield Theological Seminary,
Trinity College of the Bible
Newburgh Theological Seminary
Vision International University
Master's International School of Divinity etc has top tier curriculum that are not accredited and has the same quality of standards as other institutions. I'm just using ACI as an example I do not endorse ACI as an accreditation agency. To see the school's they publish you may have to go to their social media page on facebook.

 

I posted ACI in order to strike up a conversation about this topic.
What I have also learned is that many institution's have no affiliation with the associations they claim to be accredited by. I think many of these schools puts private accreditators in a very bad light.

 

I've said many times that I believe there is a place for unaccredited schools, but only if they are legitimate, sincere, AND are upfront & honest about their unaccredited status. I don't know about the first two (legitimate & sincere) for the schools you've listed, but if any are claiming ACI "accreditation", then they fall flat on the third, and therefore invalidate the first two, anyway.

The story has been told many times here, but the predecessor of ACI (International Accrediting Commission or IAC) fell for a sting operation in Missouri, after which they were shut down, but ACI then immediately popped-up and offered automatic accreditation to all former IAC schools. You can read the very amusing story here;

https://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/dm3.html

 

I have read those stories. I'm not an endorser of ACI. The schools that I have listed are not affiliated with ACI.

 

Here's a quick route to my report on ACI and IAC: http://tinyurl.com/y99pz7el

ACI founder/president John Scheel publicly called me a liar for claiming that ACI had offered automatic accreditation to all of the disgraced IAC schools . . . until I posted copies of his letter to IAC schools making exactly that offer. He stopped calling me a liar . . . at least for a while.

 

ACI is an accreditation mill.

 

If you search the archives, it has been discussed many times here.

 

"Tell your mama, tell your pa
I'm gonna send you back to Arkansas" - apologies to Ray Charles

Interesting to note that ACI has re-located to its native Arkansas. It moved for a while (around 2010 IIRC) to Sarasota, Florida.

J.

 

Of course, that could be wrong. The WHOIS record does list a contact in Arkansas, but ACI could be doing business from anywhere, I suppose.
To quote America's Chief Executive (who was NOT talking about ACI) "could be somebody in a bed somewhere."

J.

 

What happened to the unaccredited Greenwich University you started year's ago?

 

false teacher: "What happened to the unaccredited Greenwich University you started year's ago?"

John: This has been discussed many times on this forum. Perhaps a search would find some info. Very briefly, I was involved from early February 1990 to 1992, when my family moved from Hawaii to California and I began my 10-year involvement with Heriot-Watt University/Edinburgh Business School. My former colleague, John Walsh, moved the offices to the place where he lived (and lives), Norfolk Island, where it was granted its own Act of Parliament as a degree-granting university. What happened after that has been written about a great deal, by supporters and detractors. Although I have had no involvement or connection for more than a quarter century, I remain on good terms with John Walsh, and I believe Greenwich lies dormant on Norfolk, possibly waiting for someone to make an offer. The url "greenwich.edu" probably has value.

 

Last I heard, which was some time ago, the going rate for *any* .edu domain was at least 50K to anyone, as no one other than a legit accredited college or university can get a new .edu name. (for about $50, last I looked).

 

I just entered greenwich.edu on a domain valuation site. What a joke! It tells me the value is 2.27 Euros - less than five bucks. So much for that site. What is a mystery to me is how .edu domains get taken up by schools that shouldn't have them - e.g. pcu.edu. That domain originally belonged to a (pre-2001) unaccredited school, Plantation Christian University. That school succeeded, became regionally accredited and changed its name, getting a new domain. The old pcu.edu next showed up on another unaccredited school, Pass Christian University, never located in Pass Christian MS, a school which had no relationship whatsoever to the former Plantation Christian University. Pass Christian U. eventually succumbed and the pcu.edu domain showed up on Paramount California University, another school that definitely should never have had a .edu domain under any circumstances. This school was linked in the media to Axact, the Pakistan-based scam company that operated about 300 bogus schools. Mercifully, Paramount California U. is also gone, now, although it had a short-term "successor," Coronado Pacific U. which became the subject of a racketeering suit, before it, too, closed. https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2016/jan/19/ticker-coronado-pacific-university-sham/

I believe that .edu domains - and their inheritance - should be tightly controlled. Obviously, they aren't.

J.

 

My recollection is that I found about 80 such when I researched it a few years ago. I believe George Gollin has published a list somewhere.

 

That's Oct 2001, I think, Steve. And the main problem is that some old ones get bandied about and pasted on new "schools." A case in point: Back in the 90s pcu.edu was (properly, at that time) the domain of then-unaccredited Plantation Christian University. The school became Regionally Accredited, changed its name and accordingly, got a new .edu domain. Later, the old domain re-surfaced - used by Pass Christian University, an unaccredited school that eventually folded. (It was never located in Pass Christian MS.)

After that, the domain resurfaced once more, on Paramount California University - a school linked in the media with Axact, the Pakistan-based operator of about 300 bogus schools and accreditors. Paramount California closed, but had a "successor" of sorts, Coronado Pacific, which might / might not have used the domain a fourth time - I'm not sure. That school, too, folded amid a suit re: racketeering. https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2016/jan/19/ticker-coronado-pacific-university-sham/#

This kind of abuse is why I think the .edu domains (including the very old ones) should be more tightly controlled. I've seen several instances like this: old .edu domains re-used by newer schools without recognized accreditation, somehow transferred from a "grandfathered" school - i.e. an unaccredited school having the .edu domain prior to Oct. 2001.

Looks like when "Grandfather" dies, totally unrelated villains gather, vying and jostling to inherit the old man's priceless .edu domain. It's macabre! There should be an opera - or at least a Stephen King novel!