Ssh... wanna buy an university?

Discussion in 'Accreditation Discussions (RA, DETC, state approva' started by Mac Juli, Oct 11, 2020.

Loading...
  1. Mac Juli

    Mac Juli Well-Known Member

    Hello!

    Stumbled upon a funny thing while surfing the net. There is an "university" on the net which awards among others a "Bachelor in Theology" for $175. All this "accredited", if you can say so, by FLDOE under religious extemption.

    Doing a little recherche, I found that this whole thing is for sale. If you want to buy this thing for $129.000, you can do so under https://china*dot*businessesforsale*dot*com/chinese/genesis-university-100-online-education-business-for-sale*dot*aspx

    Best regards,
    Mac Juli
     
  2. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    You should inquire and ask them about cash flow, etc. Could be interesting.
     
    Mac Juli likes this.
  3. Mac Juli

    Mac Juli Well-Known Member

    ...yes, that's what I am afraid of...
     
  4. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    C'est toujours une bonne idée.
     
    Mac Juli likes this.
  5. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    (1) No you can't say so. It's not accredited - it's licensed by the State -not accredited by them. If they only award religious-themed degrees - they qualify regardless of standards.
    (2) Why would anybody BUY this "Home of the $199 Doctorate" for $129K when they can make their own for maybe 1K including a diploma printer?

    100K+ to buy a Titelmühle? Not usually. But for a fampous one (like this isn't)? I hear Axact paid $1 million for Almeda U, over 30 months -- but that place did huge numbers. That's different.

    Buy this one? That would be stoopid. And who wants that? In another thread, it's mentioned that the Breyer State guys started a similar Florida school, American National Theism University, that issues "Ethereal" degrees under religious exemption. Bet they have a LOT less than $129K in it. If these places actually sell - you should maybe create and immediately sell 7 or 8 - you'd walk away a millionaire.

    Il faut moins de recherche. Plus de travail. :D
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2020
    Mac Juli likes this.
  6. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    deleted -dup post.
     
  7. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    BTW - there's another TRADEMARKED Genesis University at www.genesis3.com. It has to do exclusively with the pool and spa business and offers IACET-accredited Continuing Education. (That's REAL accreditation for Continuing ED.) Don't want to confuse this school with the Titelmühle Genesis. Maybe there will be a "cease and desist" letter in the works. Who knows?

    Ma recherche est maintenant finie. :) Le tout ne vaut plus d'effort.
     
  8. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    @Mac Juli I'll make you a deal here, Mac. Instead of this Florida outfit, you can buy Die Alte und Freie Universität von Johann, complete with Dueling Society, Great Seal, several dozen Bierkrüge and a stack of fancy diploma blanks, for $129,000. I'm sure you can flip the whole caboodle for $500K. :)
     
    Maniac Craniac and Mac Juli like this.
  9. Mac Juli

    Mac Juli Well-Known Member

    Hello!


    Oh, you are making me an offer I can't refuse...? Guess I'll pass.
    However, I would like to add that there is a Genesis University in Florida which is DEAC-accredited and which should not be confused with this one for sale: https://genesisu.edu/. It offers degrees in religious studies and Judaic studies. At a cost of US$ 60 per credit, it might well worth a look!!


    Best regards,
    Mac Juli
     
    Johann likes this.
  10. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    There are a lot of things I like about that school, Mac. One is the transferability of credits. Most of them are NCCRS-approved which means transfer acceptance at a list of 1,500+ schools. Another is that they teach courses in personal finance - something very important and sadly overlooked in many schools. The need for such courses, I think, cannot be overstated. Another good thing: besides Hebrew, of obvious importance in religious studies, they also teach Yiddish - an enjoyable language. Das iz gevaldig! (That's great!) :)
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2020
  11. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    You can't even say they're licensed because they're not. They're exempt from licensing. In a world where you require a license to do something you are the exception and can operate without one; that's what a religious exemption is (at least in the FL sense).
     
    Johann likes this.
  12. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    My bad. Thanks for the correction. I thought they still had to pay a licensing fee - $175 or something like that, but no further questions would be asked.

    So it's just "permission granted." No wonder all these slippery schools want in... :eek:
     
  13. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    In the US you can set up a religious university for less than 5K. Just register a church and then a university, you can legally grant degrees after this. There are companies that can set Universities in Costa Rica and Dominica for less than 20K that legally can grant degrees.

    The problem is not so much to buy your own University but to sell the degree program. You can grant an MBA in Church Administration or an MBA in Accounting for Church Management that are not accredited but I think with schools like ENEB selling real MBAs for 199 the market is pretty much done with low profile legal degrees.
     
  14. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Yes - It is legal to establish these and grant degrees - but they don't have to be worth anything - and they aren't.

    As far as MBAs in Church Administration and MBAs in Church Accounting go - they were a dodge for the lower-end of US religious-exempt schools. Authorities frowned upon them, as religious-exempt schools were only allowed to issue religion-oriented degrees and these Church-flavored ones were deemed to be encroaching on secular fields. There are less of them today, because they're known to be watched-for. 10-15 years ago, different story.

    There is no reason for any spoofy-but-legal foreign schools to use this "Church" MBA device. They can grant degrees in anything they like - secular or not, equally legal, equally worthless. And nobody seems to care if they go right over the top. I remember a Uni domiciled in Dominica that sold distance MD degrees for about $5000. Don't try to get licensed - or G*d forbid, practice medicine with one of those "degrees." Nobody cares what the school does, it seems, but they care what YOU do. From the O.R. to the pokey - guaranteed. And that's as it should be, I think.

    And yes - ENEB deals improve the market. If you can get a "real" degree (whatever the limitations) for $199 - only a moron would buy a bogus one. But there are still morons and other subnormals around... people who could not, on a bet, complete the work required for a Grouponista degree.
     
    Last edited: Dec 10, 2020
  15. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    I've noticed that there are quite a few schools lately, that teach secular and religious subjects tend to apply for TRACS accreditation -Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools. They're a bona-fide, recognized US accreditor, founded in 1979, that can now accredit schools that offer programs both secular and religious. They don't accredit everyone, but they seem to me like an outfit that looks for sincerity and basic competence and will give such a school the best chance they can, given the quite stringent financial requirements for any school to become accredited.

    Quite a few of the unaccredited schools facing California's "Accredit or Die" legislation hastily added a few religious courses and applied to TRACS, figuring that was their only chance of meaningful accreditation. TRACS saw through that handily. It didn't work. Good job, TRACS!

    A different type of applicant has recently had their TRACS application approved. Hopefully, they will achieve Candidacy status in the New Year. This is Morris Brown College, a HBCU in Atlanta GA. This 100+ year-old school lost its Regional Accreditation (SACS-COC) 18 years ago, due to a financial mismanagement scandal. The mismanagers are long gone and the Community and the school have put a lot of work (and money) into rebuilding trust. I wish them - and Morris Brown students - well.

    https://morrisbrown.edu/another-major-win-for-morris-brown-college-accreditation-application-approved/
     
  16. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    I must apologize for my awful and over-hasty choice of words. Morons are defined as people of limited intelligence - IQ around 70, I think - and that is not their fault and they should not be slagged for it - by me or anyone else.

    Mentally-challenged people are not usually buyers of fraudulent degrees - unless tricked into it by unscrupulous liars. Bogus degrees go largely to people of limited ethics, limited ambition and limited commitment. People who might, if they worked at it, be able to work things out well enough to get by in a legit program of not-too-onerous standards. But they don't. Because they're lazy or sneaky - not because they have any impediment. In other words, people who WOULD not, on a bet - not people who COULD not.

    My apologies. I have no wish to offend any one of the millions of individuals, leading good lives and doing their level best (and even more!) under tough conditions not of their making. My bad - totally. Never again, I promise.
     
    Last edited: Dec 10, 2020
  17. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Felt so bad about this I did some research. The old words for various intelligence ranges - e.g. moron, idiot, imbecile have long fallen from the med / psych professions. These categorization terms were still in official use when I was first taught them almost 60 years ago - in Teachers' College, of all places! Back then, "moron" officially meant a person with an IQ between 51 and 70. It shouldn't be used at all any more. By anyone. The person who cut you off in traffic is a "chucklehead." Or perhaps any more profane or obscene substitute you choose...
     
    Last edited: Dec 10, 2020
  18. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    I actually saw a documentary about this, I wish I could find it again. It was on Henry H. Goddard, who did the basic research on intelligence and IQ and coined those terms, but unfortunately thought it was far more inheritable than it really was. He also thought things like alcoholism were heritable (we understand they change the brain in ways that can increase one's potential to become substance-dependent but it's certainly not a given.) He went on to become a prominent eugenicist and advocated screening for IQ so that people with lower IQs could be institutionalized. The New England citizen and father of a large family of prosperous individuals. All of the children that came from this relationship were "wholesome" and had no signs of developmental disabilities.[3] But according to Goddard, a child was born by the dalliance with "the nameless feeble-minded girl". This single child, a male, called Martin Kallikak Jr. in the book (real name John Wolverton, 1776–1861[2]), went on to father more children, who fathered their own children, and on and on down the generations. And so with the Kallikaks, Goddard claims to have discovered, one has as close as one could imagine an experiment in the hereditability of intelligence, moral ability, and criminality. On the "feeble-minded" side of the Kallikak family, descended from the abandoned single-parent barmaid, the children wound up poor, mentally ill, delinquent, and intellectually disabled." target="_blank" class="externalLink" rel="nofollow">Wikipedia article on the book he wrote "proving" his theory is illuminating.

    I really appreciate your self-reflection on the choice of language. We we would all benefit from more of the same.

    Edit: That should be "proving" with quotes. It was barely science.
     
  19. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    For $35,000 you can buy Alpha University, which according to their somewhat buggy website promises 0% online education, 0 percent hours transfer and 0 Christian University.
    alpha.png
    Well, at least they're honest.
     
  20. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Documents / Documentaries on the tragedies and travesties heaped on the mentally challenged in America are easy to find, Dustin. And America is far from alone in this - but holds some particularly egregious examples. And one of them - compulsory sterilization - has persisted into the 21st Century. Here's something from a 1964 screed:

    "Like running a train, teaching school or handling money, the job of parenthood is too much to expect of feeble-minded men and women."
    "The average feeble-minded parent cannot be expected to provide
    - good heredity
    - a normal home
    - intelligent care
    to say nothing of the many other things needed to bring children up successfully."

    Not only the mentally challenged were affected by these American law-sanctioned sterilization procedures. Not by a long shot. Major targets were African-Americans and other minorities, Natives and poor whites. Nazi Germany took its cues from American compulsory sterilization laws. All you can stand and then some, here:
    https://theconversation.com/forced-sterilization-policies-in-the-us-targeted-minorities-and-those-with-disabilities-and-lasted-into-the-21st-century-143144
     
    Last edited: Dec 10, 2020

Share This Page