News story re. hospital administrator with K-W degree

Some question hospital official's qualifications; HOSPITAL: Vice president defends his degree, says he earned his job through experience, Matthew Van Dusen, NWI Times (Indiana), December 3, 2004.

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Question

This always seems to be the first line of defense for those caught out. If that is the case, just why did he bother to get a mill degree in the first place? Don't you hate it when common sense gets in the way of a perfectly good story....

 

This guy should be mortified that people suspect that he's an academic fraud. It is true that he's saying that he earned a degree that he didn't actually earn. The question in my mind is whether or not he realized that he hadn't really earned the degree? However, if his mainline defense to the charge of academic fraud is that he earned his job through experience then it means to me that he's saying, "please forgive my academic fraud because I didn't really use it to get ahead". Also Rael said the accusation the school is a diploma mill is "the school's problem." Is saying, "Blame KWU that I'm an academic fraud, not me."

 

I found that kind of amusing myself..... Just another example of people not wanting to be accountable for their actions.

 

Life/job experience "degrees"

And, perhaps, the life experience degree will become more widely accepted among all those other low-qualility and sub-standard RA degrees that are floating around out there.... regretable as that may be to those who have earned respectable credentials, but a real possibility in a world of "democratized" education: " No citizen left behind," along with no child.

If you can't earn it in school, you can always pay to have your experiences validated as degree-equivalent. Is it really fraud if the individual with the experience degree is competent and does have the knolwedge, in fact, that may so-called grads lack ? I wonder ?

revans

 

Done in a legitimate manner at a legimate school I see no problem in it. KW isn't in that ball park.

 

Re: Life/job experience "degrees"

No, it isn't fraud to get your prior learning validated and assigned appropriate college credit. This is not new and is done routinely at any number of accredited institutions. The problem has never been getting academic credit for what you know, or even an entire degree for what you already know. The problem comes when businesses, pretending to be academic institutions, masquerade as though they have a legitimate process for offering real academic credit. They don’t and it isn’t.

 

low standards vs. fraud

I tend to agree.

The problem is designating academic fraud. Is grade inflation fraud ? Is awarding a degree to quasi-literates fraud ? These things happen all around the "legitimate" edcuational sector but I do not hear howls of fraud very often; but let some poor fool buy a "life exprerience" degree, and she gets branded a fraud at once whereas the half-educated clutz in the next cube, with the sub-standard but "legitimate" degree comes off untainted. I only wonder if this problem of rather obvious degree-buying fraud is being driven, at least in part, by less obvious, but real academic fraud in the so-called legitimate educational sector (grade inflation, passes for jocks, low standards for college admission and degrees, pressure to pass all just for effort, etc.) ?

 

Strawman?

 

Yea, like I saw some thieves arguing that what they did wasn't wrong because large corporations rip off consumers everyday.

 

Jinne man, this is getting close to home.

 

Re: low standards vs. fraud

Legitimate educational institutions have peer reviewed processes and are regularly audited on how well they implement those processes. In this scenario, fraud can still occur. Humans make even perfect systems imperfect.

However, in businesses that pretend to be academic institutions, there is no peer review and there is no auditing and there is no real process and the whole thing is a sham from beginning to end. In this scenario, the process doesn't require fraudulent intervention by humans as the process itself is a fraud.

There is no comparison between legitimate processes being occasionally undermined, and shams that begin and end with nefarious intentions, by design.

 

Re: Re: low standards vs. fraud

Well, I suppose it is a matter of how "occasional" occasional is, as well as looking at the final results of college education overall. If a fair number of "legimtately" degreed folks are not very well educated desipte their legitimate credentials, this situation might persuade the un-degreed, but educated folks to try to beat a broken system. It's hard to argue for integrity when much around you speaks its lack.

It has been my experience to watch a great decline in univeristy-level academic standards since the mid-1960's. I opine, on the basis of personal obsevations, that many grads don't know very much after an undergraduate degree program; many do, of course, but the results of college work seem to me uneven.

I think in terms of results more than processes; obviously a "legitmate" process has a better chance of offering rigor than a bogus process; however, I have grave reservations about outcomes of the much of what is considered legitimate education in American society today... Just an opinon that would be hard to prove in court.

 

To me, this seems similar to arguing that it is okay to murder people that smoke because smokers are killing themselves anyway.

It's called rationalization not logical argument.

 

understandable, not necessarily morally good

I do not suggest that the use of bogus degrees is a particularly good, moral thing, but that it may be understandable in the context of so much that is bogus about the "real" thing. The use of degrees as work-place credentials can only be meaningful if there is a real difference between degree holders and non-degreed people (e.g. a trained physician vs. a self proclaimed doc/quack). If both degreed individuals and the undegreed are at the same level, why bother to use degrees as a standard of distinction in the first place. I don't see anything illogical in this claim.

 

Re: understandable, not necessarily morally good

This is simply a strawman argument to try and spin the subject away from the substandard degrees. If you have a problem with companies or organizations requiring a degree instead of just the knowledge and skills to do the job then you have a point. But, a degree is a level of academic achievement not how well someone can do a job. Most people would agree that OJT, working under someone for 4 years learning a job, would make someone better at the job than someone who has been in school learning a variety of things. However, this has little to do with what a degree or university is supposed to be about.

The reason why a degree is given at colleges and universities is because the student has met the criteria and minimum standards in order to graduate. Most schools share these same minimum standards, but the schools that short change these standards are at best substandard and at worst diploma mills. Most of these schools do not do so for the sake of the students, but do so to make money instead of give an education. This is something that you can try to spin, but every time you look back at the specifics of such schools the picture is clear.

 

The funny thing...

To me, the funniest part of the page is the section at the bottom where they are hawking "life experience" degrees right below the story. I mean really, how stupid are folks? Apparently . . .

 

Re: Re: understandable, not necessarily morally good

I am surely not trying "to spin the subject away from substandard degrees"; if fact, I oppose substandard degrees from RA institutions or bogus institutions, equally. I just don't see much difference between one substandard degree or another, no matter what its source. That's my point: substandard is substandard. If a degree is to be a meaningful job criterion (I don't think that it is in many cases), it needs to distinguish the degree holder from the non-degree holder or such a degree requirement for a job is itself a bogus requirement (credentialism; vid. Alan Contreras). Folks are not unreasonalbe (perhaps unethical, though) to attempt to level the playing field against bogus requirements in the job market. This attempt to beat unfair credentialism is one major reason for the proliferation of "fake" degrees, in my opinion. The acceleration of fake degrees must have a motivation; it's not that most people just want to spend $500 on a store-bought credential to hang on the wall (I must confess I do like mine; they look better than real ones) just for vanity.

Compeletion of an academic course of study may or may not qualify a person for a certain type of job; unfortunately, the college degree is used in our society as an catch-all, entry-level qualification is very many cases, whether that degree represents real attainment or not. Many undergraduate degrees represent little academic attainment; others, of course, do. But who determines who has a "good" degree and who has "poor" one in a mass system of education ?

I favor much tougher university degree requirements: I mean comprehensive exams and theses/projects (published on the web for all to judge) as well as a movement away from using generic undergrad degrees as entry-level requirement for jobs that do not demand specific university-level knowledge. As for bogus degrees, if real ones really endowded the holder with special knowledge and skills that were observable, I suspect that fake degrees would be in trouble.

 

Possible history related to this topic:
1. quality of education system declining since 1960s, due to social topics gaining importance over science and math
2. quality of high school graduates declines
3. corporate entry-level hiring requirements increase to minimum bachelor's degree for jobs that previously only required high school diploma
4. brick and mortar college entrance requirments decline as result of declining high school graduation requirements
5. brick and mortar graduation requirements decline as a result of lower entrance requirements
6. unaccredited colleges gain popularity due to lower cost, their graduation requirements approaching brick and mortar requirements, effective use of the Internet for distance learning
7. brick and mortar begin to market and deliver their distance learning programs via Internet
7. degree mills result from demand from public responding to increase entry level hiring requirements and economical marketing via the Internet (supply and demand)

 

Originally posted by Revans:

The accreditors! They are there to maintain minimum standards. Unaccredited schools do not have anyone to answer to which is why these articles continually come out embarrassing their consumers. Most unaccredited schools do not have integrity, and do not really care about education. They are all about money.

I think you are concentrating too much on job requirements rather than what a degree is. A degree is a level of academic achievement, and not a job training program. The two are not the same, even if many jobs require a degree.

On 20/20 last night the program was about steroids. The guy caught selling to all the many athletes rationalized it just as you have. Just because others may or may not be doing it and getting by with it then you should to make the playing field level. So, cheat because others may be cheating too. It is easy to think that way, but that does not make it right. To me players like Bonds, Sheffield, and Giambi will never be a Ruth, Aaron, or Rose even if they break their records because they cheated.

BTW, I am not sure I get your Alan Contreras comment, could you explain what you mean by that?