"Degrees of Fraud"-Up to 8,000 indictments

Todays Jerusalem Post story reveals that approximately 8,000 individuals may be indicted in israel for posession of diploma mill degrees.

 

The story is at http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/12/23/Features/Features.40426.html

Unfortunately, no specific schools are named, other than the aforementioned (here a week or two ago) University of Latvia and Burlington College.

It sounds as if the concern is with probably legal but nonwonderful non-Israeli schools operating in Israel. Not clear if that means non-GAAP. (There was a man who was very active on a.e.d. who was the American Coastline University representative for Israel, who seemed, constantly, to be looking for reassurance, and/or for some slightly better school to represent.)

 

The President of Burlington College in VT has initiated an internal investigation. He said he was very concerned about situation. He does not want Burlington Colleges accreditation affected. In a local television interview last week Daniel Casey said BC VT had an extension program in Israel from '96 to '98 and enrolled 636 students the first year. He reported that the transcripts are Burlington College records and are located in VT with all the other college transcripts. He said the curriculum for the degrees was the same in Israel as in VT. He stated many BC VT staff had visited the Modum/ISE sites and inspected classrooms, talked with teachers, reviewed student products, and looked at record keeping methods.
Casey said the reason BC VT ended the relationship was due to the changes in the law. BC VT would have had to provide a significant paper library and have too many full time staff in Israel to make an extension campus economically viable. Casey says that he believes Burlington College has operated ethically and met or exceeded undergraduate student education standards.
Maureen Hirten, the BC VT registrar said two weeks ago that the Israel students generally had three years of college and were taking a 4th year, or 30 credits, part-time to attain a Bachelor's degree. She said that the standards used in Israel were the same as those used in VT.
My personal belief is that BC VT does believe that it was offering a program in Israel essentially similar to the one on the home VT campus. I also think the profit that BC VT was able to make was due to having just part-time faculty in Israel as opposed to mostly full-time faculty in VT. However, it is unclear how a large number of part-time faculty on a far off extension campus would have the supervision to maintain the same quality of curriculum as on the home campus. That is a question all programs with an extension campus must address.
If what Casey and Hirten say is true, then part-time faculty would have been verifying through grade reports that students actually did complete classes. Modum/ISE would have been the main source to ensure the part-time faculty were offering real classes, students were going to class, turning in student products, and meeting university standards. Obviously, Modum/ISE would be a BC VT contractor.
The number of students in Israel is also troubling. With 636 students in Israel in 1996, the Israel student body would have been bigger than the VT campus. So which site would be the "extension?"
Burlington College has been a small, liberal, and reputable school. I don't believe they would have knowingly been part of the frauds described.
All the best for the 2nd day of Xmas!

 

... well he found it - his last 'accredited product' was CEU )

PF

 

I you could, please, Dear (really) Dr. John Bear, contact me through [email protected]
I'll be delighted personally, and the readers of this forum - established by you ?...- will learn the real truth...