Any other accredited university that had a checkered past?

I paid a flat fee for my degrees from CCU. You could get an BS for $3,500 or a BS/MBA combo for $4,750 (I think). I know it was cheaper to sign up for both degrees vs. paying for them one at at time.

All the course work was required for each degree. It was not "sold" it was a flat fee.

 

Hi Randell,

What year did you start your coursework with CCU and when did you graduate? Also, do you happen to have a course catalog or catalogs from that time period?

Abner

 

Hi Dr. Pina,

Good to hear from you. Do you happen to know when CWU formally became CCU? Also, did CWU have the BPPVE State approval? Or was it later after CWU became known as CCU?


Thanks,

Abner

 

Steve Levicoff and I had an ongoing friendly disagreement about our perceptions of Cal Coast. He always considered it a mill; I, based on comments from a number of people who had done coursework there, felt it was one of the very, very few legitimate unaccredited schools.

As I can remember, CCU was, as long as I was aware of them, pretty clear and up front about being unaccredited and wasn't seeking to do anything toward accreditation. As far as I know, they never claimed fraudulent accreditation. I'm guessing that, over time, competitive pressures caused them to rethink that decision, and unlike KWU and its current attempt to flee its past, CCU already had a long history of integrity to look back on.

Contrast that with the quote from the president of the then-newly-accredited ACCIS who said that advertising totally fraudulent accreditation up to the instant they got DETC accredited was a "business decision." I hope that the "business decisions" of KWU aren't similarly overlooked by accreditors when it gets considered.

 

Our programmes are offered at a flat rate.

 

Hi Abner,

Please note that I was just stating alluding to other posts regarding CCU that I had read on the forum. I certainly wouldn't take anything that I read online as gospel! I considered attending CCU in the past, and frankly the only reason that I did not pull the trigger was their tuition model. Otherwise, the school looked fine. A colleague of mine received his BS and MBA through CCU and he was very pleased with the experience.

Tom

 

Hi Rich,

Thanks for the feedback. This is not my opinion of the school. I do not know enough about CCU's history to have an informed opinion regarding the matter. However, I do know that CCU was linked to "millish" behavior, according to members of this forum (which of course, should be taken with a grain of salt, as should most information obtained from online forums). From what Abner has dug up regarding the issue, perhaps these charges were unfounded. In either case, I certainly think CCU as it stands today, is a fine example of a DETC accredited school.

Tom

 

Ditto! Last year, I enrolled in the Aspen MS in Information Technology program, for $3,000.

Tom

 

Damn dude! You got the best deal of all. You certainly won't see the $3,000.00 deal anymore, trust me on that.

Abner

 

Thanks for the enlightening responses, everyone!

 

I started in 2001 and finished the BS program in 9 months. I went right into the MBA program and it wook me 18 months and wrapped up in 2003. I do not have the old catalog but you may want to ask Dr Barcroft (I think that is his name) at CCU if he has an old copy. I spoke to him many times and he is a great guy.

 

Yes, that's true. I was also fortunate in that I was accepted into the M.S. IT program without a Bachelor's degree. Aspen previously had a special program whereby applicants could apply into several of their graduate programs (MBA, MSIT, MSIM, MBA/IM) without having a Bachelor's degree (provided said applicants had 15+ of work experience and three professional references). They abolished this program just 11 days after I was accepted into the program! Talk about cutting it close!

Tom

 

No kidding! Good for you.

Abner

 

Tom Neal applied to the Calif. State Dept. of Education in June, 1974 under the name "California State College of Santa Ana". This was a pretty bold move, since a few of the California State Universities were still called "California State College". No wonder he changed the name the next day to "California Western University". California Western was the school's name until 1981, when Neal lost a name infringement lawsuit brought by the California Western School of Law. The name was changed thereafter to California Coast University.

At the time, California had a three-tiered system of "State Authorized," "State Approved" and "Accredited". The lowest of these required only that the institution have, if I recall,$50,000 in assets. A CCU catalog that I possessed in the early 80s (I grew up about 10 miles north of Santa Ana) prominently displayed its "full institutional approval" by the State of California, so it may have received this prior to the CWU/CCU name change. Perhaps Dr. Bear or Dr. Douglas will know.

 

Thanks so much for the information Dr. Pina. If you happen to have find a catalog from that time period, perhaps you could scan or fax me a copy? If not, I will contact the school to see if they have anything from that time period.

Gracias Doctor, siempre eres un caballero!


Abner

 

No hay de que. My CCU catalog, unfortunately, was lost during a move. CCU should have older catalogs on file. At least as early as 1979, CCU's catalog featured accreditation by the National Association of Private Nontraditional Schools & Colleges, which made a valiant effort over many years to be recognized by the U.S. Dept. of Education.

CCU has taken its share of flak over the years; however, its 2005 accreditation by DETC was a definite turning point and did much to silence many of the critics. Anyone who has researched the subject knows that there are an awful lot of successful CCU grads out there.

 

The two events happened really near each other. So much so that, at the time, I wondered if their approval was predicated on changing to a less-confusing name. Perhaps they are unrelated since we know about the original CWU's action to protect its abandoned name.

At the time of CCU's approval, California was approving programs one at a time. As such, some schools had one or more programs approved, while other degrees offered by these schools fell under the "Authorized" category. Columbia Pacific was one example, prior to the shift to institutional approval. Another was International College, which had (briefly) a bachelor's program in conjunction with an accredited school, an Approved master's, and an Authorized Ph.D.

The state wiped out the three-tier system in or about 1989, requiring all schools to be approved. This served to drive out the most blatant diploma mills (Sorry, Golden State, U. of Beverly Hills, Century, and Kennedy-Western), but it also destroyed the value of having your programs become approved. Being approved became mundane, not a rare and difficult achievement to be celebrated. And because the state could no longer focus on a few approved programs, it was swamped with the task of approving thousands of schools, which it has never done well. (Nor has it be resourced properly to do so.)

 

I don't think your facts are exactly correct. American Sentinel University was never known as American College for Computer and Information Sciences or American College for Computer Studies. Many years after ACCIS was accredited by DETC, it was purchased by American Sentinel.

Therefore, any sins of ACCIS can't be attributed to American Sentinel.

 

American Sentinel University did not purchase the American College for Computer and Information Sciences; American Sentinel University is the result of a merger between the American College for Computer and Information Sciences and the American Graduate School of Management. www.americansentinel.edu/About_Us/index.php

 

I could be wrong - it wouldn't be the first time. But your link leads me to the following:

"American Sentinel's educational approach is backed by top leaders in higher education in North America. American Sentinel was founded as a Vanderbilt University Technology Company.."

If I recall, it was a merger in the sense that American Sentinel purchased American College of Computer & Information Science. But it was the top management of American Sentinel that took over the management of American College - not the other way around.