Acceptance of DETC-accredited degrees: let's find out!

The precedent
7 or 8 years ago, there was a 'Deep Throat' person, who worked at the then-huge "University Degree Program" diploma mill operating from Bucharest, Romania, who was willing to supply great amounts of information and documentation on the operation: names, addresses, bank accounts, internal documents, etc. He proved his legitimacy to the FBI's satisfaction, but the FBI was not willing to pay the $3,000 he was asking for the information. I raised the issue here, and enough people put in $100 each ($200 in the case of Uncle Janko) to make the deal. The information was received, and turned over to the relevant authorities (each 'investor' got a copy). I think it is safe to say that that endeavor was the major factor in exposing and, eventually, ending that huge international operation.

The Proposal
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that we could get the registrars of 500 regionally-accredited universities in a room, and they agreed to give us 15 minutes of their time. Suppose we gave them a very short and simple two-item questionnaire, something like this:
-----------------------------------------------------
1. With regard to degrees and transfer credits from schools accredited by the Distance Education and Training Council, do you accept them
(a) always
(b) usually
(c) sometimes
(d) rarely
(e) never

2. If the courses taken from DETC-accredited schools have been independently evaluated by the American Council on Education's College Credit Recommendation Service, would that make a difference? Would you accept them
(a) always
(b) usually
(c) sometimes
(d) rarely
(e) never
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Wouldn't that be wonderful information to have, not just for the DegreeInfo community, but for the world of higher education at large?

We're probably not going to get them all in a room . . . although that is not out of the question, if AACRAO, the American Association of Registrars and Admissions Officers, were willing to cooperate; it could happen at one of their national or regional conventions.

But it could be done by mail and/or email.

I am not the one to do this. For one thing, I am immensely busy for the rest of this year: writing deadlines, moving house, and a long trip to Europe. For another, I think it could make a splendid group project, under the aegis of DegreeInfo (if the owners are willing). Developing the research protocols and design. Writing and producing the cover letter and questionnaire. Acquiring the relevant mailing list, and digitizing it if necessary. Sending it out. Reminding the large percentage who don't return it. Reminding more. Harassing. And, crucially, analyzing data and writing it all up. Then endeavoring either to publish or present. (It would be a natural for the AACRAO convention. Maybe even for the DETC convention. (If they turned it down, that's interesting information as well.))

I'd be glad to be involved as a catalyst in getting things off the ground. Or I would, truly, be at least as happy to awake from a coma one morning and find that it had all been done, and the final report was lying on my table.

And so . . . is there interest? Advanced degrees (indeed any degree) not required. There is 'donkey work' as well as some advanced statistical analysis needed.

 

It might help, but I would guess that the vast majority (if not all) of the responses would fall into the last three choices.

I don't see how that would help, except to reinforce the notion that DETC is useless.

 

Or NA in general, including the other agencies.

 

Well, I am a bit busy with - finishing my dissertation (after my chair just dropped out), working full time, teaching online, taking a marketing class for an MBA in Marketing from TUI, and trying to get my own business off the ground.

Other then that I can spare about 6 minutes a week . I would be interested and have paid for the full version of Survey Monkey so I can post the survey if that helps.

 

Here we go again...are there any adults around here?

 

Randell: Great. Would you spend those 6 minutes for a week or two, maybe three, to find a source of names, titles, emails, and addresses of collegiate registrars? (And if you can't find this in 18 minutes, then someone else, with a few more minutes, could take it on.) Thanks. --John

 

NOT USELESS its more career oriented and don't forget that most graduates who earn DETC degree are industry oriented and not so match seeing them selves teaching in colleges. (STIGMA - these who cant have good successful career in industry go to teach as a last resort)

Also NA universities have no partying, no drugs, sororities and all that come with this. And possibly no old boys clubs.

There is good utility of NA degrees and people get good jobs holding such degrees.

 

I think this is a great idea, and degreeinfo would defintely be willing to help. We have a new member of our team who is working as we speak on school research (to replace the godawful search widget) and doing some other cool stuff.

If somebody who is knowledgeable can help develop a survey that won't be biased, I think the information would be extremely useful and might actually put to rest at least part of the controversy.

Perhaps Rich's original survey questions, modified, would be helpful if he'd be willing to allow us to use them?

 

Re the Year 2000 survey

Well it was my survey, actually. Rich did the statistical analysis, once the results were in, and a fine job he did.

That survey was, I think, much too long and detailed for this purpose. It asked for a 7-point rating for each of thirteen different kinds of schools, from regionally accredited residential to various kinds of state licensing to various kinds of non-US recognition. And it didn't ask about the ACE-evaluated courses, which I now believe increase acceptance of DETC-accredited degrees.

I believe there would have been a much higher response rate with something like the 2-item one that I suggested.

But, as indicated, I am happy to take a back seat (or wait outside the door) while others do some, most, or all of the work.

--John

 

Such a survey will be nice to have. Even if all it shows is the transfer of credit from NA to RA or ability to enter in to further learning at RA university.

It would be nice also to have a survey among employers HR departments to have some statistics based on similar questions with small change as the same employer may hire DETC degreed persons for some departments and not for other.

So to add simple devision between lets say Management, IT, Engineering, Operations, Nursing, Call Center jobs, Banking or something like that. noting to complicated.

I'm willing to communicate with employers.
Who should be targeted? Government, what type of jobs?
City, counties, 100 fortune, 500 fortune.

Have some foreign companies in some other countries etc of focus only on USA.

A basic Excel spreadsheet will do for the beginning.

 

Having done some survey research over the years, I have learned that it is very easy to develop a survey; however, it is very difficult to develop a GOOD survey in which the items are worded to produce truly usable results.

This topic seems both fun and worthwhile; I would like to volunteer to help with the instrument development and in writing it up into a conference presentation and publishable article (background information, references & citations, etc.). My Registrar should be able to help with contact information for some other registrars.

 

I suggest not limiting the survey to DETC accreditation. It might be better to ask the questions in a form relating to schools/credits that are non-regionally accredited but accredited by another USDoE/CHEA recognized institutional accreditor.

I think this approach might give a better picture overall.

 

While including other national institutional accrediting bodies, such as ACICS, AALE, TRACS, etc. would yield some interesting data, it might also make the study unwieldy, since each of these bodies accredits specific types of schools (career colleges, liberal arts colleges, evangelical Christian colleges, etc.) A decision would have to be made as to which of the national accrediting bodies would be included and which would be left off and why.

I think a focus on DETC by itself would constitute a viable study

 

I'll take on some of the "donkey work" as Dr. Bear described it.

I'm willing to gather Registrar information from SACS schools. I'll take Alabama through North Carolina: Commission on Colleges I can start from there and gather more if necessary.

 

Really the interest here is what attributes of a degree yield more acceptance, right? Going in heavy with one accrediting body singled out could skew the results because in this field people don’t want to be seen as making a mistake, and they could think they made a mistake and this survey is designed to fish them out!

To keep it simple, why not pick 4 schools, each one a good representation of its accreditation, and simply ask, all other things equal, if a student had taken a single, identically cataloged course from each of the mentioned schools, which courses would be considered for transfer or business reimbursement. Maybe include a catalog description with the assumption. That's it, no other information about the school..

Pick one really good named RA school, one unknown RA school, one of the top DETC schools, and a non-inflammatory state only approved school.

Seems to me this approach or one like it is a real evaluation since it is the school/course/program/degree that is either accepted or not…

 

Oh just thinking, make sure that all the schools are from the same state so geography does not come into play..

 

One more thing, move this thread from the ‘unaccredited’ section as, at least to me, it suggests a bias going into this whole thing given national verse regional accreditation is under review not un-accreditation. …

 

That it does … excellent suggestion.