Is it Worth Getting an Unaccredited Degree

I kind of look back with nostalgia to those days when some of the innovative California schools were around (some even allowed people to be licensed as Psychologists in California).

Columbia Pacific was one such innovative school (at least early on).

Many (not all) of the unaccredited religious schools now are anything but innovative. They are out and out substandard entities run by people without credentials.

 

I dunno, Bill. The B-I-G mill outfits are now in other countries - and the most successful ring has over 300 "schools" and a couple of dozen bogus accrediting organizations. Slicker websites now - with American or Euro-sounding names, hijacked pictures of ivy-covered buildings, the works.

They make more money than the US mills used to make. In fact, a few years back, Axact (Pakistan) BOUGHT the "famous" Almeda U. (mentioned by @Garp in Post #1 here) from its American owner for a million dollars - peanuts to them. In fact, authorities estimate Axact received about $140 million in US-based bank accounts from 2006-2015 when it was shut down by Pakistani authorities.

Axact regrouped quite quickly - it now seems immune to the justice system in its home country. They've assumed a new name and from what I've been told, they've been doing a roaring trade. And they're not the only people - but I would still say they're the biggest.

Mills are not dead - they're just run from different places. They still like US dollars.

 

Yes. And an even more robust business was done in the MFCC arena.

CPU was innovative, but its standards varied widely. They used to publish gorgeous promotional materials!

The unaccredited religious schools are mostly diploma mills, set up to grant academic titles to people who do not earn them.

 

News article re: the above.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/657150-axact-still-in-business-claims-ex-fbi-head-of-diploma-scam-task-force

 

Mostly. EO and EC schools I mentioned are not that though. Standard seminary programs, just very small.

 

"Hostile" how? There is a certain anti-"Uniate" current in Eastern Orthodox circles; not specific to seminaries from to my knowledge. That would vary by jurisdiction; ROCOR more so, Ukrainians less. Eastern Catholics are less hostile to their separated brethren; that's one reason I thing Rome has a point in this division.
There is also certain neglect of Eastern Catholics and their Churches from our Latin counterparts and the high hierarchy. From the regular RC, just ignorance; we are a much smaller community than them. Sometimes it feels the Vatican is more attentive to the EO, and specifically Moscow, than their local Eastern Satholic churches.

 

Just that way, thank you. I understand that the Eastern churches sometimes look upon the Uniates as "poaching" so to speak.

 

Unfortunately, you're absolutely correct that diploma mills still exist. I was just hoping/assuming that there are fewer victims now. It seems to me likely that there are fewer diploma mills, but that might just be because we talk about the diploma mills much less on this board now?

 

I miss old K-W...

 

I think there are fewer mills that specifically target monolingual English speakers. They've moved on to targeting people in countries where finishing elementary school can be expensive and difficult, with university a pipe dream. If someone says to these people "look, I have a totally legit university program and it's only going to cost you 3 months' salary instead of your life savings", they're not going to look too closely. They're not stupid to fall for these mills, just desperate. The mills are predators taking advantage of the desire for a better future.

 

California Coast qualified people to sit the Psychology Exam in CA.

 

Which (licensure) is one measure of whether a school is actually teaching what it purports to teach. Wasn't a bad system and less expensive that accreditation.

 

Cal. Coast was a pretty good school, back when it was licensed. It still is, now that it's been accredited (DEAC) for 19 years (since 2005).

 

In the instances you describe -- exactly.

 

I don’t know, Rachel. So there are these bad actors (fake credential providing institutions) that take advantage of poor and desperate people with good hearts, residing in faraway lands. No doubt, that is true to some extent. But my hunch is that human nature is a darker than that and the culpability can be distributed between the buyer and the seller of a fake credential.

 

It's not a mill, but I can give you a concrete example of what I mean: UoPeople. They have a site specifically targetting Arabic-speaking students: https://ar.uopeople.edu/

It's slick. They've toned it down a bit now, but it used to heavily imply that these degrees would be useful for immigrating to Germany (even though Anabin doesn't recognize them). They are NA, which makes them a "legit" school, but the way they're targeting refugees who want to cling to any bit of hope for a better life is, IMO, kind of scummy. In English, they simply say that they're tuition-free. In Arabic, they say that they're both tuition-free ("no semester fees") and "almost free". https://ar.uopeople.edu/about/uopeople/milestones/ Gross. Especially considering how little utility a degree with national accreditation has had (and continues to have). By the standards of many US universities, and several countries, UoPeople is functionally no different than many unaccredited schools.

 

Here's a different perspective: Rapid secularization, political polarization, and the federalizing of higher ed will inevitably bring about a withdrawal of conservative seminaries from the entire edifice of recognized accreditation, Lord willing. At least among those who are not dependent on federal cash to survive. There are robust theologies that often underlie refusal to pursue accreditation, and right now, the US is the theological capital of the world, akin to Germany in the 17th to early 20th centuries. It's not terribly difficult to see the rationale: Theological training is a vocation of the church, and accreditors serve as proxies to varying degrees-- a combination that is enough to give an increasing number of conservatives hives. We might add that the rapid collapse of not a few institutions, the insane costs of higher education, and the regulatory complex scream for an alternative. Many have begun to wonder why the typical MDiv has to cost $50k when the average salary of an ordained churchman or missionary is often well below $50k per annum. An alternative that neither requires loans, third-party recognition, and the professionalization obsession becomes increasingly attractive.

 

I can't think of any and I wonder what the rationale might entail if it isn't theological in nature.

 

I don’t believe that individuals who are mentally incapable of finding out the recognition status of the qualification that they want to study abroad should be “compensated” for damages resulting from degree enrollment. But if we’re dealing with deliberately deceptive marketing practices, then you might have a point. On the current Arabic page, they say this. You can judge whether that is sufficient:

"Our accreditation is a clear indication of the academic excellence and rigorous standards of the University of the People. However, we cannot guarantee that our degrees or accreditations will be accepted by other international academic institutions or employers, as this is determined by each institution individually."

I am not a fan of University of the People, but I’ve had a positive outcome when it comes to the recognition of my NationsUniversity DEAC degree in Poland. Germany has a different policy related to this type of US degree. This gets into the issue of how much information a country-specific institution needs to disclose to non-citizens if it wants to provide online education on a global basis and features advertising targeting various ethnic groups. Personally, I think that the standard should not be overly high. The onus is largely on the student, since it would still be a form of foreign study, which requires a certain minimal familiarity with the host country's education system and its limitations. For example, I don’t think that a higher education institution in Poland needs to inform online students about what their qualifications will likely mean in Canada and vice versa.

As for tuition-free, I think that University of People relies on the most literal meaning here. You don’t pay tuition, but you pay for everything else. I agree that there is a sense in which this is potentially misleading, but it would be very hard to prove in court. On the other hand, if they did ever advertise that these degrees will be particularly useful in Germany (and they cannot be recognized there at all), you may be unto something. It’s one of the challenges of cross-border online education.

Going back to fake degree buyers, I would not treat the majority as innocent doves though. The truly poor people who cannot put bread on the table are also unlikely to be ones purchasing instant credit card doctorate degrees.

 

Sarcasm?

It wasn't a straight-up mill as some operating legally in California back then, but it was bad. Very bad.