Is it Worth Getting an Unaccredited Degree

Brit here - lived in Canada for the past 72 years. I've been at least somewhat familiar with the American "loopholes," that Garp speaks of for a lot of years.They don't baffle us - we know exactly what's going on. But it IS amusing - generally, we just laugh and shake our heads - and privately pray that it never EVER happens here -- again, that is. We've had a few (remarkably few) unorthodox institutions that have sprung up and started granting meaningless degrees of no standing. It never ends well for them.

 

UK had its own degree mill problems - considerably abated since the passing of th Higher Education Act of 1988. It became an offence to award a British degree without the requisite authority. i.e. a person could go to "gaol" -i.e. one of His Majesty's prisons.

Since then, some UK schools unable to award UK degrees switched to awarding non-British degrees. I remember one law school with no degree-granting permission. The school awarded LL.B. degrees (not L.L. Bean degrees) from their captive university in the Southern US. That "captive" school was a formerly RA school that had lost its accreditation and closed. The law school bought whatever was left and awarded diplomas with the Southern school's name. That was years ago. The school no longer operates degree programs. Nothing works forever.

Once the new Higher Education Act came into force, some schools without degree-granting permission high-tailed it to Ireland, to escape the British purview. the Emerald Isle is a land of excellent Higher Education and authorities did not welcome the interlopers or their shenanigans *. Some - not quite all - have since departed.

The only really big edu-scam since the 1988 Act was the UDP scam (University degree program) which involved Romania, Cyprus, Israel and a Rabbi in Boston, MA, who ran a telephone "boiler room." There were about 30 bogus nonexistent Universities with mostly British-sounding names. They also had a fake "University" with the name of the District where I lived - University of Palmers Green." In the early 90s I read up on this scam when I saw a local computer repair guy, here in Canada with one of these "degrees" displayed in his shop. I knew there was no such University.

It wasn't really a British scam - more an International one, that did target Brits among others. Yes, they had a couple of mail-drops in UK - including one down the street from where I lived, in North London, as a kid.

Nothing else quite like the old-time operators (60s 70s 80s) of the US. And no sweeping religious degree exemptions in either Canada or UK. All the diplomas and certificates you want. But no degrees, unless your religious school qualifies through the same process as secular schools.

* Shenanigans - sounds like an Irish word - but it probably isn't, although there are about 6 Irish bands and 40 Irish-theme pubs around the world with "Shenanigans" in their name. https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2014/0316/St.-Patrick-s-Day-shenanigans-to-feature-blarney-malarkey-say-hooligans#:~: "Shenanigans" explained about halfway down. Origin likely Spanish during California Gold Rush.

 

Yes - just as a hooligan implies the existence of a previous hool. We must have gone to the same Irish school, Steve. Do you remember Professor Flaherty? Dean O'Sullivan? Chancellor Mahony? Oh -- I forgot. they're all long retired now. The good Professor is likely pickled and preserved for Eternity, in his favourite tipple: Dead Rabbit Irish Whisky. https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/drinks/g17804667/best-irish-whiskey/

 

To be fair, a Canadian degree-granting charter (or an act of one of the provincial governments in Canada) is not the same thing as quality assurance (which we normally associate with accreditation), but it carries significantly more authority than a mere degree-granting license (or religious exempt status) in the U.S.. In Canada, an institution that posseses such a charter can be treated as a fully recognized degree-granting institution, even if it does not go through an ongoing quality assurance process.

Check out this wording:

The province of British Columbia:
Theological Institutions

"The 15 theological institutions are authorized by private Act to offer only degrees in theology in British Columbia. There are currently no legislative requirements for quality assurance as long as they do not grant academic (non-theological) degrees or career training programs other than for religious occupations. Theological institutions may apply for EQA designation where a review regarding institutional standards are met. No program quality review is undertaken."

The province of Ontario:
"Seventeen privately funded degree-granting institutions have been granted restricted degree-granting authority by the provincial government. Private institutions with the authority to grant degrees under an Act of legislature are not subject to the consent process and requirements specified under the Act and are, therefore, not required to undergo a quality review or to ensure that student protection measures are in place."

Sources:
https://www.cicic.ca/1156/quality_assurance_practices_for_postsecondary_institutions_in_british_columbia.canada
https://www.cicic.ca/1178/quality_assurance_practices_for_postsecondary_institutions_in_ontario.canada

 

That goes along with this:

ORIGIN OF SHENANIGAN

An Americanism dating back to 1850–55; of obscure origin
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/shenanigan

Of uncertain origin. Earliest known use comes from San Francisco in 1855 at the time of the California Gold Rush.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shenanigan

 

Obscure, uncertain, but not quite unknown.
Candidates include:

Sp. "Chanada" - trick or deceit
Irish. Possibly “sionnach”, as in fox – sly, devious, cf. sionnachuighim, "I play the fox."
German. "Schenigelei," - trick

All Philological Guesswork. My guess? Oh - I dunno. I'll throw in Basque, Etruscan and Occitan. Why not?

 

Didn't former Canadian PM, Jean Chrétien, often refer to himself as "The Little Guy from Shenanigan?" Oh. NOW I remember. It was "The Little Guy from Shawinigan." (Shawinigan QC is his home town.)

He turned 90 recently. I wish our former Prime Minister well, and hope he still has fun with occasional shenanigans / shawinigans.

 

A most excellent philosophy that can warm the cockles of one's heart. Especially favored by the folks wearing the red MAGA baseball caps.

edit: Oops, just realized this isn't the political forum. Apologies for the political joke.

 

I think unaccredited degrees can serve a purpose if it connects you to opportunities and communities. I think of them as akin to training programs to gain a trade, start a business, or some other side hustle. This is why religious and business degrees generally are more common in diploma mills. They are likely the most common fields that don't really require a degree but studying within their institutions if they are legitimate can lead to connections and opportunities outside of the traditional fields requiring a degree.

I have a pre-accredited degree, MRS from Nations University, that I never mention outside of these degree forums but if I were to become some type of cleric, I would utilize it if it permitted me to enter the field, i.e.. chaplaincy. I've thought about inquiring to see if I would qualify for board certification academically without having to do those 18 graduate credit hours for the accredited MTS upgrade because I already meet the MDiv equivalency requirement without considering accreditation. I'm no longer religious so I've though about becoming a Humanist Chaplain.

 

Generally speaking, awards from schools during their run-up to accreditation are treated as being from an accredited school.

 

In Nations' case, that would be a LOT of degrees. IIRC the entire accreditation process with DEAC took about six years - maybe a bit more. They hit some unforeseen snags that had nothing to do with academic quality. I remember stories of Nations students stretching their programs out right to the allowable limits - and having to complete their degrees before accreditation. At the time, the tenet (at least here on DI) was, that if you were done at ANY time before accreditation - your degree was officially from an unaccredited school.

I took those accounts as a cautionary tale - if you were trying to play the odds and finish a degree once a school had attained accreditation, it was a crapshoot. It was a win / lose, no in-between. There were a lot of posts from people with that same sentiment.

@Rich Douglas, I acknowledge your expertise in these matters. It's good to know that there's hope that a degree awarded pre-accreditation might actually be deemed valuable. Until now, I had thought otherwise. Probably my mistake, in accepting popular opinion.

Thanks.

 

Excellent point. @Rich Douglas - what say you, Rich?

 

I think we have so many problems with people practicing Medicine without a license or people claiming to be a psychologist with a fake degree that practicing Cryptzoology with a substandard degree is the least of our worries. I don't see many people complaining because the Chupacabra specialist was not able to give me an accurate diagnosis of my picture that I took from the chupacabra in my last vacation from Mexico.
I can open a school and give a PhD in Elvis Presley studies from the Memphis Church of Elvis, I don't see thousands of people enrolling but maybe the two or three that want the degree credential so they can talk in a TV show about how Elvis is still alive and how he is related to Aliens, Spirituality, etc. Let people be!

 

For the most part I am. Please review this excerpt from my post:

Note - I said "some" of those degrees lead to misuse by unscrupulous people - I didn't specify Cryptozoology - because I don't believe it's among the "woo" disciplines(?) that can be misused in a harmful manner. I can't imagine how Elvis or Chupacabras can be harmful to people. And anybody who says they can - they can go chupa una cabra, baby - and thank you. Thank you very much.

But proton therapy... various forms of unregulated counselling ... yeah. Those are "woo" degrees that get misused. That can be dangerous.

 

Jobs on USAjobs.gov for those working or seeking to work in the US federal government do allow pre-accredited university degrees to count for academic credentials. This would not be beneficial in my case as I now have both a regionally accredited Masters and the foreign equivalent regionally accredited Doctorate but had I not had any of these, the MRS degree from Nations University would have helped. It may still help in some instances like chaplaincy and/or teaching courses in religion or philosophy at either a non-accredited or nationally accredited university. Considering I struggled to maintain the minimum 3.00 GPA, earned it more than 12 years ago, and am now a secular humanist, I wouldn't use it for any of that unless it is applied in a secular community.

 

I'm with you here. I like fun edge cases, and was seen defending both UCN and Euclid (as long as limitations are acknowledged). This one, though, looks like a straight out degree mill, of Florida religious exception variety.

 

Let's not forget University of Sedona/University of Metaphysics. I've been thinking about attending there for many years. The loophole in religion does allow for exploitation in the fields of counseling and psychology. It's unethical on one hand but all these practitioners have to do is say they are doing all of these treatments as an ordained minister under a 501c3 entity and get away it. If people fall for it, that's on them. Spiritual leaders, pastors, bishops, priests etc. have been getting away with this for ages.