California finally cracking down on degree mills!

Now they will have no where in the US to hide. California finally cracking down.

Below are the links to the Notice of Proposed Emergency
Regulations, Proposed Text and Finding of Emergency for the proposed adoption of emergency regulations governing the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE) and private postsecondary institutions. If you cannot access the links, or wish to receive a hard copy of the documents, please contact the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education at 916-574-7720 by e-mail at [email protected] or by mail at P.O. Box 980818, West Sacramento, CA 95798-0818.

Links
Notice of Proposed Emergency Regulations: http://bppve.ca.gov/leg/advance_notice.pdf
Finding of Emergency: http://bppve.ca.gov/leg/finding_of_emergency.pdf
Proposed Emergency Regulations: http://bppve.ca.gov/leg/prop_emergency_regs.pdf

Please check the website at Department of Consumer Affairs - Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education for any updated information concerning these regulations and other Bureau matters.

 

I'm generally opposed to the government regulating the private market save to reveal the truth, if a degree mill is not accredited that should be easy enough for a consumer to find out. Just Google and check out the schools before putting up money.

I don't see what is wrong with that instead of babying adults who should enter these dealings with some intelligence.

 

In a perfect world I would agree with you.

But in this time of rising college costs it is easy for someone to be mislead by dimploma mills or less than wonderful schools. Many potential students do not know what good accreditation is not to mention that fake accreditation agengies exist.

Others may realise that they are paying for a piece of worthless paper and then use it to obtain jobs from unsuspecting employers. I used to have an article about a guy who practiced medicine for years with a diploma mill degree.

 

Mills

It looks like california has many mills a state full of mills

Myrrh music

 

Emergency means shorter times for public comment

The term emergency regulations is reflective of the short time frame for creating the regulations, allowing for public comment and then promulgating the regulations.

The old California Bureau for Private, Postsecondary Vocational Education regulated the non-public, non-regionally accredited and non-accredited vocational schools. The patchwork crazy-quilt of conflicting legislation created over many years combined with lack of leadership and direction at the Bureau lead to it being "sunsetted" (unfunded and disestablished) after its sunset review in June of 2007. Regulatory authority moved upward to the parent organization of the BPPVE, the CA Department of Consumer Affairs.

Legislation passed in 2009 established a new Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education. The new Bureau is required to start operations with existing schools applying for approval commending February 1.

The new legislation retains many of the requirements from the old regulations with regard to contractual (enrollment agreement) and financial matters. One effective change will be a greater reliance on use of National Accrediting organizations for regulating programs and instructional capability.

In my area of California, there have been very few new schools that have started in the "dark period" between regulation by the BPPVE and the BPPE.

Diploma mills were running before, during and will likely operate after the new regulatory body is up and functional. Rarely are the Diploma mills actually applying for approval by the state, they are operating from a PO box at a neighborhood pack-and-ship.

If you check the web, there is no information on an explosion of Diploma Mills in CA after June 2007. In point of fact, the get your degree now spam landing in my junk mail folder has phone numbers for area codes 718 and 312 (NYC and Chicago).

 

Accredibase Report and California

According to our research which was published last week, California has the largest number of diploma and accreditation mills among all US states.

Top 10 United States locations of the ‘diploma con’ by state

California 134
Hawaii 94
Washington 87
Florida 57
Texas 53
New York 44
Louisiana 39
Illinois 29
Nevada 29
Arizona 28

To download a copy of the Report please go to http://www.accredibase.com

 

Apparently a lot of them are in nursing. The California Nursing Board has issued warnings about the proliferation of unaccredited nursing education programs, but they still are getting flooded with bogus educational documentation:

Granted, many of the affected applications (hundreds, apparently) are from out of state, which the California rules won't affect. But there are also in-state unaccredited schools which are offering unaccredited nursing degrees, such as Breyer State.

It could be argued that unaccredited nursing programs pose no real threat to public safety, since the licensing board will prevent them from actually practicing. However, the existence of such programs undoubtedly makes the licensing board's job more difficult and more expensive. This will tend to drive up licensing fees in general, even for the legitimately qualified.

 

The State of California recently shut down an unaccredited B&M nursing school in Los Angeles.

That's around $6,000,000 in revenue, if you're counting.