California Miramar University - DETC Accrediation Lapse

I was reading through the DETC report from their meeting earlier in the year and noticed that California Miramar University was listed under the lapse of accreditation section. According to their website they are accredited by both DETC and ACICS. Do schools often trade in one NA for another?


http://www.detc.org/UploadedDocuments/Public-Notices/Accreditation-Actions/021314_ac_meeting_report.pdf


Accredited Online MBA Programs | California Miramar University | San Diego, CA

 

Not many schools hold more than one kind of NA. I can't think right now of another one besides CMU that did -or that traded one for another. Looks to me like they just didn't renew because ACICS suits them, for whatever reason. California Miramar attained DETC first and ACICS subsequently. Its ancestor was (unaccredited) Pacific Western U., that was sold, rebranded as CMU, first DETC-accredited and then dual DETC/ACICS.

I'm not reading anything into it - except that CMU prefers ACICS. I don't know why, but I'm sure they have their reasons. A bona-fide NA school, anyway.

Johann

 

I'm not reading anything bad into it. Perhaps they want to do ground courses and it makes more sense to use ACICS or perhaps they just want to save the money and have less hassle.

 

Not often, but it can happen. Maybe the best example was back in 1999, when ITT Technical Institutes shifted more than 60 of its schools from ACCSCT (old name for ACCSC) to ACICS:

ACCSCT/ACCSC is another NA agency, like ACICS or DETC.

 

Thanks CalDog. Yet another thing I didn't know - that USDoE had to approve such a change.

Johann

 

I don't think USDoE is actually required to "approve" a change from one recognized accreditor to another. However, it is important to make sure that USDoE acknowledges and understands any change in such accreditation, so that your school retains its eligibility for federal financial aid. And I suspect that is what the press release is really saying here -- they are simply reassuring potential investors and students that USDoE is aware of the change. Maybe "acknowledged" would be a more accurate term than "approved".

 

I get it. Thanks for the clear explanation, CalDog.

Johann

 

I don't really blame them. What's the purpose of holding 2 national accreditations. Sounds pretty redundant to me. I think they would have been better off with the DETC accreditation though.

 

I'm not sure--and you didn't say--what this is based on?

 

If they wanted to offer campus based programs would DETC allow it? I'm not saying I have any clue if that's the case.

 

ACICS schools offer both B&M and online programs. In fact, ACCSC schools do too. And so do regionally accredited schools.

However, DETC may not have the same flexibility. DETC's "scope of recognition" from the US Dept of Education is: "the accreditation of postsecondary institutions in the United States that offer degree and/or non-degree programs primarily by the distance or correspondence education method." That scope doesn't appear to include B&M programs.

Now, you might ask: "Well, if distance programs can get national accreditation from agencies like ACICS or ACCSC, and if they can get regional accreditation from agencies like WASC or NCA, then what use is DETC ?"

And that would be a good question. My guess is that DETC might be the most cost-effective form of accreditation for a purely distance-based program. But if a school wanted to offer both distance and B&M programs (like California Miramar does), then it probably needs to switch to another accreditor.

 

Thanks CalDog, always informative.