Degree Mills: The Billion-dollar Industry That Has Sold Over A Million Fake Diplomas

That should have been "chock full," of course. Or perhaps I secretly did intend to augment the English language as Uncle Janko suggests, as in...

...The chalkboard board in the classroom was so chalk full that there was no room to write anything else, so the teacher switched to a PowerPoint presentation.

 

Rich:

Well said Rich. It is simply too risky to earn an unaccredited degree and as you and others say there are plenty of accredited options available.

Dan

 

I agree that it is to risky, but this school is in fact a legitimate one, previus statement to simply have a listings of only accredited school will harm this university.

Whit new well credentialized management and some other changes they may become accredited in the future.

Learner

 

Any SCUPS grad want to try for a high profile degree scrutinizing government job?

 

I don't actually know why SCUPS isn't accredited but I can see one possible reason: the combination of D/L doctorates in psychology and a Bar qualifying J.D. program.

DETC won't accredit a D/L school, in the U.S. anyway, that offers a Ph.D. or Psy. D.

WASC won't accredit any California institution that runs a law school unless the law school is either ABA or CalBar accredited.

Neither the ABA nor CalBar will accredit any D/L J.D. program.

QED: SCUPS cannot obtain accreditation in its present configuration.

 

There are a number of reasons why we've gone to the new format and, when the book comes out, we'd be willing to talk about that in some detail. However, Rich hits this right on the button. The short version is that, in this day and age, there really are far too many accredited options for someone to consider anything else. The only reason most unaccredited schools stay unaccredited now is either by choice or because the quality of the academics is not at a sufficient level to qualify for candidacy.

One thing that readers of the 16th edition will see is not that we have provided many more GAAP schools (although we have), but that many of these programs have expanded beyond imagination. Schools that offered three majors in 2003 now offer twenty. Schools that offered twenty now offer fifty.

I know that there are folks on other boards who are going to love the following, but this is the reality of the situation. With the exception of a very, very few schools (always the same few mentioned here), there is no longer any reason to get an unaccredited degree.

Period.

End of story.



Tom Nixon

 

I know a person with CIE AASET degree and CA state Bachelors in Engineering Management degree from unaccredited then university.
Based on his degree and many years in the field he was awarded
Sr.award by C@GI, and IIE IEng.
NACES member evaluation agency evaluated his UK awards as US RA equivalent BSEET degree.

He is employed by US DOD in position that requires accredited Bachelors degree.

Also BCS UK awards for CA unaccredited degrees 20 units wile for accredited ( ABET ) 50 units, non ABET or equivalent to ECUK - Washingthon Accord gets the same 20 points/ units toward the Chartered IT Professional rout.

There many other loops that people explore legally and not braking laws, they take CA state degrees and turn them in to GAAP degrees oversieas.

learner

 

If a personn have good experience and education from unaccredited school - lets say Central State University in CA - MBA program - he still has a second chance if RA degree is needed.

quote:

The MBA program at WGU is competency based:

http://www.wgu.edu/business/master_b...ion_degree.asp
As I understand their website, you can accelerate your program by proving your competency at each stage. In effect, that appears to mean you can test out of their MBA in its entirety. Testing out is familiar from the big three to the bachelor's level, but WGU have brought it up to the graduate level. If one accepts that a COSC bachelor's program is life experience based, so is this one.

End quote:

 

Go Marauders!

And for the sake of new readers, let me supplement Lerner's post by pointing out again that the unaccredited Central State in California is a private for-profit school. It has absolutely nothing in common with the venerable, public, regionally-accredited HBCU Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio.

 

Excellent. I just hope it retains and updates the chapter on DL Law Schools. Furthermore, I hope it will keep non-gaap schools and degree mills separate.

Well, as Dr. Bear's Guide is the standard reference for distance learning (I personaly know of a couple of HR managers that use it), such distintions remain necessary. Just my humble opinion.

What? Why? Will it still be called Dr. Bear's Guide... ?

 

It never was. It has been called "Bear's" and "Bears'," but not "Dr. Bear's."

Even if it was, there is a long history of marketing products that continue with the same names after their namesakes are no longer involved.

Finally, John's daughter Mariah provides the "Bear" in the guide these days, IIRC.

Kudos to Tom Nixon for keeping the flame. Gentle jealousy mixed with admiration is the only way I can describe how I feel.

 

IIRC, SCUPS dropped the Ph.D. and Psy.D. programs in an attempt to become accredited by DETC. They were apparently unacceptable to DETC even in that form and so re-offered the obviously lucrative programs.

 

I remember that happening.

The SCUPS LL.M. in Taxation also disappeared but unlike the psych degrees, it never resurfaced.

Well, I hate to sound like a troll, but...

What use, exactly, would DETC accreditation be to SCUPS students and graduates? We can't even really point to the Oregon people; they've APPROVED SCUPS' Ph.D. (but not Psy.D.) for use in that state.

SCUPS isn't a mill. SCUPS is cheap. If I had a SCUPS degree, I'd probably list it. If I were a Californian who wanted to be a psychologist, or marriage and family counselor, or lawyer, I'd consider SCUPS. Only briefly, perhaps, but I'd consider it!

 

Questioner: "Is it accredited?"

SCUPS Grad: "Yes."

That's the main value. As noted above, however, SCUPS tried to make itself eligible for DETC accreditation, but it didn't work out. Unless there is some evidence to the contrary, this seems to indicate that the reason SCUPS isn't accredited is that SCUPS isn't accreditable, and that's because they're not up to that standard.

One might argue in favor of a small, niche school remaining unaccredited if it meets its target population's needs. But most unaccredited DL schools, like SCUPS, are merely (poor) substitutes for accredited ones.

I used to teach as an adjunct for an unaccredited B&M school. The degrees it issued were extremely valuable to its constituent population--they were all from overseas and the degrees were useful back home (because of state approval). The school didn't attract U.S. students, however, because the school still wasn't accredited. Again, a small niche served, but not recommended generally.

 

I'd like to know why DETC rejected them. Or probably more accurately, what changes DETC demanded that SCUPS was unwilling to make.

My understanding is that SCUPS is owned by the same people who run NCU in AZ. I can't imagine why they would continue to operate two redundant universities that compete with one another, so NCU and SCUPS are probably serving different market segments, different clienteles. That suggests that there are some changes that SCUPS was probably unwilling to make, if the changes threatened SCUPS' market positioning by making it too similar to NCU.

So, what is it that SCUPS does that its students like but the accreditors, both RA and DETC, wouldn't accept?

 

Yes. Yes, that's undoubtedly true. Being able to answer, "Yes, it's accredited." is of great value to any graduate.

But there wouldn't be any Psy.D. or Ph.D. holders at all from SCUPS. These programs, that have apparently been of considerable value to some people, anyway, would no longer exist. More importantly, the folks in question might never have obtained their psychology licenses, or counseling licenses or (if there are any) Bar admissions but for the existence of this particular school or another school like it.

I am not anxious to mount a strong defense of SCUPS. I do not hold any degrees from unaccredited schools. I agree with you that there is a dangerous tendency to identify a "pet" UA school and argue that it is somehow different from other unaccredited schools. And I am familiar enough with SCUP's history that I have never recommended it to a potential California law student. (As you know, though, I DO have a "pet" UA D/L law school and I find myself making all the objectionable noises you describe!)

Well, once DETC gets its professional doctorate program going, there really will be NO excuse for SCUPS UA status.

 

If it makes you feel any better, I think that you're a troll.

In answer to your question, I agree with Rich. There are lots of employers that require accredited degrees, but don't specify which accreditor. The federal civil service generally follows that policy, as does the military.

Besides, with the explosion of internet degree-mills, the unaccredited world is gradually becoming perceived as a more unsavory place. There's a lot of guilt by association, which is probably justifiable inductively. If most unaccredited schools are substandard, then it might be safest to treat all of them as if they were substandard. DETC accreditation would go a long way towards distancing SCUPS from all of that, which would probably greatly improve their marketing.

I generally agree with that. I've never liked SCUPS a whole lot and have always considered it a twin to Cal Coast, a back-in-the-pack CA approved school with little to distinguish it. It's one of those gray-area schools. While I don't think that it's a mill exactly, I'm not convinced that it isn't substandard. Nevertheless it does seem to offer real education that might be valuable to some students in some situations, so I can't totally dismiss it either.

I'm a Californian with considerable intellectual interest in the law but little ambition to actually practice, apart from a little bit of pro-bono-publico type stuff if I felt that it was within my capacities, perhaps. I can certainly imagine enrolling in a low-cost easy-entry law school on a part-time basis out of personal-interest. I've actually toyed with the idea of doing it. But even that road would be very demanding, can't be minimized, and may not be realistically justifiable. So I'd definitely want some serious instruction that did offer me the opportunity of taking the bar exam. But I wouldn't want to be left destitute if I dropped out for some reason, either. And let's be realistic, I'd have to find a law school that would accept somebody like me.

So in the tiny liklihood I did it, maybe a school like SCUPS would be the place. If I passed the bar, cool. I'd list the degree. If I didn't pass, then I'd probably just say that I took some law classes from SCUPS for personal interest, but I wouldn't parade the J.D. around.

 

Lerner:

I'm not sure that means anything. I see Newport,Pac Western and LaJolla U "grads " passed also.

 

Oho! That IS interesting! So SCUPS isn't the only one offering D/L psych doctorates, then?

Well, I will descend from my trollish soapbox (can't allow QuinnTaylorJackson to see me up there) and admit that I personally think that anyone truly motivated to become a shrink or shyster should probably do the accredited B&M thing.

 

Which brings me to these three earth-shattering, mill-busting, questions:

1. Is it illegal for one to write a bad check - and another, and another and another - to an illegal, fraudulent, diploma mill entity?

2. Would it be illegal for one to turn around and sue them, the millists and crooks, (for mega bucks, mind you, not peanuts) if they, the millists, had the gall to turn around and charge one a returned check/bad-check fee?

3. To all AGs for all 50 US States: Do we, upright, fed-up, disgusted-by-mills state residents, pro-legitimate-DL booster-activists, have here (in questions #1 and 2 above), the makings of an improper and unsound, though not widely-deployed, strategy for bankrupting these ugly but proliferating degree/diploma mills?

Please, everyone, tell me that the answer is "No!" to all three questions above.

What he said!

A stroke of genius, there, Nosborne, knowing full well that no one has ever posted here on these DI boards who goes by the moniker QuinnTaylorJackson.



Thanks