Great university, but one man operation?

So is there a void or need you are trying to fill? It seems like the conversation has concluded that an unaccredited school has extremely limited value UNLESS the staff is the absolute leaders in the field. If so, it will have creditability despite accreditation. If not, it is merely a waste. So again, I ask is there a goal or a need? Is there a direction?

 

Nope. The conclusion you posted does satisfy my curiosity. I was under the impression that everything unaccredited was considered to be a mill, so I was looking for some clarification.

My last post was motivated more by my needs for freedom of speech than nothing else, I think. I should be able to ask anything here, as long as its not a TOS violation. I felt like Jack was trying to tell me that I could only manifest myself about determined issues, which was unpleasant to read.

PS: Now I thought of something else. What about other external measures besides accreditation? Like a high school equivalent course from which all kids that graduate gets amazing SAT scores, but has no famous teachers or connections?

 

Well...

Interesting questions. Like you, I agree any question is possible. Obviously they are more interesting when we are going somewhere.

I think your point about programs that produce outstanding performances is another instance where unaccredited programs have great value.

While we are talking possibilities, it is important to keep a frame on why unaccredited programs are so risky. We have outlined two times when they can be very valuable and we have even noted how rare these are. We haven't noted that almost all unaccredited programs are extremely substandard and not even close to their accredited counterparts. Heck a big percentage are outright or boderline frauds like K-W.

 

It was not my intention to tell anyone what they should or shouldn't do. You can manifest yourself about anything you want. I was just stating my opinion that creating debates about school programs that do not and will not exist is a waste of time. Coming to conclusions about the validity or quality of a one-man university (or three-man for that matter) is meaningless as these entities will never exist. Still, it's a harmless passtime I suppose. Have fun.
Jack

 

Your question in your first post was "How would you consider such a degree?" The question in your second post was "What would you think of such an education?"

The issue here doesn't seem to be the (very real) distinction between "degree" and "education", so much as it's "What would you think".

You created your hypothetical situation so that the education was good, simply by definition. But you never addressed the question of how I'm supposed to know about that axiom. What I think is a function of what I know, so that's a necessary step.

If I just accept the truth of your axiom, then the whole thing is a tautology. If the education is good, then of course it is good. If A, then A. That tells us precisely nothing. (If I'm the king of France, then I'm the king of France. We still don't know that there really is a king of France, let alone whether I'm him.)

But if I don't accept the truth of your axiom just as it's given, then whatever I conclude about the quality of the education becomes more problematic and dependent on whatever evidence is available to me.

I suppose that there are lots of people who simply read voraciously at the library and who have made themselves very knowledgeable about subjects of interest to them. But who knows?

Obviously people do study and learn outside conventional university contexts. In fact, most of what we learn is acquired that way.

That learning makes itself known to other people when it is displayed in some way. That display could be anything from informal conversation through job performance to scholarly publishing.

That's why I Google universities that I have questions about. I'm looking for evidence of intellectual life, of accomplishment, and recognition by professional and scholarly peers.

If a student apprentices informally to a master or masters, the result could be anything or nothing. If somebody else is going to form an opinion, there needs to be some basis.

 

Even though a degree is a representation of an education, there is a difference between a degree and an education. Degrees from unaccredited schools are much more ineffective in representing the education, regardless of the efficacy of that education.

It is difficult to earn a degree from an accredited school without meeting a minimum standard. It is simple to find an unaccredited school that will allow it. And that's the rub.

 

A one-man-operation university? Designing a rigurous course, maybe, but a complete "university"? Maybe if you come from the planet Krypton and have super human speed, then yes. Otherwise, there is no such thing.

 

I see.

So I guess it all boils down to external recognition (when speaking of the degree), but not necessarily accreditation. This recognition could come either by having highly recognized professors outstanding results by the average student in teh real world.

In either case, as long as the university has the resources to do it, it seems that pursuing accreditation would easily accomplish much more, as long as the advantages are still there (professors and curriculum).

Sorry for speaking about degree than education. I was thinking about the results thats such an education could accomplish, and this ends up being closely related to the degree itself.

Thanks for all anwers

 

Yes. A degree is a proxy for an education. Most of us have some general idea of what someone should know with a particular degree. In the same way, a test result is a proxy for what one has learned in a course. It may or may not say a lot about what someone knows, depending on the test, the test taker, whether the test taker had a headache on the day of the test etc.

The whole accredidation scheme is an attempt to standardize the process, so that we can all have a little more certainty about what a particular degree represents in terms of knowledge.

The hypothetical about someone learning from absolute masters may actually provide for the best possible education, but as Bill says, unless the rest of us know the situation, it may be hard to sell the idea. And if we all know the situation, then the degree may be irrelevant.

The real situation of Hardy and Ramnanujan was precisely this. Ramanujan was a world class mathematician; Hardy knew it; most of the rest of the mathematical community did not know it (information didn't travel as quickly back then.) If Ramanujan had the formal qualification of a PhD (say from Cambridge or Oxford), others would have assumed that he had a certain level of accomplishment. In that way, a degree signals accomplishment when there is nothing else to go on. Eventually, Ramanujan's genius prevailed. Unfortunately, he was dead by that time.

Interesting thread.

 

Another situation would be a non accredited law school from which all students get extremely high scores on the BAR tests.

Do you think the degree would have more value than the average non RA? Or , in fact, the value would come only from BAR results? In the second instance a student that comes out of the school but does a bad job on the BAR would not benefit...

 

An unaccredited law school that produces students who do well on the bar certainly has a more solid basis for being considered high quality. But passing the bar is just the beginning. One must then use that law license, and that often involves employers being convinced to hire one. I'm not so sure the unaccredited law schools, especially the DL ones, are very good at that, which would diminish their degrees' utility.