Kennedy Western University - How would you evaluate?

Re: DETC Learning

DETC is good. Their standards are very similar to RA. The main problem with DETC is that it doesn't have the acceptance that an RA degree would within the academic community. For example, teaching jobs or getting admitted to an RA graduate program would be more difficult. There may be a slight difference in reputation but you could earn a Ph.D. trying to figure that out. (and Rich did ) I don't think that most people really understand the difference between RA and DETC outside the academic community.

 

I just got off the phone with a professor at an RA university who is an adept in more than one martial art. He indicated that the petulant semi-threats merely indicate someone who knows as little of the true spirit of martial arts as he (she?) does about quality control in education.

About martial arts I know nothing. Just passing along an observation from somebody with a functioning brain and absolutely no axe to grind in any debate on this forum.

 

Hey Kf5k - if a non-RA degree meets your need - go for it. Whether it is personal development, resume development (?) or personal pride (e.g. "Hello, I'm Dr. so and so"), go ahead.

I don't live in a dreamworld, however. In my very real world I have seen two people with non-RA degrees lose teaching jobs because of their degrees.

The real point here is that folks that start a non-RA program need to have their eyes open as to what they are getting. Non-RA degrees have limited utility. They won't get you admission to RA graduate school, they won't qualify you to teach in an RA school, many employers will discredit them, the degree may be useless/illegal in some states and you can't obtain licensure (be it CPA, PE, psychology (except for California) with it, etc.

If after understanding all of this - someone still wants a non-RA degree from a state licensed school then more power to them. With the wide range of RA degrees available via DL, I can't imagine why, however.

Regards - Andy

 

Hi Andy,

Just curious, Does this apply to DETC as well?

Thank you. Mike

 

Re: Re: DETC Learning

Yes, I did and no, they don't.

 

I don't agree with the statement, many employers will discredit you. Of the millions of jobs in this country only a small percentage would be excluded. Also the idea that approved degrees have limited utility is a incorrect statement. The utility of approved degrees would be only slightly less. Those millions of people without an RA degree don't get their diplomas and then vanish. They are in the job market competing with everyone else. In a small percentage of positions they may be excluded, but in the vast majority they do very well. We really don't go on welfare, or shoot ourselves after getting an approved degree. There are hundreds of approved, and exempt schools graduating students all the time, and they apply for and get jobs all the time. We don't get arrested for using approved- legal degrees. What person with a legally gained, state approved diploma, now sits in jail for claiming or using it?

 

In jail? Probably none. How about public humiliation? Got lots of those. Just ask Todd Saldana, Laura Callaghan, or any number of others who's degrees are legally issued, yet still brought a great deal of pain.

If you're going to take a degree from an unaccredited school, you're really taking your chances. It would be best to take one from one of the better schools--and they're hard to identify. State licensure or approval simply isn't good enough--not even to avoid the most basic forms of public pain. Think of it as a continuum: degrees from schools like CCU probably don't cause too much discomfort to too many people. But it is a quick and slippery slope from there (and not all that solid a perch, BTW--no guarantees a CCU degree won't jump up and bite you some day).

Everytime you put your own situation in someone else's hands--an employer, a reporter, etc.--you do so at your risk. A time bomb in your resume only increases that risk. A read of the articles done on K-WU in The Chronicle of Higher Education will tell you that.

 

BTW, I voted for the last choice. Kennedy-Western isn't a university in any sense of the word. No service to the community. Its credentials do not meet expected standards. Its educative processes are often suspect. That's the big three. But wait, there's more....

Never being accredited. Claiming fake accreditation. Moving its license several times (one step ahead of the law). Being enjoined from offering its degrees in its home state of California. Operating from the state without approval to do so.

Legitimate schools don't do these things, and none of them have been subject to serious debate.

The one thing going for K-WU's graduates is that most employers don't seem to know better. But if the federal government gets involved (likely after the Callahan situation), the private sector will follow.

KA-BOOM!

 

Hamilton relates because it functions under the same jurisdiction as other unaccredited schools like Kennedy-Western and Canyon.

Employers may hear a lot more if Senator Collins gets her gig going. She's already pre-cocked in the pissed-off position because of the financial aid snafus she uncovered. If the government starts identifying and dealing with people claiming fake degrees, it may also decide to apply this standard to the companies it does business with. The news will undoubtably spill over to the rest of the private sector.

A pipe dream? Maybe. But again, that's why the Callahan situation is relevant and worth watching.

 

Degree mills have been doing business for centuries. The problem is getting much worse due to the internet and other pressures. IMHO, we're in the middle of a trend to tighten the noose on these guys. The states have been passing laws eliminating the weak link states in the union. Only Wyoming and a few other really weak link states still remain. A new trend in this fight against academic fraud, Florida, New Jersey, Oregon and North Dakota have now passed laws legally clarifying the illegal use of these degree mill degrees.

It may be a pipe dream that the Callahan fiasco might speed up the process but I believe that the trend is already established. The Callahan fiasco is just another example of the problem. The more examples seen the faster that the trend will accelerate.

People with sub-standard degrees will eventually find these degrees to be no more valuable than a bald faced lie. (For some degree mills that don't even validate graduation, that happens the moment that the degree is purchased.) This will happen when one of the following occurs.
1. The degree mill goes out of business.
2. A law against use of these degrees is passed in their home state.
3. Someone checks on the degree and we have the traditional KA-BOOM as in the Callahan case.

 

I think from my post you'll see I wasn't talking about the "supply" end of this problem, but the "demand."

If employers would get wise and cut this crap off, the demand for these degrees would diminish to the point where the degree mills' only customers will be people using their bogus credentials for self-aggrandizement.

It's like the "war on drugs." Go after the suppliers or try to curtail the demand. The demand side of any prohibition almost never works, unless the producers cannot operate in the shadows. Degree mill operators have shown a remarkable resiliance and ability to move and hide.

Gotta go after the demand.

(Prohibition didn't work for alcohol. It isn't working for drugs. It might, however, work for tobacco, because it is difficult to grow on a personal level, and also hard to grow undetected on the large scales necessary to make it profitable. In the U.S., anyway.)

 

It's worth watching I suppose, but won't have any real effect on many. I doubt if 10% of the people know or care. Iraq has more pull than Callahan, maybe if she starts shooting someone.

 

Your research is as biased, and narrow as your views. I'm sure you conducted the research in ways guaranteed to give the results you wanted, just as the researchers who design their studies to show vitamin c is or isn't good, that vitamin e will prevent or won't stop heart attacks. If the employer knows in advance that he is answering a survey he will answer according to his view of political correctness. Only when an employer or school admissions person doesn't know what is going on, really thinks he's hiring someone or evaluating a potential student, will you get their true views. No one is a bigot in survey studies, but when not in a survey they often are. Survey studies show that vitamin c prevents heart attack and reduces stroke, but double blind placebo studies show the opposite. The large doctors & nurses study both show that antioxidants reduce cancer & heart disease. People in these studies were asked what they took, survey studies, but in all follow up studies, double blind placebo controled, the results haven't held up. You can't ask people what you do or how you do it, you have to observe without them being aware or you get what they think they should say, that's why the old Nielson TV ratings were suspect, people were saying what they thought they should, the newer boxes showed people watching different shows than the ones they claimed. Laura Callaghan doesn't have an approved degree, she has a diploma from a degree mill, Hamilton. You know degree mill, no study or testing- "DEGREE MILL"

 

Laura Callahan has a degree from a school with the same regulatory apparatus as Kennedy-Western's.

I've never called Kennedy-Western a degree mill. But others have.

BTW, my research showed that there is no significant difference in the acceptability of degrees from Kennedy-Western and Capella. But that must be "biased," too, huh?

 

Rich received his Ph.D. from a real school with real oversite by real experts in the field. For your totally unfounded assertion to be true, all of the members of the peer review would need to have this same bias and would have to not recognize that they had this bias. In other words, your claim is nonsense.

What if Callahan studied and took one test? In your eyes would that have earned her all three degrees? In your opinion, what is the minimum credits requirement for a Bachelor degree? 120 credits is the standard. You apparently believe that this isn't the minimum though? What is it, in your opinion?

 

Of course your views are biased and unfair, just as are mine. I'm glad to see the reports of your skills are not understated. Your views are an anathema to me, not you, your views I have some posts to make soon that dispute your ideas, but not right now. I really enjoy your posts and hope you'll continue to make them. Though I don't agree with much of it, I enjoy reading them. Congratulations on your doctorate. I know that you had to work really hard and long, and much deserve it. I've not yet committed to that path and may never, but your efforts deserve praise. I look forward to our exchanges, heated I expect, but hopefully civil. In the heat of battle if I overstep civility, call me on it.

 

Nice literature.

 

I am shocked. Absolutely shocked that after nearly 2 months James has not presented any evidence to refute Rich's statements regarding Kennedy-Western.

Shocked, I tell you!

 

clear degree mill ---plusungood
unaccredited ---ungood
state approved ---good
nationally accredited--plusgood
regionally accredited--doubleplusgood

Sorry to be so late but was waiting for a new rating system to show up and here it is!!!

Using the Jeff Hampton system of school evaluation.
K-W = ungood
DETC schools= plusgood
RA schools = doubleplusgood

I like this system and intend to keep using it.