Last call for advice before I commit to an unaccredited university!

By the way, I'm not saying these are all good reasons. Perhaps explanations is a better word.

Dave

 

Exactly Dave these are almost all excuses to hide the real reason someone would choose an unaccredited school when there is a better/cheaper/more prestigious RA/GAAP choice available. Other than a specialty not available elsewhere none of them are logical reasons to choose a program will affect the student for decades to come.

The reason we hear most often is cost which has been shown not to be true. The second reason we hear often is more flexibility which is doubtful. The one that we don't hear but is probably high up the list is it is easier. If the unaccredited program is legitimate it should of coarse be as tough or tougher than the accredited one. One of the reason you mentioned, fear of failure, is one that is easily overcome by taking a few coarse before enrolling.

Hundreds of people visit these forums to help choose a DL program. It is important that we let them know that an accredited degree program has much more utility and many advantages while the unaccredited one has few if any advantages and many pitfalls. The time and money investment is large and the program will impact the student for the rest of their life.

 

Agreed. Providing thoughtful opinions on specific unaccredited schools has it's place and serves consumers. Each person's case is different though, so generalizations may be difficult to interpret. Or perhaps wrong. At least, that's my view.

Thanks,

Dave

 

I guess that is where I would disagree with you Dave. Often generalizations are useful and I believe this is one. I think it is more than logical to suggest that an unaccredited program should almost always be avoided. Enrolling in an unaccredited program is like investing in Enron. It seems good at the beginning but later you can't believe you actually did it. With RA choices so plentiful and so cheap unaccredited just doesn't make sense.

 

Enron is a specific case among a broad class of energy investments, so it does not appear to support your point regarding the utility of generalization.

I would like to suggest that the methodology of employing generalizations to provide advice in ALL specific cases is flawed and therefore will produce incorrect results if applied exhaustively.

In sum, simple answers about unaccredited schools (i.e., generalizations) are not necessarily correct ones.

Can we agree to disagree?

Thanks,

Dave

 

I feel like I'm trapped in the middle here. On one hand I am skeptical of non-accredited degrees. But on the other, I am fond of a number of non-accredited institutions. That is not the contradiction that it seems to be, because I differentiate between education and certification.

While non-accredited schools are usually poor choices for earning degrees or other certification (except in unusual niche situations), they may be good choices for pursuing further advanced education.

My comments on some of Dave Wagner's reasons that I find rational, valuable and not excuses:

3. Interesting programs -- Isn't this why many of us choose programs? Because we are interested in them?

4. Tuition seems affordable -- If a program meets one's needs at an affordable cost, that's positive.

6. Few academic regulations -- This is not always a negative. See #8.

8. Just want to study w/o pressure -- If a person wants to study for his or her own enjoyment and self-improvement, why suffer unnecessarily? Many graduate programs are aimed at the young academic careerist. Students are competitive and form cliques around prominent professors. If an adult student just wants to pursue studies at an advanced level, why submit to that adolescent "rite of passage" stuff?

9. Need a diversion from current profession -- I think that many people have avocational interests. There is nothing wrong in pursuing them.

10. Want continuing professional education -- Another valid consideration. If one doesn't need yet another degree or transferrable university credits, then accreditation declines in importance.

11. Religious issues -- I think that religious sects do form subcultures where non-accredited degrees may be accepted. Bob Jones among fundamentalist Christians. Hsi Lai among Chinese Buddhists in California. Perhaps some alternatives in the Islamic community. The many "New Age" bookstores and seminars here in CA seem quite open to non-accredited graduates.

18. No accredited programs in my field of study -- See #3 above. There seems to be this assumption that every non-accredited distance learning program has an accredited alternative. Is that really true? Once you move much beyond business, Christian ministerial studies and perhaps psychology, pickings are pretty slim. There are all kinds of apocryphal stories of British-style research degrees in every conceivable subject, but how realistic is that?

Let me add some additional considerations:

A. Independent study in a library is of undisputed educational value, accreditation or no accreditation. But it's lonely as hell. If a program can put a student in touch with others with similar interests, that's valuable.

B. A non-accredited program may afford the opportunity to study with somebody that the student finds significant. Matthew Fox at Oakland's CA-approved University of Creation Spirituality, for example.

C. There is this unstated assumption that if a student applies to a program, then he or she will automatically be accepted. Well, are all of these RA and foreign-"GAAP" graduate programs really open admissions?

D. There are whole classes of students that might have trouble being accepted by most RA or foreign-"GAAP" programs, for what might not be entirely academic reasons. I'm thinking in particular of senior citizens. A retired individual may want to pursue an academic interest, but what doctoral level program is going to accept a 65-70 year old who wants to study part-time by DL, has been out of school for decades, and may not have had a career in the proposed field of interest? Do programs really want to devote resources to students who don't intend to teach and who won't graduate until they are well into their 70's?

My bottom line is that accreditation (or its equivalent) is critical when degrees are involved, and when those degrees are to be used to influence the perceptions of employers, colleagues, readers and clients.

But accreditation is of much less importance when students don't have a vocational degree objective and are studying for their own reasons.

 

Actually, it was a Th.B., and the school was not only non-RA, it had many characteristics of a degree mill. Two years of community college and one year of RA Bible college were transferred into the program, with the last 32 hours being non-RA---with the degree awarded by the non-RA school. It was during this time that I became interested in DL, and began to research the issue of accreditation--which I did not fully understand.

I later transferred the undergrad credits into a BA program at Lee University ( www.leeuniversity.edu ), completed 36 hours and was awarded the BA. I then forwarded the Th.B. diploma back to the president of the school from which it was awarded, and diplomatically requested that the school change their program nomenclature from degree titles to diploma/certificate programs. Ironically , I never received a response.

 

What Makes Me Laugh

If you are referring to my statement that people will laugh at the antics of unaccredited degree holders, that isn’t merely an opinion, it is a fact. I am a person and I laugh at the antics of unaccredited degree holders, ergo people laugh.

There aren’t any schools that I laugh at. On the contrary, from regionally accredited institutions, which are, for the most part, are making valiant efforts to provide education to desiring individuals, to diploma mills that not only victimize individuals, organizations, and society at large, but also taint the hard work and effort of all who have chosen to earn a degree via distance learning—I take them all very seriously. I thought I was being very clear; it is the antics of unaccredited degree holders that I laugh at—not even the individual, just their actions.

For example, when someone says that they are extremely satisfied with their choice of schools, in spite of the fact that the government sued the institution and forced them to move to another state, I find that hilarious. When someone, who really should know better, professes to only recommend accredited institutions, but defends their unaccredited degree by stating, “but my circumstances were unique,” I have to chuckle. And every time I hear the familiar refrain uttered by the holders of unaccredited degrees when the true nature of their credentials are exposed, “but I did a lot of work for my degree,” I’m in stitches.

Because, in the United States, the standard is regional accreditation, like it or not, all unaccredited schools in the United States, by definition, are deemed to be (unjustly or not) substandard. And, judging by acceptance in academia, this even appears to be true about DETC accredited schools and degrees.

Because value is a measure of relative worth, I assume you are referring to the utility of the degree. Therefore, for the most part, any degree offered by a regionally accredited institution, at an equivalent monetary cost (or even at a slight premium due to the increased utility), presents a better value than a similarly labeled one from an unaccredited school.

And I do help people. I do so by cautioning them to avoid unaccredited schools. It may be simplistic, but its good advice; the overwhelming majority of unaccredited schools granting Bachelor’s, Masters, and Doctoral degrees are diploma mills. It is easy to forget that the participants of this forum come from many different countries, each with its own method of ensuring quality in their institutions of higher learning. As such, the American system of regional accreditation can be confusing. It can be quite difficult even for an American to understand which institutions are legitimate. For example, if state approval is a guarantee of quality, does that apply to all states? Where do you draw the line?

By that very same logic consumers would have many more choices, and the cost of health care would drop considerably, if we simply did away with the requirement that medical doctors have an accredited degree and be licensed. The exceptions where an unaccredited school would be a better choice based on logical reasoning over an accredited one are so few as to be inconsequential (or, if you prefer, statistically irrelevant).

 

Thanks for posting the correct version of your story. It is very interesting and inspirational.

North

 

Re: What Makes Me Laugh

Let me see if I can untangle all this...

I believe you already admitted in a previous post that you didn't have any research on this, so it must be opinion. (Not sure why you addressed this issue again.)

Agreed. Diploma mills aren't good. Are all unaccredited schools diploma mills? No. (Not sure why you included this paragraph.)

Yes, but this is such an isolated incident. Should all unaccredited schools be sued? No. To which school are you referring? This seems like you're extrapolating from one or few data points.

This is your opinion again. Many (all?) new schools start out as unaccredited and then may become accredited as they develop. Some schools teach subjects through modalities that may keep them from being accredited. Other schools are too small to be accredited. There are many technical, professional and vocational schools that grant degrees though DL and are perfectly legitimate. These schools are not substandard, just not RA. Is a BA in Hapkido illegitimate? Who decides? Something to consider.

Accreditation is an important measure of quality. Accreditation is not on trial here. (Not sure what your point is. Not sure why this paragraph is here.)

As I've said before, your general dismissal of all unaccredited schools is predicated upon flawed reasoning. That's why you are sometimes giving bad advice, if you laugh at people who are considering unaccredited schools for DL. There are many reasons for enrolling in unaccredited schools. One of them isn't if a substantially similar and accessible program is available from an RA school. No one is contesting that point. What is being contested is this: you are not helping people when you discourage them from pursuing further formal education solely on the basis of it being from an unaccredited school. First and foremost, education is about learning and transforming lives with knowledge. Discussions about quality assurance (i.e., accreditation) are important but secondary. Consider this.

(Actually, we have these and they're called Nurse Practitioners, but they do come from accredited schools and the AMA guild loathes them.) Accreditation is an important quality standard where and when it can be applied. No one contests that point. (Not sure why this paragraph was included.)

But RA isn't a magic talisman that can be waived in front of books to turn them from bad education into good education. Conversely, the lack of regional-accreditation does not turn good education into bad education.

Now here's a question for you. Is a newly minted Ph.D. from an unaccredited school more competent than a Ph.D. who fully matriculated from an RA school 30 years ago but hasn't taught or published or published a page in the meantime? (I don't know... just asking.)

Cheers,

Dave

 

Couldn't agree with you more Dave.

 

While Mr. Sainz is laughing he should remember that degree holders from schools such as Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge ect could certainly look down upon his degrees and laugh even harder!

 

The question of why putatively legitimate schools don’t pursue accreditation is one that interests me a great deal (and one that I have asked about previously: Why do schools not get accreditation?). I have read Sperling’s book, which certainly provides some insight about WASC. But I still wonder why Taft dropped its pursuit of RA (as discussed in a previous thread: William Howard Taft University accreditation). And why other schools such as Cal Pacific and Cal Coast seem content with no accreditation (despite all the questions and concerns that this raises).

Jones Int’l is fully a distance institution. U. of Phoenix uses almost entirely part-time adjunct faculty. Yet both are RA. Various universities of extremely marginal quality at least have DETC accreditation, and there is now a strong precedent for having accredited bachelor’s and master’s programs alongside unaccredited doctoral programs offered by the same academic departments.

So what are the real reasons for not pursuing any type of accreditation? Are there good reasons why other states shouldn’t impose the restrictions now in place in South Dakota (for example)?

 

Perhaps you don't fully appreciate how hard I can laugh.

 

Yes Bill...I suppose from time to time we can all laugh quite hard.

 

Yes Bill...I suppose from time to time we can all laugh quite hard.

 

Re: Re: What Makes Me Laugh

I think that if the recipients of degrees expect them to be accepted by the wider community as being equivalent to other degrees of the same name (BA, MA etc.), then the work necessary to earn those degrees needs to meet some publicly recognized standard. If there is no way to know what kind of work earning a degree entails, then the degree becomes meaningless.

I agree that there are many different reasons for enrolling in unaccredited schools. I also agree that education is about learning and transforming lives.

The question at this point is why bother to earn a degree at all? Why not just pursue advanced education for its own sake, for its own intrinsic rewards?

When you pass beyond *studying* in a non-accredited school for personal educational reasons to *earning a degree* from one, particularly if it is your intention to use that degree out in the wider social world, then I have to side more with Gus.

A degree is a certification. A certification exists in a social context. If a degree does not have that wider social recognition, then its utility is limited at best. If it might actually discredit its holder in professional contexts, then it might be best avoided entirely.

Of course not. But accreditation does provide an imperfect indicator that a graduate's educational program covered the expected material at the expected depth, and so on. That is valuable for employers, colleagues and clients to know.

Why limit it to Ph.D.s from non-accredited schools? Is a person with no degree at all more competent than a person with a 30 year old Ph.D.? The answer is 'maybe yes, maybe no'. We have no way of telling. Obviously it's possible to be well educated without earning a degree. That's the reductio-ad-absurdem of your argument.

And the problem is, with the non-accredited Ph.D., you have no way of telling either. If earning the "Ph.D." doesn't imply that a recognized standard was met, then who knows what the degree means, or how it compares to RA doctorates?

 

Re: Re: Re: What Makes Me Laugh

Food for thought...

Note that no one seems to contest the validity or importance of regional-accreditation. What was being contested was the notion that unaccredited (non-accredited) schools were laughable, always inappropriate, and that a great service to humankind was being done by crusading against them. These positions as articulated were obviously indefensible. Non-RA schools are totally appropriate in some circumstances for DL, after the ever-increasing RA options are fully explored. Telling people otherwise seems inaccurate and possibly harmful. My views.

Cheers,

Dave

 

Dave I think you are losing people here. Many of the points Gus made are clearly fact. An unaccredited degree is by definition of questionable quality and content. Many people/employers/colleagues will simply laugh and snicker at one. Sometimes the subject will not even know that is the case. It is clear that RA is the accepted standard in the US. Are there very rare instances that an unaccredited degree may make sense? Yes. The only two valid reasons I can imagine are a very specific specialty or if the study is for personal satisfaction and will never be mentioned in an academic/employment situation. Since it is clear none of us know what path we will be on in 10, 20 or 30 years it is logical to choose the accredited path. For the vast majority unaccredited degrees shouldn't even be considered much less chosen.