Let Freedom Ring

Food for thought ... Let Educational Freedom Ring


According to Philip Forte,

Accreditation is sometimes mistaken for governmental certification, but it is not an official designation. Accreditation is essentially recognized by the Federal Government as a mechanism for the authorization to distribute government educational funds…Degrees granted or issued in conformance with cited statutes…are all equally legal under the law. Judgments of value and applicability of a certain degree are not made by the law or by the State. The appropriateness of a degree or the applicability of a degree to a job or the transfer of education credit is decided by those who must render such evaluations for those specific purposes.

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With all due respect, it would be inaccurate to represent accreditation as simply a mechanism for the distribution of funds. Rather IT IS THE assurance of minimal levels of quality. Second, there is a big difference between *legal under the law* and a quality *real* degree. Depending on the state you can get permission to issue a degree because the state basically gives you a business license. It is like comparing a broken down Yugo (which is legally a car) with a brand new Toyota Camry(which is also legally a car). The broken down Yugo being the unaccredited degree from many states and the Totota Camry the accredited degree. The utility is comparable as well.

We cannot kid ourselves.

North

 

Re: Re: Let Freedom Ring

If American Universities Were Car Lots

For this analogy, let us call a bachelor's degree "the car" -- the master's degree "the air conditioner and other options" and the doctorate "the gas."

1. Dealerships must undergo private, outside (but government approved) auditing in order to receive federal funding. This auditing is primarily concerned with the size of the lot, the color variety of cars available on the lot, the number of pamphlets near the coffee machine, and whether or not the car salesmen were all trained at approved dealerships. The quality of the cars themselves is left to the Worldwide Car Dealership Community, since the auditing body has no authority as regards the actual carliness of a car, and is primarily concerned with the functioning of the dealership as a dealership. A lot that sells the safest, most efficient cars known to man, if it has financial problems, will be put on warning, or worse: probation. No one is quite sure what happens if you buy a perfectly good car from a dealership that was formerly approved, but lost approval due to financial hard times, although the consensus seems to be that buying a car from a non-approved dealer is almost forgivable if that dealership was in the process of consideration for approval, and then managed to pull it off.

2. If the customer buys the car at an approved dealer, he most likely can drive into any other approved dealer and ask for the air conditioner and options. If the customer buys the car at a non-approved dealer, no approved dealer will throw in an air conditioner, for any price. If the customer buys both the car and the conditioner at an approved dealer, but decides to fill up with gas at a non-approved station, he will find his name at DealershipInfo.com in neon lights, and will be indicted by the court of Dealership Opinion for grand theft auto.

3. If one buys a foreign model, one must take the car into an approved mechanic, and the mechanic will make the determination as to how road worthy the car is on American roads. If he can find the car dealer who sold the car in his magic book, he may accept the car as road worthy, but may also ask for some modifications and alterations to be made to account for local air pollution laws. This may mean a new carburetor, some timing adjustments, or the car may have to be converted to propane-only. Of course, all modifications and work on the car will have to be done at the owner's expense, at an approved body shop.

4. When it comes time to write about driving and seek publication in the Car Community, authors are not actually queried about what kind of car they own, or whether they bothered with the options, or even if their cars have gas in them. In fact, they are not even asked if they own a car at all. Writing about cars is based entirely on the writing alone. Moreover, no one is quite sure whether or not owning a car makes any real difference in the quality of driving booklets, and indeed, some of the fastest drivers on the road never learned to ride more than a bike, deciding instead to run off the car lot when approached with the keys for a test drive. Although no one asks what kind of car or options one owns during the publication process, racking up these pamphlets and manuals plays a key role if one ever wishes to find a job selling cars at an approved dealership.

 

This is the same Philip Forte who runs Pacific Western University(ies). The same Philip Forte with the self-awarded doctorate. (Or, at least, the source is undeterminable. He didn't have it for years while running PWU. Then it appeared. A search of UMI didn't turn up his dissertation. Perhaps he did his degree overseas. Or perhaps he made it up.) The same Philip Forte who has dodged California law for years since the Authorized category--the one in which his school operated--was eliminated.

Please, might we have a credible source? The double-mill-speak of Mr. Forte is so familiar. He completely ignores the reality that degree acceptance, not legality, is the real issue. And on that score, his school fails. The only places where a PWU degree would serve is where no one asks or no one cares. I'm sure there are many places where such a degree serves. But I don't want to be part of them.

 

IMHO, this thread by RJT is just another indication that he is not a KWU student in search of the truth but is instead more likely a shill or a troll that has invaded DegreeInfo to spread misinformation.

 

He is technically correct on this one point. It's my understanding the United States Department of Education won't recognize any accrediting body unless the majority of its members agree to participate in government loan or grant programs.

 

David Boyd: He is technically correct on this one point. It's my understanding the United States Department of Education won't recognize any accrediting body unless the majority of its members agree to participate in government loan or grant programs.

John: This is one reason that the Council on Higher Education Accreditation exists. They are much closer to being an accreditor of accrediting agencies, in part since they don't have the loan and grant requirements. (www.chea.org)

John Bear, who was once taken to dinner at Vanessi's
in San Francisco's North Beach by the owner of a major unaccredited and quite non-wonderful (in my opinion)
university. I asked this man what he was
most proud of. He smiled and said, "When I first came
to this area, there were only topless nightclubs. I had the
foresight to open the first bottomless nightclub:
the Hotsy Totsy Club.

Sorry, but further details will have to await my posthumous edition.

 

Well RJT, you appear to be aspiring to be known as a great shill in support of degree mills. Obviously degree mill owners (or at least one) are prouder of strip clubs. I think you should take this story to heart and consider setting more lofty goals for yourself.

 

For years we've been teased with delightful tidbits of obviously deliciously hilarious stories and then to be told to wait for the posthumous edition. You better consider sending out this edition ahead of schedule or you're going to end up with a mob of friends half wishing that you'd die!

 

Come on Dr. Bear... dish already!

Mike Goldberg, the man who will be BSEE, who finds tittle-tattle more interesting than the (n+1)th accreditation chinwag.