Nasty article about California Coast and Corinthian

Well, not quite. The GAO report never said Cal Coast degrees were "bogus" and never said they were a diploma mill.

Unfortunately, many news articles missed this point. The only reason Cal Coast was highlighted was because they cooperated fully with the goverment. Sometimes you just can't win.

 

The news article never called Cal Coast U. a degree mill either. They didn't call the degrees in general bogus only the doctorate degree bogus. I think that the author of the article only wrote the truth.

It is unfortunate that CCU was really only picked on because they cooperated. I wonder if the investigating officer that passed two KWU Master's level engineering classes with only 16 hours of work tried the same thing at CCU but didn't report on it because she found that they were a real school that required real work?

 

The story included a picture of Lynn Ianni with the caption: "The Swan's diploma-milled doc". The obvious implication is that if Ianni possesses a "diploma milled doc", then the institution that granted her the doctorate is a diploma mill.

The story went on to say:

...the Fox reality show The Swan employs a doctor who really ain't a doctor—California Coast alum Lynn Ianni... —never mind that California Coast's non-accreditation makes her doctorate worthless. Ianni told the Smoking Gun that her degree was legit "to the best of my knowledge," meaning that either California Coast officials lied to Ianni about the validity of her studies or that she dispenses advice worth of another Fox property, The O'Reilly Factor.

I'll add that I don't think that this thing was a "news story" at all. It was just a snide and sophomoric opinion piece from a suburban weekly.

The author of the piece actually suggests that verifying that CCU wasn't RA was hard-hitting investigative journalism. I think that it's probably safe to say that the average Degreeinfo participant is better informed on these issues than Gustavo Arellano.

 

I believe both Dr. Ianni and CCU should level a hefty lawsuit against the author of this article. The language of the article and claims against her and the school are clearly defamatory.

 

I'm not so sure. Insulting, maybe, but defamatory? There should be some substantive (and unfounded) claim(s) made regarding CCU and/or Ianni before anyone can be defamed. The only things I recall are opinions, like a CCU degree is "worthless" and the picture's caption, calling her a "diploma milled doc." I don't remember any substantive claims that were incorrect. (I don't agree with those two opinions, btw.)

I note, too, that Ianni isn't a psychologist. She didn't become one on the basis of her CCU doctorate. She's a marriage and family therapist, which is a long way off. (She's referred to as a "psychotherapist," which I don't think California licenses.) She also claims to be a hypnotherapist.

What is more serious is the claim that CCU received federal funds for training purposes that, as a university, it wasn't entitled to receive. If true, I don't see how the DETC can ignore that.

 

I don't see much merit in that accusation, nor do I see why DETC should even care.

Apparently the feds won't pay for non-accredited degree programs, but they will pay for individual classes from non-accredited providers. So some federal employees just kept taking individual classes until they had earned their degrees.

OK, if there's anything blameworthy here, which really isn't clear, then where does the blame lie?

With Cal Coast, who allowed students to pay by the class, just like the University of California does?

Or with the government personnel people who just kept rubber-stamping tuition reimbursement requests without even bothering to look at them?

If the government wants to prohibit this class-by-class practice, they can put a cap on the number of classes they pay for, they can require that the classes come from accredited providers, or they can do whatever else they decide to do.

But attacking Cal Coast because the government messed up is kind of ridiculous.

 

Defamation is the publication of anything injurious to the good name or reputation of another, or which tends to bring that person into disrepute. A defamation designed to be read is libel, an oral defamation is slander.

 

CCU doesn't normally bill per class but if you quit you do get billed per class.

 

Again, it might not be the government who messed up. They likely paid what appeared to be justified training expenses, expenses that were really tuition payments for degree programs disguised.

 

I need to correct and amplify something I just posted. I read the GAO report. The employees in question arranged with the schools--all of whom charge one flat fee for each degree--to "carve" up their tuition into courses so they could bill the government. (They didn't carve up courses into smaller increments, like I suspected. Still, they changed their billing practices in order to receive funds to which they were not entitled.)

Because the government pays for all kinds of training, most of which doesn't occur at academic institutions, this looked like reimbursements for individual courses, not for degree programs. A loophole, but one the students and the schools conspired to exploit.

I hope DETC has read this report.

 

This is all true. On the other hand, opinion is protected from defamation. Not only that, it can probably be argued that Dr. Ianni is a public figure. If true, that would significantly raise the bar for winning a defamation suit.

I don't agree with the implication that CCU is a degree mill. Calling Dr. Ianni's doctorate bogus is a much more defensible postion to take, IMHO, than saying that CCU is a degree mill. After all it seems likely that CCU will be accredited shortly but the doctorates will not be accredited.

 

That is simply nonsense. Counselors do indeed treat mental disorders or maladjustments. All lisensed mental health professionals utilize the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-4th Edition of the American Psychiatric Association) in their work. Being a psychologist with 23 years experience I probably can claim some degree of qualification in this area.

 

The author made definitive statements injurious to both parties which in my opinion is libelous. The concept that CCU is a degree mill is unsubstantiated with no due process to support that contention. The concept that Dr. Ianni's doctorate is bogus is also unfounded since that degree and it's academic program is approved and certified by the State of California, a duly authorized government body per US DOE policy. The Federal government's recognition is of no consequence.

 

I remain unmoved. If I operated a school and if a student approached me and told me that his employer would only pay his tuition in smaller sums, I might be willing to accept installments or something. Charge by the class or whatever.

That certainly doesn't absolve the employer of the responsibility of making sure that the money was properly spent.

A number of CHEA recognized accreditors specialize in what you call "training".

What's more, I doubt that 'training' courses and 'academic' courses can be distinguished quite so easily.

If I take a 3-unit computer class from community college, it's 'academic', but if I take a similar class from a CA-approved vocational school, it's 'training'? And a government clerk is supposed to know the difference by the size of the tuition request alone? (In this case, the community college would almost certainly be less.) Wouldn't content be relevant somewhere?

What if I worked for the Department of Agriculture and put in a tuition request for 'Advanced Fruit and Nut Production'? (California has turned that into a science.) Academic or training? (It's actually Cal Poly SLO's Fruit Science 521, a graduate university course.) What if I got tuition reimbursement for ten of those puppies, then paraded in one day with a shiny new Crop Science masters degree? Would ten courses that sounded like good training individually suddenly melt into crap because they formed a coherent program and I had topped them off with a diploma?

My point is that if the courses were good enough to reimburse individually, then it would be hard to call ten of them fraud.

Obviously the government doesn't need to recognize the resulting degree for promotional or transfer purposes if the degree is unaccredited, but the work would still count as a valuable body of courses taken, wouldn't it? If not, why were the classes reimbursed in the first place?

 

Bill,

you are correct. I was going to try and elaborate but the entire discussion would be too long winded for this post. I'll add a couple of points. Many government positions require continued education as a matter of regulation. $2500 is the micro purchase level of Government Purchase Card holders. Theoretically, up to the limits established on the card I can take multiple $2500 classes and identify these as required by regulation. The higher up the food chain the less scrutiny on these purchases. Take a look at the GAO report and you will see that the credit card issues are left out with an interesting explanation.

Lastly, laws, rules, and agency guidance all exist on this topic. Lack of application is the issue. In my opinion (and my agency follows this rule) training must be taken from an approved provider (normally those folks that have competitively been awarded a contract) or an accredited institution as determined by the US Dept of ED standards.

 

The GAO thinks that what these schools did was bogus. They may or may not go after the schools (the report wasn't clear). All I'm saying is that this has a potential to affect CCU's bid for accreditation. Or not.

 

DETC allowed AICS to claim bogus accreditation from WAUC and still gave them accreditation. The accounting tricks done by CCU are nothing in comparison, at least IMHO.