Oregon and Kennedy-Western

So is the degree makes the person grate or person makes the degree grate?

Or combination of the above?

Take a class of graduates are they all equal? NO

They had the same program took the same examinations yet they are deferent with deferent talents.
Then there are good teachers such as a professor I had in philosophy classes and there are lousy professors I had more than one of this as well.

Now there Columbia and Harvard and there are AIU etc.
Are Harvard graduates on the same level as AIU? J

There is DETC and RA.

There is reality, as some one once told me the prove is in the pudding.

and there is Mr Gates Bill Gates.

 

In the day and age of moral relativity where truth and falsehood are not so easily distinguished (as taught by many universities) it is a bit ironic that when someone is not getting their tuition it is an absolute moral value rather than a relative one.

I do agree with your recommendation of "Empire of the Sun" however. My wife loves that movie.

 

Dear Alan;

I cannot find in the Oregon Administrative rules these phrases:

1. Possibly

2. Maybe

3. Perhaps

4. Appears to be a degree mill; but Is difficult to said

Can you point up evidence for the rules or laws that have those words

 

I have never argued for "fake" schools only unaccredited ones. As an employer, it is quite easy for me to check on college listed on a prospective employee's resume. Jump online, type in the name of the university in a search engine and, voila, there is the school complete with pictures of the campus (assuming there is one).

As I mentioned to Alan, the ODA is very late to the game and quite unnecessary (for a variety of reasons). It is easier than ever before to be able to verify a college's existence and programs.

Going to KW's site you can tell they are a distance learning college, they are licensed by the state of Wyoming, they are unaccredited and there is some work required to obtain the degree. It is not a degree mill as I would qualify it (no work required and no professional staff) but it also does not appear to be a demanding or rigorous program either. I would not give the degree a lot of credibility but I would also not say that it has no worth since there was some work performed to obtain it.

We had someone on here posting that he was taking courses at KW and was pleased with the coursework and program. If it works for him, he should have that choice of education. Not everyone fits into the same mold. It will be between him and his prospective employers as to the value of that education and what it means to them, as it should be.

 

And the public, and other schools, and anyone else relying on the validity of the degree you yourself acknowledge is less-than-wonderful. Thank goodness this isn't the standard!

 

Your arguments for substandard education leads diredtly to what Alan said. Rich does an excellent job in his response explaining it.

By trying to spread false information, you are doing a disservice to everyone coming here looking for information. You argue for substandard degrees while claiming that you're not. Yet, you refuse to name any valid unaccredited schools. Your referenced example of a "good" unaccredited school is KWU which is a sad diploma mill. Read the transcripts of the Senate investigation into this diploma mill. There was strong testimony that the KWU classes do not provide any education.

 

Remember that there is a difference between learning, which all of us (well, most of us) do all the time, and earning a degree, which relates to a specific kind and level of learning under the oversight of qualified faculty.

Also remember that checking what is on an entity's web site tells you very little, and what it does tell you may well be false. Only a third-party evaluative function, with results made available to the public, provides a really useful baseline.

Approved by the state of Wyoming or some other state? What does that mean, in real terms? Accreditation by Big Al's Accreditation Services? Means what? Claims to have satisfied students? Well, are they (1) really students, (2) really satisfied, based on (3) the quality of the program or the fact that it was easy? These are just basic questions, the kind that most employers never ask.

Russ mentions that employers have for decades done their own evaluations at some level when someone presents a piece of paper labeled "degree." Exactly. It is the results of this norm (widespread use of bogus and substandard degrees) that resulted in the creation of the ODA functions some 25 years ago.

Employers, public or private, generally don't have the skills or the time to do these screenings correctly. That is one reason why there are so many screening firms doing this work now. ODA is hardly alone in this role. In fact, Bear and Ezell don't even contract with us, they contract with a private firm that does credential evaluations. That firm now has its own monster database of bogus suppliers.

 

Foul. Three strikes and your out rule?

 

Not really, since "russ" isn't a real name. "russ" is an anonymous persona created by someone posting here. It is hard to defame a non-person.

 

Though the Soviets did their best with Krushev!

 

I stand corrected. Apologies to Jake_A.

Play ball.

 

I think that virtually all of us on Degreeinfo support selected non-accredited schools. I like some of them very much. But apparently that isn't good enough for you, it isn't what you have in mind.

I guess that you aren't arguing for the value of individual non-accredited schools, but for their legitimacy as a general class. In other words, you seem to think that they should all just be accepted uncritically. You seem to insist that no attempt should be made to distinguish non-accredited schools from accredited ones, or to treat the two classes any differently.

Nevertheless, you insist that you oppose degree mills and fake schools. Apparently you are willing to draw a distinction somewhere, but just not where the accreditors draw it. I think that your intention is to argue for the acceptability of substandard schools, and that your continual evasiveness is due in some large part to the fact that you can't just admit that, because it's indefensible.

Then you must really like that school that has a picture of Blenheim Palace on its webpage. Pretty classy. It's gotta be a really good school.

From just looking at a webpage? Some of the mills just copy "program syllabi" from other schools' websites, sometimes not even changing all the text.

But you won't learn very much about whether their classes amount to anything. And you will learn next to nothing about how Kennedy Western assesses applicants' prior experience and how the school decides to waive years worth of degree syllabus requirements. They are very secretive about that aspect.

That's just the problem, isn't it? You apparently want to place schools like this above your redrawn legitimacy line, while most people on Degreeinfo would place them below the line, drawn at the higher level where the accreditors draw it.

I don't think that anyone really disputes that all kinds of non-accredited educational opportunities are great. Personally, 90% of my own interest right now is in non-accredited options.

The problems mostly arise when the non-accredited schools grant academic degrees that might mean anything or nothing, and then the graduate attempts to pass these meaningless degrees out in the community in order to get additional consideration from employers and clients.

That's probably where the government's consumer protection function becomes most relevant.

Unfortunately, all you have suggesed that employers and clients do to avoid substandard degree claims is: A. Consult an unspecified "private agency" (your first suggestion), and now: B. Look to see if the questioned school has a website.

That's not going to replace accreditation.

 

Funny you mentioned Soviets.

65% of US professors want job insurance by govenment.

It appears that they are all COMUNISTS

 

Russ,

You make lots of excellent points. The problem with some of the other "aliases" is that they are incapable of distinguishing nuances. They constantly make the logical fallacy of conjoining all non-RA institutes (a little reading of Hume might help, but I doubt it).

It seems to me that there are three serious errors that most of us here are in danger of making:

(1) To label all non-RA schools as diploma mills;
(2) To label all people who defend non-RA higher ed institutes as defenders of diploma mills, academic fraud, and "shills"; and
(3) To be so open to all non-RA schools that diploma mills have room to maneuver.

Both "camps," however, seem to argue from noble positions.

"They" (the defenders of RA only schools) want to protect consumers and academic integrity.

"We" (the defenders of the non-RA option) want to protect a free and open society where innovation can flourish, where tuition is affordable, and where the role of government is somewhat restricted.

If we could only find some common ground, and quit attacking each other, then perhaps we could work on something more fruitful together. For example, what would be some performance objectives that a both non-RA and RA institutes would have to meet in order to be acceptable institutes of higher education?

 

No Sale

Morgan,
What you and Russ seem to be selling is the idea that you and he have a better understanding of what an education is and what an academic credential should represent than do the accrediting bodies in the US. I don't buy it. In my mind there is only one reason that someone would persue an unaccredited degree and that is to pass it off (privately for status or professionaly for advancement) as an accredited degree. The existence of UA degree programs is parasitic and erodes the value of actual academic credentials.

 

That's not true.

I think that virtually everyone who posts to Degreeinfo thinks that some non-accredited schools are valuable. I certainly do. I've made many more posts about non-accredited schools that I like than you or 'Russ' ever have.

But that's never sufficient. That's not what Degreeinfo's critics seem to want from us.

The demand always seems to be that Degreeinfo and its participants simply embrace the whole non-accredited class uncritically. You attack any distinction between the accredited and non-accredited classes. If any legitimacy criteria survive (you guys always insist that you oppose degee-mills), then the new line is drawn at a new point very different than where the accreditors draw it.

What I do, and what I think that most people on Degreeinfo do, is treat non-accredited schools with considerable initial skepticism. But we also remain willing to consider a plausible case made in behalf of particular schools.

But even degrees from credible non-accredited schools typically have serious utility problems and work best in special situations. So a large part of considering these schools is to define those special situations and to get a feeling for what kind of students a particular school is most appropriate for.

I've read a lot of Hume. He's one of my favorite philosophers. But I fail to see his relevance to this discussion.

I don't believe that anyone has done that.

I agree that some people resort to insults too readily. Your "knights" crap was an example of you doing it.

That's the issue, as I see it.

Degreeinfo is being criticised, but it it's never exactly clear what changes the critics want from us. We often say very nice things about various individual non-accredited schools, but that's never sufficient to please. Critics always seem to insist that we embrace non-accredited schools as a general class.

I wouldn't argue with your goal, which I enthusiastically share.

Of course, it might be a bit of a non-sequitur to suggest that "non-RA" somehow implies "free and open society where innovation can flourish, where tuition is affordable, and where the role of government is somewhat restricted."

But the point is moot anyway, since hardly anyone on Degreeinfo rejects non-RA options. You are fighting a straw-man.

You still seem to be insisting that we disregard accreditation and that we replace it with some other criterion of your choosing. But I don't see any reason to do that. I like accreditation.

The question of how the handful of credible non-accredited schools can be distinguished from their sub-standard cousins is certainly an interesting subject. I've made many posts about that question myself.

But the point isn't to uproot and replace accreditation, it's to supplement it in special situations.

 

This is very true. Bill has listed probably over a half dozen unaccredited schools that he felt provided bona fide education that would satisfy the standard degree requirements. He gave compelling information to support that position. Morgan and DLJ has mentioned only two unaccredited institutions, at least that I remember, that was KWU and PWU. Both are diploma mills that provide far below standard degrees. PWU is currently being sued by Hawaii for diploma mill practices that violate Hawaiian law.

 

Bill, not forget the good, high quality, good quality, first-class, superior, and excellent California Coast University. (Now accredited)

In addition, the great new university of AKAMAI

 

[Thanks. You've been a big help. I've place my answers within your text and in brackets.]

Best,

Morgan

 

MK - "I would be very interested to learn where you draw the line. Perhaps that would make a great discussion."

JT - Well Morgan (welcome back, by the way) people have been trying to tell you where they draw the line since you appeared on the scene. I myself told you where I draw the line in this thread
http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18692
in my posting of 03/20/05. You chose to completely ignore it. If you really believe that "this would make a great discussion," then perhaps you'll go back to that thread and make an intelligent response.

MK - "I'll have to do a search" (on how credible non-accredited schools can be distinguished from their substandard cousins) "I would also be interested in opening a thread on that."

JT - Well Morgan, there's good news and then there's better news. The good news is that this forum is full of threads related to that very subject. If you take some time and read through a few months on these threads then you'll probably get a good general sense of how to make this distinction. The better news is that you've already started the thread that you described above. It's the thread I've linked above. That's YOUR thread. You started it. Did you forget? It's cool, Morgan, you're on a roll now, surf the wave Morgan.
Jack