RA For University of the People

A free RA school, to be?

From them:

"In addition [to DEAC], UoPeople received WASC accreditation eligibility!
What does WASC Accreditation Eligibility mean?
The WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC) is a regional accrediting agency. University of the People has applied for Eligibility to become accredited by their commission. WSCUC reviewed UoPeople’s eligibility application and determined that the institution is eligible to proceed with an Application for Accreditation.
A determination of Eligibility is not a formal status with the WASC Senior College and University Commission, nor does it ensure eventual accreditation. It is a preliminary finding that the institution is potentially accreditable and can proceed within five years of its Eligibility determination to be reviewed for Candidacy or Initial Accreditation status with the Commission. Questions about Eligibility may be directed to the institution or to WSCUC at https://www.wscuc.org/contact or (510) 748-9001."

Q: They do have fees. They are low, but will they raise them upon RA?
Q2: Will credits earned pre-RA be considered RA if the diploma was awarded post RA? In other words, if I start now will I have a completely RA diploma five years from now, assuming RA at graduation? I would think so, but...technically...I'm not sure. I'm not an HR person but a sharp one might parse this out? Would a grad school parse this?

 

HR doesn't care about the timing of your credits in relation to accreditation. If the school looks legit at a quick glance, it's fine. I'd say it's a bigger obstacle that UoP sounds like some North Korean school rather than how credits might time.

Flip side is you can also get an accredited degree through a teach out even after accreditation is pulled. But no one is going to really look at that and make the connection. Nor is anyone interested in hearing the argument that technically you're degree is accredited. Too many applicants. Too much going on. If you have an HR person scrutinizing to that level it's likely due to the fact that you have specific coursework requirements (happens for some government jobs) even then, those shops are still trying to push people through to close our reqs.

 

I want to echo and amplify Neuhaus' comment.

Technically, a degree earned before accreditation occurs means a degree from an unaccredited school. And a degree earned while the school is accredited by one agency is just that, even if the school later goes on to another form of accreditation.

But the real world works differently. For example, degrees earned from schools that are candidates for accreditation--RA, since DEAC doesn't have candidacy--are normally treated as degrees from accredited schools. And if you earn a degree from an unaccredited school that subsequently becomes accredited, your degree will likely be treated as one from an accredited school. This is, normally, because almost no one looks at the degree award date and compares it to the school's date of initial accreditation. That would be impractical. It would also not normally make a distinction that was really different.

Some exceptions to that last comment are a few schools who were long-unaccredited (and operating on the fringes of legitimacy), then were subsequently accredited by DEAC. There was a real wave of those for a while. Graduates from those schools' early and shaky days really made out. (Of course, the same could certainly be said of early graduates of Union!)

As for graduating from a school that subsequently loses its accreditation or goes out of business, you can be hurt in that situation if someone bothers to look up your school and does not dig further to understand your circumstances, as Neuhaus is saying.

 

The University of People may want to establish a charity and scholarship program if they haven't done this already.
It's costly but if they pick up a sponsor among many religious organizations this can be a significant funding source.

 

Just a quick add on to the above...

I don't know if many folks here have looked closely at their transcripts but the accreditation information is often on the back of the transcript and, in my experience, printed in a light grey or blue font on a white or off white page. That area also contains the grading rubric and other institutional information. The info is there. The dates are there. But very few people bother flipping it over.

My general rule of thumb for degrees and HR is this; if it looks shady it's going to be perceived as shady. It doesn't matter if the shadiness can be explained. The reason is that the applicant behind you might be a close enough fit and NOT have to explain away something shady. Sometimes you get lucky. Most often you don't because its a buyers market when it comes to hiring candidates (in many industries and in many places, hiring welders is harder for me right now than hiring highly specialized engineers with advanced degrees from top schools).

 

Thank you all. I hope they do change their name. I have credits from the College for Lifelong Learning, part of the University System of New Hampshire. I jumped for joy when they changed their name to Granite State College. I wasn't the only one jumping.

 

So then the next question is can you complete the ENEB/Isabella U. MBA and then transfer the credits into the University of the People MBA and end up with a $1500 MBA?

 

Oh, I don't know. I've been at this since the late 1970s. The concern over weird names is largely overblown--I don't think employers care as much as one might think. It's way more important to get the right degree in the right area of study than is a weird name.

 

Depends a lot on the degree, the field and the name.

I worked in HR for years with a B.S. in Management rather than the preferred B.S. in HR Management. Certs plus a somewhat related bachelors were fine for most employers. I have seen HR folks balk at candidates with degrees from American InterContinental University, however, because it "sounds fake" (it does).

There are some majors where you can sub out others. There are some where you can't. I've never seen an accountant hire someone with a degree in something other than accounting. Sometimes you can get a finance job with a degree in accounting, though. And marketing will hire someone with a degree in finance if they are otherwise qualified.

To Rich's point, most employers really don't care. Empire State College isn't a highly respected school in New York. But it's fine. It's a degree and you see people with those degrees all over the place. Excelsior is also incredibly common and viewed similarly despite having a, I may be somewhat controversial in saying this about my own state's motto, really crappy school name.

The only bad school name that I have seen that was so unapologetically bad that it was beyond redemption in my opinion was pre-Penn Foster when they were still Thompson Education Direct. For an educational publisher, that name is fine. But it lacks the word "school" or any indicator that this was a degree granting institution. Penn Foster Career School/College presents well because you at least know this is a place that sounds like it should be awarding degrees or some similar qualification. Even then, people still got jobs with degrees from TED.

Having a Bachelors from UPhoenix is still much better than having no bachelors degree at all.

 

Until Union adopted the name "The Union Institute," it was known by the very awkward moniker, "Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities," or UECU. This was because the Union really was a union of experimenting schools. UECU was always, however, a free-standing, degree-awarding institution. The school at Union running the PhD program was the Union Graduate School. This was also how UECU was often known and referred to colloquially. In fact, you would see a lot of people referring to their PhDs as coming from UGS, even though it was UECU that awarded the degree--and appeared on the diploma.

When Union expanded through acquisition, it looked to call itself a "university." But "Union University" was too commonly used, so they settled on "Union Institute and University." Ugh. It's awkward and a mouthful. Steve Levicoff graduated when it was the much-preferred "The Union Institute." I graduated under the later, goofier name. I'll confess to often referring to my alma mater as The Union Institute. It's just a simple, more elegant name. And if Union--which has now divested those other elements--decides to revert (or progress to something new--I don't care which), I'll change everything I can to reflect it and get away from "Union Institute and University."

Does any of this matter? Probably not. But I like tossing out the occasional history lesson for those who might not know these things.

Does anyone remember--don't look it up--Campus-Free College? I bet graduates from it use "Beacon College" for the most part.