Regional Accredited Degree in 4 Weeks

The big problem is deciding between what is a legitimate unaccredited school and what is not (Kennedy-Western? Pacific-Western?). If one has two outcomes for an application listing (acceptance and rejection), there would be nothing stopping the school from applying again but making enough changes to improve the chances of success. If one adds another outcome (acceptance providing changes are made) in order to streamline the process it begins to look a bit more like the current process.


It really becomes a form of accreditation where the bar has been moved. ("A rose by any other name / Would smell as sweet..." Romeo & Juliet, Act II, Scene 2)

Maintaining a comprehensive list of degree mills may also be a problem, since they tend to spring up like rabbits, and there would need to be a very good way to draw a line between unaccredited but legitimate and degree mills, or at the very least schools where there is not sufficient evidence to call them degree mills but do not have sufficient standards to be called legitimate (so one does not experience the ODA's troubles)

But then again, I suspect there are not too many venture capitalists on this board (I could be wrong). Since you claim to have experience running a company, why not approach them about setting one up yourself? Much better than having one of us arrange for it to be set up on your behalf.

 

What is the advantage of this plan over the current accredidation system? Currently, prospective employers can check the status of a person's degree with a simple free phone call to the college that issued the degree. They can also check the accredidation status of the college on the net. I fail to see why they would want to start paying.

 

There are several advantages over the present system.

1. Objectivity and independence.
2. They would cover all colleges, accredited and unaccredited as well as have an incentive to track diploma mills.
3. They would be national and possibly international instead of just regional.
4. Employers make one phone call instead of multiple phone calls to different universities.
5. They would have an incentive to keep the database up-to-date with continuous research.

 

And how would these private agencies gather their data?

And how would we differentiate the bogus agencies (like Shiela's agency that approved SRU degrees) from the honest ones?

 

"russ" has been asked that several times, but has decided not to answer. That--and the other questions he ignores--is why he's a shill. A pecking-around-the-edges shill, but one nonetheless.

(Or, to avoid a "personal" attack, let's say his behavior is consistent with a shill.)

 

As a practical matter, it doesn't matter whether he is a genuine paid shill or not. His posts make the mills' arguments FOR them, making easier their highly profitable goal of deluding honest students and conspiring with dishonest ones to defraud others.

If it talks like a shill, walks like a shill and argues like a shill, as far as I am concerned, it's a shill.

 

1. How would the employer know that they can be trusted? As we have seen diploma mills creat their own acceditation. Getting on a list through fake information would certainly be possible.

2 - 3 - 5. This agency must have one heck of a lot of time and money to do that much research. The amount of time and effort to check each school would be enormous - which is why accreditation takes so long.

4. They only need to call the school issuing the last degree.

There still doesn't seem to be any reason to trust this fictional agency more than the current system.

If'n it ain't broke, don't fix't.

 

Isn't that precisely what the existing accreditors are?

So the accreditation status of individual schools would remain a secret unless an inquirer paid to see it? That doesn't sound very useful. Wouldn't it make more sense for the schools to pay for their own accreditation, then for the accrediting agency to make the results freely available to the community? (That's what's done now.)

And are you suggesting that your accreditation agency would only make its institutional assessments in response to inquiries? Accreditation processes usually take years and inquirers usually need answers in minutes. Wouldn't it make more sense for the accreditors to make their assessments on their own schedule and then to simply publish the results for the community to use? (That's what's done now.)

If non-accredited schools refuse to cooperate with the existing accrediting agencies, what makes you think that they would agree to submit to inspection by your imaginary accrediting agencies? And if by some miracle they did all suddenly cooperate, wouldn't that mean that they were all finally seeking accreditation?

I still want to hear your suggestions for assessing non-accredited universities if they don't undergo an accreditation process. How should we go about distinguishing legitimate non-accredited schools from mills?

Universities already do that for free. If you want to know if somebody graduated from a particular university, just call the university's records office and ask. (You say that you hire people, but you don't already know this?)

 

I personally believe very little that Russ writes. Actually, come to think of it, if you discount the many false statements that he's incorrectly attributed to others, he's really only made a couple or so statements of fact and this is one of them. I really don't know why I should believe it, at least not with a record like that.

 

Right, and this is why you guys want me to reveal my background so that you can say you don't believe that as well.

 

The agency's reputation for honesty and objectivity would be at stake if they did not supply accurate information. All information provided by suspect universities could be checked and verified.

Accreditation does not check every school, only those who are applying for accreditation. There still needs to be a check for unaccredited schools and diploma mills.

They only need to call the last university of one person but if you had 30 different applicants you would need to call all of their universities. With this agency, all 30 would be handled by one phone call.

Trust is the only thing this agency has to sell. They must be accurate or they will not exist.

It is broke and this is one way to fix it.

 

You guys think I am a "shill" Someone on another thread thinks I am a "troll." You are both wrong.

I have a question for you to answer. Since I have made it abundantly clear that I am only arguing for the right (since accreditation is voluntary) for a legitimate unaccredited school to continue to be unaccredited, why is that being a "shill?"

I have not argued for accepting diploma mills. In fact, I have said they were fraudulent. Isn't that clear enough?

 

If we are relying on these "agencies" for our information, then how could we ever know that the information they are supplying us isn't accurate? And if we didn't trust that the agencies were authoritative, then why would their assessments carry any weight?

One way to strengthen the authority of your agencies would be to make them associations whose members are large numbers of institutions of unquestioned reputation. Or the agencies could be operated by the national professional societies. But that's what the accreditors are now.

Another way might be to have the government check to see that their standards and procedures are sound. But the Department of Education already does that.

By whom? How?

The only way that anyone could check the information would be if they had some way of distinguishing academically sound schools from substandard ones. When accreditation is absent, how do you propose that people make that determination? I've been asking you that over and over, and you run from the question as if it were poison.

But if non-accredited schools, by definition, fail to submit to accreditation procedures, what "check" do you propose to separate good non-accredited schools from mills? Your "agencies" aren't an answer to that question, unless you can explain how to do what the accreditors can't do. (Namely inspect schools that won't submit to inspection.)

You still haven't made a case against the existing accreditors, told us clearly what is "broke" about them, or explained how your own "agencies" would avoid whatever those failings are.

 

No Russ, my view is that if your credibility is so meaningless to you, why should it mean more to me?

Take care and I truly do wish you the best. Though you have little credibility with me I hope that I can still like you?

 

a real drugvant

Newbies and lurkers: troll warning! Do not take the troll seriously. By the way, the troll continues to lie. I asked him what categories of schools he had attended, not their names. I told him his other posts were fair game. I told him I respected his decision not to identify himself. He lies about each of these statements of mine. He lies by saying I did not honour my promise not to criticize his reply to my "no horns or teeth" question. He further denies the reality of truth, and denies his denial--this makes everything he says meaningless.

 

I am only arguing for the right (since accreditation is voluntary) for a legitimate unaccredited school to continue to be unaccredited

Russ,

Correct me if I am wrong, but unaccredited schools do have the right to continue to be unaccredited. It seems to me that you are arguing against my (or anyone's) right to assume that an unaccredited school is illegitamate because it keeps company with degree mills instead of seeking accreditation.

If you want an unaccredited degree, go and get one. I wish you well, but I don't buy into the assertion that UA schools deliver the same quality product as NA or RA schools.

 

Hi RobbCD: welcome aboard. Please read the post prior to yours.

 

It is not that my credibility is meaningless to me. It is that I refuse to be bullied in to disclosing anything about myself on this board which is exactly what certain individuals are trying to do. Besides, no matter what I put down the paranoia that reigns on this board won't believe it anyway.

Thank you for the kind words and wishes.

 

No, you have the right to assume that any school which is unaccredited is substandard just as I have the right to argue that I don't believe that. All schools start out unaccredited and still provide a worthwhile education. Unaccredited schools and diploma mills are not the same entities. As a matter of fact, most diploma mills say they ARE accredited by some fabricated accrediting agency or a foreign government.

Thank you for the good wishes. Same to you.

 

Whiny troll.