Regionals vs. DETC - A Real Turf War

I really don't hear anyone talking about the non-DETC NA schools that are out there. Is anyone going to deny that there are some top quality schools out there that are accredited by TRACS and ABHE? What about the transferability of their credits? Surely these institutions share a level of equality with RA schools based on the integrity and rigor of their programs, but their credits simply don't transfer to most RA schools...not because of a lack in academic quality but rather a bias against NA schools.

I wouldn't be complaining if the majority of RA schools said, "Look, we don't feel that many of the NA schools are up to our standards, nor do we feel that many other RA schools are up to our standards. For this reason we will examine the merits of each institution (regardless of NA or RA) and base our transfer acceptance accordingly."

What most RA schools are saying is,"Look, we feel that the overwhelming majority of RA schools meet our standard. We don't believe that ANY NA school meets our standards. Accordingly, we will accept transfer credit from virtually all other RA schools and will blindly deny acceptance of credit from ALL NA schools. We feel so strongly about this that we won't consider looking at the institution and examing its quality."

When RA schools take this position, and almost all do, RA becomes more like a "boys club" rather than an institution to ensure academic integrity. Sad.

Pug

 

How then do they protect their academic integrity? It becomes an overwhelming task to evaluate both individual applicants and a myriad of academic institutions. Setting broad criteria may be inherently discriminatory but is a practical necessity. Discriminating between ACE approved courses/tests and those non-approved is one example of arbitrary, discriminatory necessity.

 

<<How then do they protect their academic integrity? It becomes an overwhelming task to evaluate both individual applicants and a myriad of academic institutions. Setting broad criteria may be inherently discriminatory but is a practical necessity. Discriminating between ACE approved courses/tests and those non-approved is one example of arbitrary, discriminatory necessity.>>

I couldn't disagree with you more. I have had personal conversations with the admissions officers of at least 3 or 4 different schools regarding this matter. If the admissions officer is unfamiliar with the school or its accrediror, he/she has asked for a copy of the school catalog, syllabus, website address, phone #, etc. The school is investigated and an answer is returned in less than a week regarding the acceptability of transfer credits. Once a school has been investigated it goes onto a list of approved institutions so the same work doesn't have to be repeated over and over again for future prospective students. This is NOT a lengthy process.

Pug

 

What cracks me up is the people who complain about the "RA or no way" attitude of this board. They bemoan our pointing out the limitations of earning a degree from a DETC-accredited school, despite the obvious fact that DETC itself recognizes this disparity!

Shooting the messenger doesn't prevent the truth.

 

DaveHayden's brilliant and succinct synopsis posted earlier in this thread says it all. It behoves all "unaccredited schools are legitimate" apologists and self-selected spokesersons to take notice, and re-read it, again:

quote
posted by DaveHayden
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As to your suggestion about a turf battle, hogwash. I doubt the RAs even notice DETC. For the most part different market, different game.
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The anti-accreditationists - as per some apologists for KW"U" and the like who, getting nowhere with that bit of idiocy, suddenly changed tunes and are now saying that "government must force RA-accreditors to accept DETC-accreditations and vice versa" - need to read and imbibe the essence of the quote above.

Incidentally, if RA accreditors are to be forced to accept DETC accreditations and vice-versa, how come the proponent(s) of this idea are NOT spending their time convincing KW"U" and the like, fraudulent diploma mills, and unaccredited entities of all types to become either RA or DETC - so that the RA/DETC forced reciprocity would apply to them?

Why not?

Allow me to rhetorically suggest an answer to my rhetorical question:

Maybe not, because these proponents and their shady school operator-colleagues do, in fact, exist on a different planet - or have found profitable havens offshore or via the unregulated Internet or are ensconced in low-to-no-standards US states), thus DaveHayden's "different market, different game" analogy do not seem to apply to them.

Should it not? Again, why not?

Hmmmm .......

Thanks.

 

Re: Re: The Republicans are in charge now....

Actually, accreditotrs make no agreements between each other, on behalf of the institutions they accredit. For example, NSA official policy on credit acceptance is as follows:

Each institution determines its own policies and procedures for accepting transfer credits, including credits from accredited
and non-accredited institutions, from non-U.S. institutions, and from institutions that grant credit for experiential
learning and for adult learner programs....The Role and Responsibilities of Institutions. Colleges and universities are ultimately responsible for decisions about the admission of transfer students and the acceptance or non-acceptance of credits earned elsewhere. Typically, academic faculty and student affairs professionals (working within the framework of faculty rules and standards) determine the transferability of courses and programs. Institutions must balance responsiveness to
students’ preferences about transfer with institutional commitment to the value and quality of degrees or other
credentials.

It looks like, if the bill becomes law, while they will not be required to accept DETC credits, they will not be allowed to discount them simply because they are DETC credits, which I am certain occurs often now.

Many, I think, will find it simpler to start accepting these in transfer than defending why not.

 

Re: Re: The Republicans are in charge now....

I'd agree. If this bill passes, then what's the point of accrediting agencies? If NA and RA schools cannot deny credits anymore, then why not have just one accreding agency or the USDE simply accredit schools.

This bill could introduce a whole host of issues, such as academic quality. If a student took 2/3rd of their degree at a shaky NA school, and then transferred to MIT, who was forced to accept them, then what does that say about MIT? or standards for academic rigor? Also, if this bill passes, then why would any school look for RA status?

Schools like AMU might just forgo their quest for RA, as well as others.

I will keep an eye on this bill for sure.

 

I made sure that my son is in RA school.

Once he graduates he will have a degree that has the least limitations, I don't want him to invest all this time and money on a degree that is accepted 20% or even 50% of the graduate schools, employers etc.

I think that life will have many other things for him to wory about.
When he compets for a job (I don't know if he is future Bill Gates
and I don't recomend to drop out of college - some make it sound that any other college dropout is very successful like Bill gates).

Historicly RA Universities graduates have the best acceptance of their degrees and less issues.

Turf or not turf.

Maybe some day DETC degrees will enjoy the same level of recognition as RA but this day is not here yeat.

I don't want to bash any school but I have to say this I know a person who earned technical degree from ITT - NA school.

In his words - it's not a bad credential but he wishes he went to Devry. He is facing the limitations that non RA degree holders
have in real life out there competing for jobs etc.

In a way he was not told the truth about the acceptance of his ITT degree.

 

This has always been the strongest arguement for RA. Why place unneeded limitations on your future? If no similiar RA program is available, then other than RA may be appropriate. In this daythere are very few fields not covered by RA DL degrees.

 

Re: Re: Regionals vs. DETC - A Real Turf War

.... hmmmm, can't argue with that logic. It's like saying either you work for a Fortune 500 company or you don't. Period.

 

The prevailing wisdom is to get a RA undergraduate. Depending on your career path, it may make sense to pursue a DETC graduate degree. In some cases, these things transfer if you want to move around. RA and NA are competitive systems (both are in the distance ed. market) and don't play well together. Certainly RA has the lion's share of the education market and there are philosophical and business reasons for not co-mingling if RA doesn't want to. There may be relevancy issues as well related to degree content (this has always been up to the receiving school). However, based on just standards, DETC and RA are the same. Nevertheless, these things tend to be parochial.

 

Two items

Bush04 - I suspect that this bill, should it become law, would have only a minimal impact on schools. It may take a bit of effort, but RA schools can pretty easily point out differenes in course content or rigor - and hence, still say no. If an RA school wants to say "no", they'll find a way.

Also, several have talked about how some grad programs are accepting DETC (and other non-RA accredited) graduates. I note at schools such as Nova Southeastern and others that DETC grads can be admitted - but under separate policies. Allowing non-RA grads in on an exception basis certainly isn't the same thing as automatically admitting RA grads with a minimum GPA and GMAT.

Regards - Andy

 

Russ, this ain't Philosophy 101 (lucky for you). You posted that in order to run away from any responsibility for your own words and your persistent little attacks, which you disingenuously deny every time you get caught at it, as you invariably do. It's a waste of time to deal with anything you say. So I won't.

 

Re: Two items

From the little we've seen of the bill here that would appear to be true. But that leaves open the question of what is the purpose of the bill. One concern of mine involves slippery slopes and camels' noses and other cliches of amusing imagery.

 

Re: Re: Re: The Republicans are in charge now....

Based on your comments, it is not clear if you understand that the bill would not require MIT to accept credits from any NA school. There is no reason to specultate on this scenario as it is based on a presumption that is false.

The only thing the bill will do is mandate that MIT not discount the NA accreedited credits solely on the basis of accreditation. This seems reasonable.

What I find interesting the dialog in this thread is that I have not seen much comment on the underlying reason for the bill. If the government has a process, through the Sec. of the Dept. of Education and CHEA to approve of accreditation, and they offer financial support based on schools being duly accredited, and they pay tax dollars for someone to take an accredited course in Econ 101, they do not want to pay for that person to take that course again solely because that course was not accepted eslewhere due to its source of accreditation. Not because it doesn't fit the learning of ojectives of the transfering in school's Econ 101 course, but only beacuse it was accredited by NA instead of RA.

This is a reasonable action by the government to try to ensure that tax money is not covering two different courses with the same content and learning objectives, solely because they have different, though equally approved, accreditation. This is all about trying to control how tax dollars are dolled out in the form of financial aid.

 

Re: Re: Re: The Republicans are in charge now....

I think that good analogies for this proposed law are laws against employment and housing discrimination, with non-RA accreditors hoping to join race and gender as legally protected classes.

My guess is that this thing is probably being lobbied for by TRACS, and that much of the bill's early support is coming from the religious-right element of the Republican coalition.

It's politically interesting because it illustrates a potentially significant split in Republican philosophy between the religious right and the libertarians. As we see here, the religious right seems willing to favor Democrat-style extensions of government power provided that those extensions favor its own agenda.

 

Re: Re: Two items

As to why, see my comments just above.


I, for one, think it will make quite an impact. Schools will not want to fight the battle of defending every single denial of credits for Econ 101, Psy101, Geo101, etc. Now they don't have to give any reaon. If this bill passes, they will have to document the reason - and they will be challenged.

Schools do not have the resources it will take to show just cause for all those fundamental courses out there, much less many specialization courses. They will follow the path of least resistance, whatever that path is.

 

Re: Two items

I think that I'm inclined to agree with you.

Take a non-RA accreditor. Its published standards and the manner in which they are enforced in actual practice will either exactly mirror what the regional accreditors do (unlikely), or else they will be different to a greater or lesser extent (real life).

Presumably the regional accreditors can provide justifications for what they are doing. They have reasons for adopting their various standards and requirements, and for drawing the lines where they do in deciding whether or not the standards have been met.

That doesn't mean that other approaches aren't possible or that the alternatives might not have justifications as well. It's precisely the fact that different visions can co-exist that gives our system its peculiar strength. (That principle extends far beyond higher education.)

So if a school wants to reject degrees and credits that conform to standards significantly different than those it favors, I think that it can. That's implicit in the very idea of admissions requirements.

Accreditors define standards and verify that they are being met. So if a school wants to reject credits and degrees with different accreditations, all it would presumably have to do is to say that it agrees with its own accreditor on whatever the differentiating issues are.

 

Re: Two items

I disagree simply because, from what I understand, there will be reporting requirements. And if RA schools show suspicious rejection patterns, they will eventually be investigated.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: The Republicans are in charge now....

The Republican proposal encourages higher education, keeps debt down, and gets qualified and hard working students in to the work force faster. The current liberal run system is arbitrary and patently unfair.

Democrats often preach tolerance, fairness, diversity, and acceptance. However, liberal academics currently refuse to take the time to review prospective transfer credits earned at other institutions simply because they dislike certain fully recognized accreditors. As a result, students are forced to repeat courses, rack up debt, and waste time. This is the hypocrisy.