So, you think regional accreditors have high standards

Rod's online persona seems to typically warp people's statements into things that were never actually said. Intemperate also seems to be a fair description.

 

The type that is wrong, gets shown it, lashes out because of it, then disappears when his mis-statement is proven wrong again. For the better, certainly.

 

Rod is correct about the accreditation. Secondary school is high school. Postsecondary means after high school. Postsecondary education from MSA-CESS covers non-degree-granting career and technical institutes. Rod is also correct in that he was personally attacked first. It is natural to defend oneself, but one has to be careful when your name is attached to a public organization. The others engaging in bad behaviors under their real names don't have careers or businesses to worry about.

Rod, it does seem that you are using this forum to promote your school. To be honest, I don't think there are that many people visiting this forum who are interested in vocational certificates.

 

The First Amendment does not apply to private entities and individuals. It is there to protect people from the powers of the government. Only the government has the power to silence you. If a private entity censors you or kicks you off their website, you can continue to speak freely somewhere else whereas the government can incarcerate you, execute you, or control your access to information. Private entities have the right to create their own Terms of Use.

 

It is a common fact on Internet forums to have time limits on how old a thread can be and still be brought back to life. Six months or one year are common time limits. The reason this is considered a rude thing to do is that people will typically assume the whole thread is recent. After reading two or three posts I realized the thread was about 13 years old!! I thought, well now I need to find what necromancer brought such a thread back to life. It must be really important, was my thought. Then I find rude Rod's post. Then Rod had the silly argument that it was his first amendment right to be rude.

At the risk of actually turning this silly thread into something useful, I don't understand why people would be concerned with getting a high school education once they reach their twenties? Here in California anyway, can't they just go to a community college and get an AA degree and skip the high school diploma?

 

A couple of things from my perspective . . . regarding the whole free speech thing . . . people have the freedom to express themselves within well established limits (that whole "shouting fire in a theatre" thing) but there is no requirement for DI to provide a platform for that speech. As a private discussion board, we reserve the right to limit speech. Read the TOS. You can go elsewhere and speak your mind. Now regarding the resurrection of old threads . . . we keep all our old thread available. If you think they should be limited you are free to suggest that to the owner who will, I'm sure, consider your suggestion.

 

I don't mind necromanced threads. Some are done by accident, and some are done for often hilarious reasons.

 

Agreed, with the caveat that if one does not progress toward getting a degree, he or she will always be a high school dropout. Once you get a degree, it will no longer matter one way or the other.

When I was at TESC (keep in mind that this would have been over 30 years ago), the rule was that if any student entered with less than 60 credits they had to take a basic aptitude test in written expression and math skills. Although I had taken and passed the GED, I entered TESC with only six credits. So I took both tests – passed the written, and came up short on the math. Therefore, I was required to do a remedial course in math. However, if one passed a college-level math course, the remedial requirement was waived. As it happened at that time, the computer language BASIC constituted a math course since it had a significant math component to it. I took and passed the TECEP in BASIC (which I would doubt even exists at this point), and sailed through the rest of the program. Again, a word of caution to the easy degree-seeking crowd – TESC was much more flexible about lots of things in the good ol’ days than they are today.

Bottom line: Once you have a degree in hand, high school graduation doesn’t matter. You will, in fact, never be asked about it.

Which means, in theory, that many of the people who sign up for Rod’s mickey-mouse high school program would likely be better off proceeding directly to college-level learning and earning a degree rather than a H.S. diploma. In short, he’s selling a product that, ultimately, many people will have never needed.

 

Yes, some by accident, some by shills, some by spammers and some (myself included) in order to create little archives of continuous information on different schools or topics. I don't know how old a thread has to be in order to be considered "dead" but I routinely add to threads that are over a year old. Personally, I think it's better than starting new threads. I would rather have one thread on a topic such as plagiarism than a half dozen threads on the same topic. But that's just me and I don't really mind if others do it differently.

 

I feel much better about this 13 year old necromanced thread now. It's not even the money, probably much more important is the saving of time of the person that might happen upon this thread in the next 13 years and reads Steve's wise post. Here's to hoping that Rod will wait 13 years to respond to us?

 

This comment sent me back to an older thread in which we discussed one of Rod's cert programs, the Pharmacy Tech program. After some discussion it came out that this certification is not even required for gaining employment as a Pharm Tech. So while you might argue about how good the program is, you could also have a more basic argument about whether it was even necessary.

https://www.degreeinfo.com/index.php?threads/fake-accreditors.32080/

 

There's a lot of that going on in tertiary technical education. It's a business where you can sell something you don't actually carry or have to offer: a job. But if you're the job-seeker, it's a lot easier to get into school than it is to find a job. So it feels like you're doing something, making progress, even if you're not. I wouldn't throw all tertiary technical education into that category, but a lot of it? Yeah.

 

Graduation rates at community colleges are very low. Some people can't get past the remedial courses. The success rate in an adult high school program is probably higher because the curriculum is not at the college level, and the programs are shorter. I knew a few people who earned high school diplomas in adulthood for the purpose of joining the military. Requirements constantly change as recruiting goals change, but there are times when military branches aren't accepting GEDs.

 

If the person is not capable of earning an associates degree then that is definitely a valid case.

Expected average life time earnings for someone with a high school diploma versus Associates as their highest degrees is about $400,000 difference. So, if the person is capable, it is likely worth it. https://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/reg/hearulemaking/2011/collegepayoff.pdf

 

Numbers like that are interesting, but remember that they represent a correlation, not causation. It could be that people who are capable of making more money are also more likely to do college. I suspect it's a bit of both, though.

 

Absolutely, the word capable, in my post means more than just intelligence or academic ability. Woven into it is personal drive, determination, and desire. I would assume that anyone finding this thread via an Internet search would more likely be capable of earning that Associate degree and then more likely to find themselves those jobs that then end up earning them that extra $400,000 over their lifetime.

 

I hate to be the one to kick this up again. But I wanted to share a different opinion.

I have tons of college credit from (now) two schools, one regionally accredited and one nationally accredited. Probably over 120 credits blended IT and Business types by now. I took a bunch of classes at WGU (both Business and IT at two different points) and a select few at Penn Foster (all Business).

I've come to accept the reality that, while college is something I can do, I have simply no desire to sit through irrelevant (and they are) classes just to get to the 'good stuff'. I simply don't care about the Renaissance period, and if I did, I can just web search it in my leisure. But I'll not be writing papers that I don't care about the source material on.

But I also am not inclined to take classes that were valuable and relevant in a time before computers and calculators.

If it isn't something I'll need on the job, it isn't something I'm interested in sitting through class on, in other words.

I also did not care to have some professor sit and lecture to me instead of just allowing me to take the test to prove that I was competent in the material. That was good about WGU, but then it was held back by numerous pointless GE courses.

I signed up to WOLI for one reason: the undergraduate certificate proves competency in a given subject area, and the materials used are the exact same as those used in brick-and-mortar. I don't care about transfer credits, I care about the certificate. If someone really cares, I can just share my WGU transcript with over 90 credits of various courses passed, and when they ask why I didn't finish, I can tell them that I don't think that stupid liberal arts class was relevant to me OR them.

I wanted to go to a full college for the certificate, but most only offer graduate, not undergraduate, and graduate requires the bachelor's degree ($$$). Those that offer undergraduate aren't self-paced. Doesn't work for me, brother.

 

The liberal arts-based curriculum is rather unique to America. In most other countries, at the university level, you pretty much study your major. Railing against that is pointless. Either do it or do not do it.

Alternately, consider a degree from a foreign school. Of course, your credits will be largely useless.

If you gave your “stupid liberal arts classes” to me in response to that question, I would show you the door. There might be good reasons for not doing a degree, but calling it “stupid” isn’t one of them. I’d be very concerned what else you don’t agree with and consider stupid, and whether or not that was important to your success in the job.

 

Welcome to DegreeInfo, um, revelated. (Where do you anonymous types get these names from?)

Rich was quite correct in noting that U.S. degree programs universally have a distribution requirement in which a certain number of credits from the liberal arts is required. This comes from the notion that a bachelor’s degree is, by nature, a breadth-and-depth degree as opposed to the type of focused degree you will find at the graduate level.

And guess what . . . you ain’t gonna change it. Because you don’t run the show. And no college is going to adjust their rules for your anti-Renaissance jollies. And, in the end run, the one who loses out will be you. And the rest of us, who have our bachelor’s degrees (and sometimes higher degrees), will laugh our asses off at you. And those of us who are personnel managers (of which there are several here at DI) will laugh our asses off as we fold your résumé into a paper airplane and aim it toward the trash can.

Besides, who ever said that you have to study the Renaissance period? The liberal arts come in many more flavors than you could ever begin to imagine, and somewhere you would be able to find courses that actually interest you.

Um, have you that this is a distance education forum? While there are some people here who like to be “sitting through class,” most of the members of this forum do it every other way.

Then you should have come to us years ago – at least 120 credits ago. We could have pointed you toward a load of legitimately accredited programs where you would never have to sit through a lecture. So stop whining – it’s not becoming of you.

I’m not going to address WOLI here – several of us have done that over the many pages of this aged thread. Besides, WOLI has changed ownership over the past few years, making the early part of this thread quite obsolete. I will simply say that I, for one, am not impressed by your WOLI certificate, as I have gone on record as having the opinion that WOLI is sleazy.

That said, we return to Rich’s comments above. If you’re sitting in a personnel officer and whining about that “stupid liberal arts class,” you will be laughed right out of that personnel office. Because, again, you don’t run the show. They will know that the mere fact that you have crapped out of earning a degree over the years means that you will also crap out on any job they would offer you.

Nonsense – as I said, you should have shown up here years ago. Because we can name a load or colleges and universities that are self-paced. Um, brother.

 

My deceased bunny rabbit.

Copper