Suffield College and University - New Diploma Mill?

There's much subjective leeway in what one calls a diploma mill. Offerring degrees for a substandard amount of work, is a very simple and common definition. Having a legal charter to issue degrees means a lot in most countries of world but is irrelevant in the USA.

You are a supporter of diploma mills. I don't know why. You could be ignorant about diploma mills or you could be a fraud? It is not reasonably possible to evaluate the earning of a degree based on a resume. That cannot prove that the necessary knowledge required for a degree has been earned. These false statements you've made are why I can be sure in the truth of the first sentence of this paragraph.

You need to do more research if you're ignorant about diploma mills.

 

Hi Bill:

Again, you seem to miss my point acutally. When a say a person can get a degree based on a resume thats just a general statement. There is a lot of work to do with that information.

1. They would have to validate if its correct and accurate

2. They need to make sure that the person has learning to match a specific curriculum. The resume is just a summary of work and education.

3. The person may have deficiencies that can be made up using exams or assignment papers.

4. Learning can be of any means, the key is validation of learning.

I see what you are trying to say but I also think you are not open about the subject. I do not believe someone can get a degree in one week but I do believe over a reasonable period of time, you could validate your experience and get a degree at the same standard as a traditional school. Excelsior College offers degrees along that line so are they a diploma mill? WGU offers this, are they a diploma mill?

How many engineers just get a BSc in Electrical Engineering can design a ASIC immediately? I am sure not much, so after a couple years are more they may be able to do this on their own. If someone teaches themself to do this why should they not be recognize if they can prove it?

I think you believe I am saying that experience automatically gives you a degree. No, I do belive it can but needs verification just like taking a test in College.

The UK and Australia does have a wider scope of how education can be attained or pathways. Check that out

 

Whilst Bill Huffman is, I assume, referring to 'degree mills'
the facts are (as I've pointed out in a number of other posts) that most learned societies in the UK and NZ use a resume as a intrinsically important document when people are applying for membership. Membership of many learned societies is ranked far higher than a university degree, because membership not only involves having a recognised and relevant qualification it involves having relevant experience. Usually the level of membership (and the associated status) is determined by the level of the applicant's qualification and their level of experience.
Dr Duck

 

Hi Jeff:

I did not mean to attack people but I tend to question someone that looks at stuff on only one side. They should learn to view things in an objective way. Thats the basis of learning.


In respect to part-time PhD, that did not come from me actually. PhD is different than a first or second degree in my book. I takes at lot more work and research actiivities that may need to attendance at a regular school.

I think some people just have a problem with alternate degree methods which to me is fine as long as the standard is maintained. I also notice that anything that says life experiene is automatically termed degree mill.

Okay

 

Perhaps there is a misunderstanding on what a resume means. The definition of resume within the USA typically means a 1 to 4 page document that contains a summary of the person's work and academic experience. It is not what you describe in more detail. What you describe in detail is testing and portfolio for credit. It wouldn't normally be called a resume around here.

My view is that an excellent way to differentiate degree mills from non-degree mills is that degree mills frequently claim to award vast quantities of usually an unknown number of credits for providing a resume. It tricks the uninformed victim into believing that perhaps they actually deserve the degree and also allows the degree mill to flatter the victim's ego which also helps close the scam. The real beauty for the degree mill is that it costs them nothing. A resume for a diploma is the surest sign of a degree mill that I've ever seen.

 

Hi Bill:

I am around here too, I think a resume is the same thing as you defined. A well written resume would trigger a response to investigate the contents and get more details. So the basic resume could give an idea of the possible options to decide if degree level learning was done.

I think the main issue we all have is the verification process. If the resume makes the school assume you are qualifiied then they are questionable but if starts the process and not the end, there is a good chance.

I think this type of degree is more like competency based such as that at WGU..

Okay

 

Please name an example of what you feel might be a real school that works this way. The person sends in a resume and then that triggers the school into getting more details.

 

Attestation of fitness

Hi Morleyl

Universities are not just teaching institutions, they are also validating bodies, which ‘attest to a person’s fitness’ in whichever field they designate. Reputable ones (in the sense that their attestations of fitness are more reliable than those that ‘soften’ their exam regimes) do this by examinations held under specific conditions (invigilated, closed book, no choice of questions, graded by the senior faculty and externally examined by senior faculty from other institutions). There is, of course, room for debate on the extent to which variations in exam regimes may be tolerated without it implying that an institution’s attestation of fitness is absolutely worthless.

There is, in my view, absolutely no room for debate that an award of an academic degree based on ‘experience’ either by self-attestation by resume, or by the more literary form of a ‘portfolio’, is worthless. Fifteen years experience as a computer engineer may speak highly of your engineering abilities, it says nothing about an academic attestation of your fitness to have a degree in computer science. This latter can only be awarded if it is formally tested by an acceptable examination regime. Writing assignments, prepared out of sight of an invigilator, are insufficient evidence, apart from the room they create for fraud (the persons' whose names are on the paper may not be the persons who wrote them). Remember, the institution's name is on the degree document too, and institutions are concenred with their reputations too.

Even an Honorary degree which requires a serious public reputation, attested by peers and considerable evidence is awarded rarely and is not an academic degree that can be used as proof of academic competence. Likewise membership of important scientific and professional bodies through a nomination process is far more difficult than what you are proposing.

Someone with extensive experience should have no trouble in passing the necessary examinations and with distance learning courses available these can be undertaken without too much inconvenience. The attestation process has nothing to do with the worth of the individual. The exam regime is reliable evidence of proven fitness not evidence as to which person is the best engineer or who is likely to be the most successful person in business – a profession for which the sole evidence must be achievement in business.

Hence, Bill Gates, Sir Richard Branson, and many, many more, have proven their high worth by their success in business and, as far as I know have not felt it necessary to prove their academic worth in the more mundane activity of studying and passing examinations.

Why you feel it necessary to do so for a bachelor degree you have not earned by examination under a tough, or even soft, regime is for you to explain. No University I have taught in would consider awarding you a degree on the basis what you have so far offered. It is what you prove in the examination room, not what you claim you can do, that counts in academe. That is why you apparently value the academic award as worth having but seem to object to the requirements Universities impose on those who would seek an attestation of their fitness – an interesting illogicality IMHO.

 

Hi Professor:

I agree with you all the way.. I am not looking for degree or plan to convert experience into one. So you made my point, the person can pursue exams to prove competence in whatever area. I was trying to emphasize that the experience does not need to go back to school fulltime to get a degree. Just do exams or written assignments etc. I believe assignmnets/papers can work. A lot of reputable schools use this approach. The catch is to have an oral final exam that makes the student prove that they really mastered their field..

In Uk, you would realize that many institutions especially professional do value experience so I am not what you mean its no academic worth. If someone can write a thesis and defend it in person then this person is no less qualified than someone who went to school fulltime.

The BCS does allow this route..

Okay

 

Bill Huffman wrote:

> Please name an example of what you feel might be a real
> school that works this way. The person sends in a resume and
> then that triggers the school into getting more details.

British Columbia Open University
http://www.degreeinfo.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8064

 

Here is a good place to review the concept. Just to clarify my position is about learning not just experience and I do strongly believe that learning needs to be verified

http://www.aqf.edu.au/lp.htm#rpl

Okay

 

Very interesting, I'd never heard of that. Seems a bit of the tail wagging the dog but whatever works.

Thanks!

 

State Officials Crack Down On Phony Schools

POSTED: 11:17 am EDT September 15, 2004
UPDATED: 4:49 pm EDT September 15, 2004

HARTFORD, Conn. -- State officials continue to crack down on phony colleges and trade schools that are doing business in Connecticut.


Nine colleges and occupational schools that are not licensed to operate in Connecticut have been ordered to stop making pitches in the state in the past year.

"It's major consumer fraud," Jonas Zdanys, chief academic officer for the state Department of Higher Education, said Tuesday.

The department has issued cease-and-desist orders to a number of operations ranging from a Bible study program offering degrees in Hartford, to a program affiliated with a business and technology school in Nigeria.

Zdanys said the biggest problems come from schools that crank out phony diplomas.

"The sad fact is there are lots of folks out there who think they need credentials to advance in their careers, and they become involved with institutions that provide them credentials in the fastest way possible," Zdanys said.

Among the schools named by state officials is Suffield University, which is primarily a mailing address in West Hartford.

A Web site for "Suffield College & University" offers degrees ranging from an associate's degree for $475 to a combination of bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees for $900.

The report on unlicensed schools and colleges was to be submitted Wednesday to the Board of Governors for Higher Education, which licenses public and private higher education institutions throughout the state.

By the way, this outfit has been barred from doing business in Connecticut. Others are under investigation by the Connecticut Attorney General's office as well as the Federal Government. I would be very cautious with these kinds of things.

 

Feed back

I read the forum on Suffield College. I really didn't know what a diploma mill was until now. Yes I was very attracted to the offer of receiving a degree from your work experience. To me it makes sense. They even have a page with their accreditation info.

I spent 8 years of my life doing business functions all the way up to management, so you can say that I had a head start on actual work experience verses a person who when straight to college after high school. Does that mean they I am better or that they are better? I know I have the same potential for growth in a company, I also know that everything that is taught doesn't remain in your brain so you basically have to reference information that isn't used a regular basis.

I really don't know why I wrote you, maybe I am looking for an objective opinion about this. What if this place is legitimate, and you can move forward with life because of it. Not saying all but college students are not saints, while folks in high school graduating class go to party sleep in and have fun, I was in the Army.

If you like please write back I would love to have some type of feedback on this.

 

Re: Feed back

Hope this helps.

 

Accredidation

Suffield states that has been accredited by National Distance Learning Accreditation Council, which is supported by Professional Board of Education(PBOE). How factual is this, and if it is not factual where do I need to go to find out?

Thanks for the reply Douglas.

I believe that experience is the same as education, in fact they are one in the same. People wouldn't now how to conduct themselves if they didn't experience any thing. The same goes to education, you would be able to basic mathematics if you didn't experience(learn) how to do it.

 

Re: smells like a duck

I'm beginning to think this 4-5 courses notion is an urban legend. None of the KWU students I talked to had such a liberal prior learning assessment. I think it may be confused with a more typical 45% of the degree program is typically waived based on an assessment of prior learning.

 

I agree with you entirely. Evaluation of experience in lieu of classroom time should be given a higher priority by accrediting agencies. Requiring the completion of say 25% of a normal degree credit hours with verified work experience in the range of 10 to 15 years seems reasonable. The scale of credit hours to fulfill and years of experience could be established to ensure graduates have the background that would ordinarily be expected of an experienced professional. I've met elementary school drop-outs who were much more intelligent and successful in life (not restricting success in life to mere monetary terms) than some of my friends with bachelor degrees.

 

Re: Accredidation

 

Re: Re: smells like a duck

It is most certainly NOT an "urban legend." Posters here have documented their experiences regarding this, including people who were defending K-WU. In recent Congressional testimony, a governmental witness described how she was able to have about half her K-WU master's waived for prior experience. Today, I went to their website and took their pre-assessment, which indicated I was about 40% done with a Ph.D. in business, even though I've never taken doctoral-level courses in business. Absurd. It is a sales technique, nothing more. But it is very real. There is no process for doing this, and no legitimate university does it. That alone makes K-WU a diploma mill.