The Effect of the New CCU Doctorate

I am curious.

Can calcoast doctoral alumni run around the universe proclaiming that they have a doctoral degree from an accredited university, even, if they have received the doctoral degrees prior to accreditation - assuming ccu now offers the new accredited doctoral degrees?

Thank you.

Charles

 

Technically yes. Their degree was earned prior to accreditation so their degree is not accredited, however. The school they earned their unaccredited degree from is now an accredited school so although deceitful, they can honestly state they received their degree from an accredited school. It's still the same school where they graduated from.

 

The previous person that stated that the persons who graduated from CCU with a doctoral degree when it was an unaccredited school the degree is still legally declared, "unaccredited," and therefore, the degree is still "unaccredited.". Although, the school is now accredited it would be totally misleading and illegal to state that your degree is accredited unless it is in fact accredited. Also, keep in mind that this school is nationally not regionally accredited.

So only those that graduate from the school from the point of when the school is accredited can declare that their doctorate is "accredited.". When the school was unaccredited that would be the classification.

 

I had seen one job listing for a professor at a school (I think USF) and it required you earn a degree from an RA school and you must have entered the program after the date that the school earned accreditation.

 

The opposite. Technically, "no." But it practice, it's probably something one can get away with for the reasons you state.

I guarantee you CCU is not "the same school." It went through some transformations when getting over DETC's initial denial/deferral of accreditation. But in practical terms most employers won't compare the date of accreditation with the date the degree was awarded.

 

And I've seen plenty of situations where a degree earned before the school was accredited was acceptable under the assumption the school was operating in an "accreditable" manner and, thus, the degree was legitimately earned. This is especially true of schools in RA candidacy status. Of course, DETC has no candidacy status.

 

Rich,
Have you taken any classes before they were accreditied? Humm, maybe I will take a class or two and compare....

 

In my view, the distinction between admission versus graduation with respect to accreditation is not meaningful. For example, there were many, many doctoral students in one program who were enticed to join the already enormous doctoral program with discounted tuition schemes before regional accreditation was achieved... However, those who graduated were and are subjected to many misrepresentations when compared to the original program (and milked like cows for cash as their individual programs were lengthened unnecessarily); hence, they graduated under the accredited program.

 

I've never had anything to do with CCU. But others have reported (on these boards) on their changes when pursuing DETC accreditation.

 

I can't agrue with you ( maybe a first ) I think they were just ensuring the graduate completed a whole program with a certain standard. I only saw this one time but it really stuck in my mind.

 

I heard about the changes and it seems like a totally differnent model.

 

In reality, what employers actually check accreditation? It's obviously extremely important for MBAs and M.Eds, but for others, do people typically run into employers that even worry about accreditation- or, if they do, even know what the difference between regional and national accreditation is?

If you tell someone that your degree is "nationally accredited" it doesn't sound inferior, it sounds like your degree is acceptable as an accredited degree "nationally" get it?

Degree mills wouldn't exist if employers actually knew this stuff.

 

I agree with everything above, except the "extremely important for MBAs and M.Eds" part, which doesn't make sense to me.

 

I based that off of other discussions I have seen on this board. I've seen users comment that MBAs and M.Eds not only need to be regionally accredited, but in many cases need to have program accreditation in order to be considered valid.

 

For academia, accreditation is vital. Many institutions insist on regional accreditation, some will accept national accreditation. I have an article coming out in the journal "Distance Education," where I made the same argument that you do: Our contradictory and confusing organization of accrediting agencies encourages the proliferation of diploma mills and accreditation mills.

 

Substituting the word "national" for "DETC" is a bit of a marketing trick that alters the meaning of the accreditation...

Why not substitute the word "Earth" for "DETC", so Martians won't get confused when DETC-accredited degrees are earned via DL and used on Mars? ;-) Earth-accredited MBAs? ;-)

 

I don't know why telling someone a degree is nationally accredited would be somehow illegitimate? It's entirely correct to say a degree from CCU is nationally accredited. And if someone (employer, whoever) doesn't know what a nationally accredited degree is and how it differs from a regionally accredited degree, they probably also have no idea what the DETC is either ... ?

 

I too have thought about the exact same thing. You are right on the money with that one.

 

Thank you all for your wonderful comments.
Charles

 

I don't know if I terming "DETC-accreditation" as "Nationally-accredited" is illegitimate, but it certainly could be misleading to those who understand the word national. (A nation is a delimited geographical entity, while a region is typically amorphous with flexible boundaries.)