This school has been mentioned in other threads--particularly about Singularity University--but doesn't seem to have its own thread. I'm curious what board members think. Ubiquity seems both serious and fun. Serious in that it appears to be a sincere effort to run a school based on a particular philosophy, and fun because it is much more student-centered than we've come to expect anymore. But.... Accreditation and degree-granting authority are both murky. I don't care what people set up and sell, but I've always been interested in degree recognition as a form of consumer protection. This is where Ubiquity begins to lose me. Degree-granting institutions should offer two assurances: legal authority for their degrees and academic sufficiency and acceptance. In most countries, this comes from the same source: the central government. In others, like the US, it comes from two sources--state-level for legal authority and private accreditation for academic sufficiency and acceptance. Thus, I would expect a school in the US to be authorized legally to grant degrees by one of the 50 states (or DC or territory), along with a form of recognized accreditation. Ubiquity is not clear on who gives them the authority to grant degrees. It appears to be self-authorized. They operate an office in California, and were at some time (according to their history) approved by the BPPVE, but they're not listed anymore. (California is currently purging unaccredited schools, requiring that they either get recognized accreditation or shut down.) They're accredited by ASIC, which I guess means they go through some sort of evaluative process. But ASIC is not a recognized accrediting agency in the sense that it gives a school the equivalent to recognized accreditation in the US, nor comparable foreign recognition. (Ubiquity's statement on accreditation way over-states what ASIC accreditation means, which I find problematic.) And nowhere do they say where they get the legal authority to grant degrees. Again, their history states they were once approved by the BPPVE, acknowledging California's purge of unaccredited schools. They also offer an aspirational statement about pursuing recognized US accreditation in the future, but it is short on details. My take: a group of people getting together to form a university that conducts tuition and grants unrecognized degrees, along with a dodgy statement about accreditation. Any others? (I'll refrain from adding a link to the school. They're easy to find on the internet.)
I mostly agree that this looks like it's a serious attempt to create an alternative type of educational experience. The people involved seem sincere and well qualified and I'd be willing to bet that the courses are reasonably rigorous. You'd probably learn at least as much as cramming for a CLEP test (which is a benchmark standard that exists in my mind, if nowhere else). I think the statements about accreditation are a bit shady. They indicate an appreciation for the need/value of accreditation but I think they might be over-valuing the accreditation they have. I'd be interested to know about specific cases where someone earned a Ubiquity Bachelors degree and then used it for admission to an RA Masters program. At $300 per course the price tag is not terrible but it's not even close to the cheapest BA around. I would not call UU a degree mill but I'm unclear on the value of the degrees. I'd bet that you could patch together a similar set of courses at an RA school and have something with more predictable value at roughly the same cost or less.
In the past I've jokingly recommended ASIC to terrible schools that have no chance of ever acquiring recognized accreditation. UU may be sincere, they may even provide a good education, but at the same time one would have to worry about an institution that is both sincere and ignorant of what true institutional accreditation is. I tend to believe that these places are not so much ignorant themselves as they are hoping prospective students are ignorant of what they're doing to appear more legitimate.
From Ubiquity Site: Q. What else is Ubiquity doing to ensure its quality as an academic institution? A. Ubiquity University is an Institutional Member of Quality International Study Abroad Network (QISAN). QISAN is run by the same people who run ASIC. Same address - 13 Yarm Rd. Stockton-on-Tees Q. Will my Ubiquity degree be recognized by other universities? A. Yes. Accredited universities all over the world are recognized as accredited by other universities. However, no university is obliged to accept a degree from any other university ... (yada yada) The (ubiquitous?) weasel clause ... Enough for me...
Exactly. I really dislike their statement on accreditation. But what gets me is that this kind of effort--it appears thorough and sincere--would normally find a legitimate pathway to recognized accreditation without relying on "the weasel clause." It's why I created the thread; I just couldn't square this circle. Still can't.
The easy explanation is that they don't have enough students to be able to afford the accreditation process. I haven't really checked but I got the impression that most of the faculty had other jobs doing other things. They can't be paying them much. Either that or they're playing some sort of philosophical exemption card. Something similar to the religious exemption claimed by some other sorts of institutions. I don't know. It doesn't make sense to me either. I'd be interested to know who earns these degrees and how they're used in the real world.
I'm not saying there's a dishonest motive here - or that there's not. It's just that some of the statements , like those on accreditation, have my radar pinging like mad. Appearing thorough and sincere is an art in itself. I find this is definitely a case of squaring the circle, as you say, Rich. Most people, especially those of the highest intelligence will at least try that when confronted with an attractive-enough story - it's a hard challenge to resist. Sometimes, the proponent of the story hopes that those who hear it will either: (a) invent their own rationalization, filling in blanks for the dubious story, working hard to increase its apparent legitimacy - and then figure (wrongly) that the circle is partially squared so it must be somehow OK - or (b) just get exhausted from trying to understand the bafflegab and accept the proponent's word, saying "Ok - here's my money, make me rich, enroll me for a degree, or whatever." Really smart people (like Dr. Rich Douglas) know when to keep their money in their pockets. .
I wonder how UU is under the radar in California. They advertise in person classes in Northern California. Since they are no longer approved by the BPPE, perhaps UU (or Wisdom U) is located in another country as well.
