Unaccredited Start-Up - Opinions?

This is kind of a weird question...

I have a group of friends who hold advanced degrees from great schools who are talking about starting their own university. In fact, they've approached me to teach there.

As it was explained to me, schools cannot seek accreditation until after they have graduated a few students, so they're asking me to consider earning my PhD through their program.

As a perk, I would not have to pay anything for tuition.

At the end of the day, though, if they actually pull this off, what would my "degree" be worth? I realize it's all about me and the quality of my dissertation and yadda, yadda, yadda, but what would be its credibility in the "real world?"

Would my PhD mean anything to anyone in the community? Certainly I could not graduate expecting to be hired on tenure track at my local public university, but if I were to begin publishing, would it really matter where I earned my PhD? My goals would be personal enrichment and ability to publish with credibility beyond my MA and MS.

If it makes any difference, my master's degrees are from really respected schools and this university my friends want to create would be a non-profit.

I thought I'd ask here because there seem to be many who are open-minded about alternative education. What would you do?

 

Actually, it’s not weird at all. As you will see during the course of my response, this scenario has presented itself here at DI more than once.

Whoopee. Avoid it like the plague. Or you will have hundreds of people laughing their asses off at you for the rest of your life.

Bullshit. Though there are exceptions, schools can apply for accreditation from day one. They won’t get it any sooner, and the entire process can go through several stages and take several years.

We call that the Rich Douglas scenario. Who, you may ask, is Rich? He was approached by a new school to become their “research assistant” in exchange for free tuition leading to a a Ph.D. – exactly what you have described. To read about his nightmare, go put on a pot of coffee, kick back your feet, and read the entire Monterrey Institute for Graduate Studies Forum here on Degree Info. You’ll see it at the bottom of the forum’s index page.

Disclosure: I was sued by MIGS for calling them a degree mill. This led to one of the biggest comedies ever in distance education. But the point of my referring you to that forum is to read about Rich, once an active participant here at DI. If he weren’t a chickenshit, he would join in this thread and provide an expert perspective (he ultimately went on to earn two legitimate doctorates), but he got banned after being more offensive than I’m being here. Ah, well, there’s always hope that he’ll show up eventually.

Nonthing. Zip. Nada. Bupkiss. Next question?

More bullshit. If you don’t tell us the actual sources of your master’s or the fields they are in, you have told us nothing. So I’ll close out generally as if you are merely one more anonymous troll, albeit perhaps a sincere one.

Here are a few examples of some of the jokes that have been associated with this forum alone when it comes to new colleges and universities…

• William Loveland College: Started by one David Lady, who earned a Ph.D. from an RA for-profit. Lady somehow came into possession of a transportation school that was accredited by DEAC. He changed the name of the school to Loveland, started an MBA program, and operated it under the former non-degree accreditation from DEAC. DEAC caught him at it kicked his butt, Lady whined about losing his accreditation, and he sued DEAC (unsuccessfully). He ultimately disappeared from the entire education scene. You can find threads about the affair here on DI.
  
• New World University: Started by Steve Foerster, a regular on this forum. Steve is a nice guy, quite intelligent, and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of the Cumberlands. Get it? Someone starting a university who doesn’t even have a Ph.D. himself. Read their web page and look for the items that are not there, such as faculty listings, specific program requirements and course descriptions. The school is a joke.
  
• MIGS: Discussed above. Read as much of the forum as you can, starting from the earliest messages (in other words, start with the last page of posts). It’s funny as hell, and will show you some of the things you should now be avoiding.
  
• Asian Stew: A.S. is one of our brighter members, and has written fairly extensively on non-traditional education. As he mentioned in this and other threads, he is looking to start a university. (Another case of “Some friends and I…”) But notice also that his sole credentials consist of an associate’s and bachelor’s degree from Thomas Edison. Nice guy, and very astute, obviously sincere, but when it comes to starting a university, a rank amateur. (Sorry, A.S., but another reality check was due.)

I’ll close with two examples of when it was done right:

• First, what is now Union Institute & University was started in 1964 as the Union for Experimentation in Higher Education. It was started by 10 presidents of other, long-established colleges, and in its first few years the union was joined by additional major universities. It had the financial backing of the schools involved in its formation. (Disclosure: I earned my Ph.D. at Union in 1991 when it was The Union Institute. After Rich Douglas cleaned up his MIGS act, he would earn his first doctorate from UI&U.)
• Second, Western Governor’s University was started by 19 state governors, again with the financial backing that comes with such sponsorship. Personally, I think online university is an oxymoron, but there’s no doubt that the backing of this one is legit.

In neither case was it, “Hey, kids, let’s put on a show!” Nor, “I’m bored. I think I’ll get a few friends together and start a university.” Moreover, you need major financial backing to even get considered for accreditation, and a bunch of friends chipping in a few bucks won't even begin to make a dent.

In short, your friends may or may not be credible educators, but they are certainly living in a fantasy world. When they go down, and they will, don’t let them take you with them.

 

If you merely want the Ph.D. experience then this should do. If you need the Ph.D. then you'll have wasted the time and effort that could have gone to obtaining a recognized degree.

There's the potential humiliation factor should you successfully advertise the degree. That success would last until a legion of Levicoffs pounced to denounce the 'fraudulent' degree.

 

AsianStew: they are in Northern Virginia. I used to live there but I am now on the west coast.

Steve: I like to maintain a level of anonymity online but if you must know, I have an MA in educational psychology from eastern Michigan and an MS from Embry-Riddle in human factors with a double emphasis in aerospace and aeronautical engineering.

Like it was mentioned, I do not want to spend 3-6 years of my life to earn nothing though at the same time, free tuition without strings attach to a “funded” program (free labor) is an attractive deal if I can minimally use the credential in publishing. My husband and friends have PhDs from strong schools so I would have no trouble finding people who would like to publish with me.

I dunno. That is why I came here - just looking for opinions. I am curious about whether or not it’d Be taken seriously. Certainly not trolling.

 

Decision,

That is what I am worried about. I don’t want to have to explain every time someone asks where I went to school. I think I will probably pass on this “opportunity.”

 

General rule of thumb: If you feel compelled to ask whether something is legit, it's not. If you feel you have to ask whether a potential degree will be accepted or not, it will not be accepted. You may hear the questions about the degree that are directed to you, but you will not necessarily hear the ridicule going on behind your back.

Your master's degrees are, indeed, legitimate and quite credible. A mickey-mouse doctorate would destroy whatever credibility you otherwise have. And it will take only one person in the wrong position to say, "Her doctorate is a sham" to blow your reputation (including your chances for publication).

That's why, despite now having two legitimate doctorates, Rich Douglas' s work with MIGS still rises up occasionally to bite him in the ass.

Good luck. And belatedly, welcome to DegreeInfo.
___________________

A parting thought I probably should have included in the first response . . .

By its very nature, a university is an umbrella institution under which several individual colleges operate. Joe Blow University may have, for example, a school of business, school of nursing, school of music, school of liberal arts, etc. You attend an individual school, and the degree is granted by the university. Schools without that hierarchical structure are colleges, not universities. (The individual schools in a university may also be called colleges.) Over the past 30 or so years, there was a mass move for colleges in the U.S. to become universities because, in other countries, the word college can be used to describe high schools.

Let's return to one example of a new school I provided earlier: New World University. It's a single school that will offer three-year bachelor's degrees. If Steve Foerster had called it New World College, I would not have objected as much. I would have said that the effort was sincere but misguided. But university? That made it a joke.

One of the reasons it took so long for David Lady to get caught at his sham school was that he named it William Loveland College. It took DEAC to pick up on the irregularities in which he was engaged, and they did a solid job of taking action to stop those irregularities.

There has been no discussion of the scope that BalletLady's friends have in forming a new school, but one obvious question is whether it will actually have the ingredients necessary to classify it as a university. (I highly doubt it.)

 

Steve,

This is what I needed to hear, so thank you for the advice. I do not want to undo all of my hard work, so I will pass on this opportunity.

Thanks again

 

In all likelihood it's a wise decision. The probability of this backfiring is quite high. Having to endlessly explain your degree would be inevitable. If you genuinely want to earn a real PhD then there are low cost alternatives at legitimate, established schools. No need to risk your reputation on such a venture.

 

Just give it a shot, I see people have MBA degrees from Smart.ly and they had good reviews and proud of it.

 

What would I do? I'd give it some thought, just as you are doing.

The first item of business for this new school is getting legal authorization to operate from the State of Virginia. So you probably shouldn't consider them (for a teaching job or a degree at any rate) until they are operating legally.

http://www.schev.edu/index/institutional/private-postsecondary-education/new-school-certification

Beyond that, it boils down to whether I would want my name associated with it as a faculty member or whether I would want to devote valuable effort to it as a student. A PhD is a huge amount of work, and I'd want to decide whether doing it there would be worth the effort.

I think that in my case those questions would be functions of what I thought of the new effort and the other people involved with it.

Unaccredited start-ups range from full-frontal mills to fascinating and valuable things. There were a handful on my old California-approved favorites list that I would have had no hesitation in joining. Despite not being accredited, they were even prestigious in their weird way. I was hoping that somebody associated with one of them, a new PhD program offered by an established scientific research organization in San Diego, would win a Nobel prize before it became RA.

Even today, I would leap at the chance to enroll for free in the Institute of Buddhist Studies' non-accredited Master of Buddhist Studies (MBS). (I like the program but it's prohibitively expensive.) Despite IBS not being accredited (it's currently a WASC candidate) its programs are impeccably credible in the Buddhist world and even respected in conventional academia. (That's the thing with niche subjects: anyone in hiring or admissions in these areas can be expected to have heard of the niche schools.)

Besides accreditation, additional variables to look at are faculty strength, course and program syllabi, reputation in the subjects taught, publications, research reputation, activities like speaking engagements, academic/research collaborations and grants and awards won. An internet search engine can be your friend here.

But a fresh start-up won't have had a chance to accumulate most of those indicators. So you can only go by strength of faculty and institutional credibility, I guess. That makes it a lot iffier.

 

Smart.ly MBA is not your standard accredited degree - however proud somebody is of it.

 

Johann, as always, raises an excellent point.

When I wrote the 75-point NIFI Criteria (which seems like several centuries ago), one of the criteria for identifying a degree mill was to be on the watch for schools that over-use personal testimonies – and Smartly does just that. It’s a technique that was refined several years ago by the folks at Herbalife, who used to teach (and they still may do so for all I know), “When you’re asked about the product, don’t get into any details. Just say, ‘It worked for me, and it will work for you. You’re gonna love it!” It’s bullshit, of course, but it’s a marketing technique that works.

A quick look at Smartly’s web site struck me in two ways: First, the majority of their staff/faculty list has a bachelor’s as their highest degree. There are a couple of master’s, and I only noticed one doctorate. (There may be more, but I can’t be bothered doing that extensive a search. If you kiddies want to try to prove me wrong, go right ahead – I don’t give a crap. Because I have an RA Ph.D. and you don’t.)

The other noticeable thing that struck me is that if you go to their contact page, you find nothing more than an e-mail form. No address, no telephone number. That’s a definite indicator of a degree mill.

So, if some people are happy with their interactions with Smartly, or with so-called credentials they earn through Smartly, does that make them credible? Well, go read the new thread about the $650,000 per year healthcare administrator who “earned” her MBA through Kennedy-Western. I’m sure she was happy with K-W, at least until the degree came back to bite her on the ass.

I notice that Smartly takes pain to identify itself as an education technology company. Good for them – at least they’re not calling themselves a university (like a certain school in Dominica). But they are presuming to grant master’s degrees, and that makes them as sleazy as any degree mill. People may be happy with them today, but eventually they’ll run into someone like me, who will embarrass the shit out of them.

I’ll be honest – I’m getting to the point at which I consider any and all degree-granting start-ups to be degree mills. Of course, there are exceptions (such as Western Governors University), but the majority of the newbies are merely playing the game of, “Hey, kids, let’s start a college/university!”

I have spoken. As always, get over it.

 

What would I do?

I'd pass.
Not nearly to the degree that your considering, but to a lesser extent several years ago my husband and I considered a master's that was SUPER CHEAP at the time (some of you may remember Andrew Jackson's free tuition program which is gone now, and the school is currently called New Charter University). Anyway, we both applied, were accepted, and signed up for our first class. At some point that week a lightbulb went off in our heads- that while the credential was very inexpensive, our time was precious, and that RA or NA - for profit or not, that this degree was going to cost TIME, and a lot of it. So, in the end, we unenrolled and decided to use our time for degrees that would hold up under scrutiny and be fully functional in our careers. Good thing- fast forward, my husband now teaches for a university that he would not have been eligible to teach at with a degree from Andrew Jackson. So, I'd pass because *I THINK* you want to publish - you mentioned it many times, so if that's your goal, you shouldn't compromise. If you came on and said "hey I'm retired and bored, my friends are doing this" that's something different - but you sound like you're in the middle of a career and as such, I'm guessing 5 years that you devote to something should value-ad to your career. Good luck!

 

Interesting proposition. Out of curiosity, I looked at the DEAC accreditation process. It says the school needs to have been continously enrolling students for at least two years before applying.

 

I think the lag, like a liquor license, is enough of a problem that it makes more sense to buy a failing bar <err, I mean college> and go from there.

 

I wanted to chime in because I have experience in this area. I have personally spoken with my State Director of Higher Education at length about this very topic. In my State, the higher education office is a cabinet-level position and reports directly to the Governor. The HEO follows the law to the letter. Everything you do as a school operator is measured against statute. Rightly so, States need to protect their citizens.

After building rapport with the State HEO for the past years, I received some candid advice. It is almost impossible to start a degree-granting university from scratch because most states require accreditation to be earned within 5-years or less. Believe me; the money will only get you so far. Time a major challenge. What the State Director recommends is start small as a licensed career/tech/trade school, which eliminates the 5-year accreditation requirement. Licensed career institutions can issue diplomas and certificates, but not degrees. By using this approach, a start-up can build reputation, trust and then ease into accreditation for various programs. Once the start-up has taken the time to build infrastructure with staff, systems, accreditation, and capital at the career/tech level, the school can later pursue approval to grant degrees and earn further accreditation at the degree level.

I have spoken with Council, DEAC, and Middle States about the process. Bottom line, you need to meet all standards and make the state and accreditors comfortable with your school before moving forward. Some areas are flexible if you have quality programs and capital. It should be all about serving students first, and if that is your mission and you are fulfilling the mission, all is good.

The State Higher Education Office and Accreditors must be comfortable before issuing degree-granting authority, which takes time. Starting a school takes dedication, time, patience and working capital. If you don’t have all four, you will not be successful at starting a degree-granting institution or any school for that matter. My take away, communicate with regulators and follow the advice of the state higher education office and accreditors. Follow their recommendations and stay the course. You can get there, but it will be way more challenging than you ever thought.

 

Thanks for contributing Rod. I am glad to have you as part of the conversation here.

 

It seems to matter here that New World is based in a Commonwealth country and emphasizes serving students in the Global South. Dr. Levicoff's argument depends on American language conventions – "college" is a degree-granting school, "university" is a degree-granting school with greater scale or scope – that aren't followed everywhere.