Walston on Accreditation

I've had a couple of phone and email contacts with Dr Rick Walston and he seems to be a "good guy."

But here on this forum we are debating whether some schools are accredited or not and when it is posted that a school is substantial with worthwhile utility, though not accredited, there is sure to be a confrontive response. But is accreditation REALLY the problem?

Dr Walston writes, "The REAL* problem is not whether a school is accredited or not...some VERY GOOD, LEGITIMATE*-- (eg Trinity Seminary is called a good school,supporting my unfortunate enrollment p.141 and so is Bethany, 106)--schools are not accredited. The REAL PROBLEM* is that some schools claim to be accredited when they are not...the confusion over the concept of accreditation and over the INFLATED VALUE* given to accreditation has supplied the impetus for many schools to simply lie about accreditation." (p. 45, Walston's Guide, 4th edition)

Were Dr Walston right , as to the worth of some unaccredited schools, and as to accreditation being overinflated, and as to the REAL PROBLEM being the false claim of accreditation, then is not much argumentation here to a large degree actually missing the more important issues? Should we not be devising criteria by which to determine which unaccredited schools have solid merit and utility , and should we not be reevaluating our stand on accreditation and should we not be hunting down and exposing those lying institutions which make false claims re accreditation?( *, my caps)

 

Claiming bogus accreditation is of course bad. It is an attempt to mislead and defraud.

While it is true that there are some good unaccredited schools, it is also true that there are some very bad degree mills that don't claim bogus accreditation. So I don't buy the REAL PROBLEM assertion.

 

Re: Re: Walston on Accreditation

I like Ric. Great guy. I agree with Bill Huffman that there are unaccredited mills who claim NO accreditation (some even claim they are exempt because they do not believe in accreditation, etc).

The problem is that the only way to guage even minimal quality is accreditation. Yes there are good unaccredited schools that may even offer similar or better quaility than some RA schools (likely not great numbers though). How does anyone know?? They don't, so we guage by accreditation and that is why many savvy employers require recognized accreditation (mine does and will not accept any unaccredited degree for anything). Regulatory bodies, the military, etc require accreditation. The couple of unaccredited schools who are known high quality schools even in the secular world are Bob Jones University & PCC. BJU does exceptionally well and appears to function as an accredited school for all intents and purposes **BUT** even they have not been without their problems in terms of graduates facing hurdles to overcome. Why? Because many regulatory bodies would fear making excpetions because if you open it up to unaccredited schools how do you know the quality. You don't (unless the school is accredited).

I don't think the value of accreditation is over valued. I think it is a quality assurance mechanism and it is all we have especially with many states not truly regulating schools.

North

 

General Grover, SIR!

Mission accomplished. Degree Mill #862 has been eliminated.

Where is my next assignment, SIR?

 

Re: Re: Walston on Accreditation

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Check out your closet, Russell

 

Re: Re: Re: Walston on Accreditation

Actually, I shut down the operation the last of May. I awarded a guy named Bubba Jones a Ph.D., then found out he had only finished the 8th grade.

That just isn't good academic quality, Bill, so I chose to forfeit my plans for a world wide university. And since ACI had chosen to deny my accreditation request I knew something must be drastically wrong!

 

To say that over-inflated claims by unaccredited universities is the main problem with some of them is simply not right. Unaccredited universities are not recognized in most--if not nearly all-circles. Much of their "recognition" comes from mistakes: people don't ask or don't care. There is not a lot of evidence of systematic recognition of unaccredited universities, either individually or as a group.

Universities have three basic roles. First is academics. This includes teaching and research/publishing. Second is service to the community and/or society. But the third one is credentialing.

Credentialing in any field involves conferring recognized designations to individuals who've accomplished a prescribed course of study, or who have achieved a recognized level of accomplishment and/or learning.

There are many types of credentials. Some are based in law. Regulated professions like law and medicine are examples. Others are industry-recognized. For example, my wife the nurse holds several certifications that have nothing to do with her nursing license (awarded by the state), but are almost universally recognized in her field.

Universities credential their graduates. Those credentials are recognized in a variety of ways by a variety of individuals and organizations. In the vast majority of situations we see, it is recognized accreditation (regional, national and professional) that determines the acceptability of a degree. This is consistently true in both the public and private sectors, for employment, promotion, tuition reimbursements, and licensure. Plus, accreditation provides a great deal of both quality control and a set of consistent standards and expectations.

Unaccredited schools vary much more widely in quality. There are good schools that might be accredited if not for one or two factors like their size or their fundamental philosophical beliefs. And, unlike with accredited schools, there are operations that almost no one would dispute are diploma mills. (Except their customers, of course.) Who says which unaccredited school is legitimate and which is a diploma mill?

Diploma mills routinely make false claims about their accreditation. But increasingly, we're seeing diploma mills acknowledging their lack of recognized accreditation, then obfuscating the issue by over-emphasizing the legal vs. voluntary issue. What they say is true, but it is misleading as hell.

One benefit of recognized accreditation is that it distinguishes legitimate schools from diploma mills. Unaccredited schools don't have that, and often find themselves dumped in with the degree sellers. No amount of candor, or silence for that matter, changes that very fundamental truth.

 

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Rich

I agree with all you say.

I was hoping someone would argue that Dr Walston's book really is not so supporting of unaccredited schools. But it would be difficult to evince that position.

Rick devotes an entire chapter, 8, to demonstrate the point that "unaccredited isn't all bad."Therein he lists success cases to show the utility of unaccredited schools. He thinly conceals the identity of James White, a "real" success story, and a CES grad,p.50). I cannot blame this book for inducing me to spend $3000 on an unaccredited school and waste one of my years (at 62 I've not a lot to waste). I should have researched more carefully. But I will say that this book did NOTHING to dissuade me from enrolling in an unaccredited PhD program (Trinity seminary). Rick even calls the Liverpool endorsement "a good thing" , p42!

As an aside, what I find also remarkable is that the book does not even deal with the grad programs in Religion available by distance from the UK, Australia, and South Africa. These I connected with here on this forum. It is curious that this "secular" forum "saved" me from what a "religious" book could not!

 

I follow a lot of the discussions on accredited vs. non-accredited schools. I have choosen to pursue a degree through an institution not currently regionally accredited but that is seeking to be accredited. (The school has recently made applicaton to a regional accrediting association.)

To my knowledge, all new institutions go through a period that they are not accredited and have to go through steps to receive recognition from a regional assoication. If this is true, how would it be possible for new schools to begin operations if all schools were required to be accredited? If students were not able to evaluate the quality of such a new program and become students in the program, there would be no new opportunites.

 

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Hi Sam

What was kindly pointed out to me here was that I could do an accredited (GAAP) doctorate more cheaply than I could do the unaccredited one! So why would I, or you, go the unaccredited route?

As to the prospect of an unaccredited school gaining accreditation, sure some do. but MOST do not. As for Trinity of Ind, (my case), it has been in operation since 1969...still unaccredited!

As an aside, were you to finish a degree in an unaccredited school which later became accredited, your degree would NOT be!
Best to you,

 

Right. But there is a world of difference between a school that opens up and works on becoming accredited and one that never does. For example, it was pretty clear from the beginning that The Graduate School of America was going to become accredited (although it would have been difficult to predict the speed at which they proceeded through the process).

That point only works with new schools that show distinct signs of being able to become accredited. The vast majority of unaccredited schools do not meet that criterion.

 

Sam: To my knowledge, all new institutions go through a period that they are not accredited and have to go through steps to receive recognition from a regional assoication.

Bill: This is true but only in the USA.

Sam: If this is true, how would it be possible for new schools to begin operations if all schools were required to be accredited? If students were not able to evaluate the quality of such a new program and become students in the program, there would be no new opportunites.

This is not exactly true. There are other ways of starting up "new opportunities" besides starting up completely new schools but I really wanted to make another point. There are valid new schools that occasionally start up and then are accredited.

The vast majority of unaccredited schools are just low quality degree mills whose degrees have very little to no utility. They sometimes claim bogus accreditation but not always. They sometimes even claim that they are in the process of getting real accreditation. It's also common for the alumni of these degree mills to talk about their alma mater eventually getting accredited. There's really very little chance that these degree mills will ever be able to get accredited because of their alumni. If there's a large alumni that has been given substandard degrees, the accrediting agency is going to be reluctant to accredit the school. Even if the school's current program is fully up to standard they will be reluctant to accredit the school if there's a large alumni with substandard degrees. I think an example of this might the LaSalle/Orion attempt at metamorphous.

Sam, I'm not saying that your school fits into this category. I don't even know what school it is that you go to.