Why did you choose your college or university?

The USSR apparently had their own version of DEI: children of faculty members and party big shots and maybe a student or two from Belarus or some other republic.

 

This is where I am. There are several degrees I would love to do…but it does not make sense. None of them would actually advance me in my career as I am already on track to be where I want to be with the degrees I have…but with 7, 7, 5, 3, and 1 year olds plus a wife, I think a divorce lawyer and child support would be far to expensive to add on top of the tuition costs. LOL

 

Looks like three babies in diapers at the same time. This is in the modern era of disposable diapers but still worthy of the "Surviving Baby Poo" reward! My older sister had two sets of identical twins and another child in the span of three years. That's five babies in cloth diapers at the same time. I think she finally recovered just a decade or so ago.

 

I earned degrees as follows for these reasons:

Johnson University (BS) - great Christian College with a stellar reputation
Alliant University (MA) - was close by and offered Marriage, Family, and Child Counseling that led to licensure.
California Coast University (MA-Psychology) - Dr. John Bear recommended it and I could do it at a distance.
California Coast University (Doctorate -Psychology) was state-approved at the time but has served me well in California.
Bakke Graduate University (Certificate in Transformational Leadership) they excel in this particular subject.

 

I have been looking at Bakke's DTL for years. What was your experience with them like when you did the certificate?

 

It was offered to me so I accepted. Also, all these institutions have to start somewhere and any recognition is good considering the validations that can occur with other more recognized or fully accredited schools. I’ll teach or affiliate myself with any organization that has good intentions.

 

Selling honorary degrees and claiming to be accredited by random organizations in countries you're not located in is not a sign of good intentions. There are already a bunch of diploma mills selling honorary degrees, so it's not like we need more.

 

I can understand the honorary degree argument but the accreditation of organizations in countries they are not located in shouldn't matter as much if they are planning to serve students internationally anyway. Every little bit helps in my opinion provided these accreditations are legit and can be verified. The issue is that these accreditations are not on recognized databases but tend to cross-reference to other valid accreditors that creates more partnerships, MOUs, and recognized accreditations. I believe that these type of institutions we tend to heavily criticize are credible enough for life-long learners. The profiles of GIU's leadership team shows that. If you need a regionally or nationally accredited degree that cost tens of thousands of dollars, I recommend that route. Otherwise, non-accredited schools that are legally operating with some recognition should be a valid option for the perpetual student or a student who plans to level up later if there is some type of MOU or validation towards the traditional path.

 

A lifelong learner can pay for a subscription to Coursera, edX, LinkedIn Learning, FutureLearn, or The Great Courses. Sometimes, you can audit courses for free. The Open University's OpenLearn offers free courses with certificates of completion. There are also university lectures on YouTube.

 

I get that argument. I have two points, though. First, it's a Good Thing when a school's degrees are validated somehow by a neutral third party, whether it is an accreditor or a government agency. Second, possessing a fraudulent degree may tarnish one's own reputation.

 

The “institutional accreditation” prominently displayed on the Graham International University website is part of a memorandum dual “international online accreditation” deal signed by QAHE. The institutions that received this accreditation are not mentioned on the Kyrgyz accredited institution database, so it’s very hard to see this as relevant institutional accreditation in any specific country.

The president of the school claims to be “the most educated person in the US history” (https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php/?story_fbid=567951742681603&id=100084003458425&locale=el_GR), “one of the most educated individuals in the world” and is “currently pursuing over 15 doctorate degrees”, while already possessing “30+ bachelor’s degrees” and “80+ master’s degrees.” (https://university.fgjf.org/faculty-staff/ - see “Biography”).

 

Yeah I noticed that American Management University has the same accreditation and neither school is listed on the Kyrgyz accredited institution database. I believe the IARC is a subset of the ministry of education and science of the Kyrgyz republic which means that IARC is a recognized accreditor under the Kyrgyz republic but the schools they certify are not directly accredited by the Kyrgyz government. This makes them similar to a non-state accreditor that we often discuss for Swiss business schools or those propio degrees from Mexico and Spain due to the limited recognition they receive although their degrees are still legal. Still not bad for validations and MOUs with other schools and organizations.

Both Frankie and Tan have dozens of degrees. Both teach and run their own businesses.

 

California Coast is an interesting story. It started out in the mid '70s as California Western University, adopting a name that had been abandoned by another school. Operating out of an old bank building in Santa Ana, it's early operations were, um, unusual. But it slowly pulled things together.

At the time, California operated under a 3-tier system of school recognition, and was quite robust in its application. The three tiers were:

• Accredited. If the school was accredited by a recognized agency, that was the end of it. California accepted that and didn't examine further.
• Approved. Unaccredited schools--and there were a lot--could go through a rigorous process to have individual programs approved by the state.
• Authorized. If you wanted to operate a university, you had to file affadavits in 13 areas regarding the school's functions, and you had to attest to having at least $50,000 in assets dedicated to it. The state didn't validate either the affadavits or the assets, so it was pretty easy to set up a diploma mill and sell "state authorized" degrees.

The state finally got rid of the "Authorized" category and went from programmatic approval to institutional approval. Then, some years back, it got rid of that as well, requiring schools to be accredited or on a track to become so. This absolutely killed the innovative and niche schools who, operating legitmately, simply couldn't meet the demands (usually financial) of the accreditors.

California Coast went from being a sketchy school to becoming the first DL school to have programs at all levels Approved by the state. It offered degrees in Education, Psychology, Business, and Engineering. At one point it decided to pursue DEAC (then DETC) accreditation, dropping its doctoral programs (which were then out of DETC's scope) to do so. It was successful. When DETC/DEAC expanded its scope to include professional doctorates, CCU restored theirs.

The big winners in this, IMHO, were the graduates of pre-accredited CCU. Sure, their degrees, technically, came from an unaccredited school. But in most situations, degrees coming from a school during its pre-accredited phase are treated as having come from an accredited school. Thus, this was a major upgrade for graduates.

I often wonder if CCU will make the leap to RA. WASC has been more open to DL schools. On the other hand, CCU might not want the additional burden and doesn't see the ROI for it. This is pure speculation on my part, having NO inside information. But I wouldn't be surprised to see them do it. They're one of the few schools that survived the purge of unaccredited DL schools (by getting accredited before it happened).

 

To seriously argue that the degrees from Graham International U. “are not bad for validations”, you would first need to point to accredited mainstream universities willing to grant those validation degrees to Graham graduates. Azteca?

As for the accomplishments of the two men, I would personally be suspicious of someone possessing hundreds of degrees, especially when they come from the institution over which they preside, or various country-unaccredited schools.

"Lifelong learning degrees" don't exist in the United States or Vietnam, so it makes no sense to talk about earning such degrees in these contexts. Spain is a different matter. Your school is located in the U.S. and Vietnam, not Spain.

 

All those degrees and currently pursuing over 15 doctorate degrees sounds ridiculously bogus to me!

 

It actually does make sense because you can take a degree that is legal even here in the US and have it validated outside of the US. Also, as for the validations, yes Azteca would validate Graham graduates. There are state-approved or otherwise schools here in the US with no accreditation from the US that have been validated by Azteca or some other foreign outfit due to lower or less recognized levels of accreditation from foreign entities. It really boils down to connections and these accreditations and memberships help build to those that are more recognized in one way or another. The problem with the US as you stated with "lifelong learning degrees" is that really there are no lifelong learning degrees in any country whatsoever but what makes getting a degree for lifelong learning purposes attractive is the low cost with some form of recognition. An example would be ENEB. We crapped on that school for a long time but many are getting good results with it. We've also criticized Azteca/UCN for many years but it works for a few of us that are not trying to stay in school too long and spend too much money for a Doctorate, yet still be recognized in some or fashion.

All the degrees you mention these guys are possessing is for the reason that you state that their are no life long learning degrees. They earned all of those degrees for lifelong learning purposes. Some do go the traditional "fully accredited" route but they wouldn't earn that many because it is too expensive or would take too long.

 

We already know about Azteca. Any other participants in the validation scheme?

There are lifelong learning qualifications. But a lifelong learning degree is rare. Spain has it.

True. But they became a collaborating study center for a major Spanish university.

Nice story and justification. I still don't feel comfortable with someone possessing hundreds of degrees (the vast majority unaccredited) and proclaiming himself the most educated person in the world.

 

I don't blame you here... It was off-putting when I read that in his bio.