Why is Microsoft not recognizing NA degrees?

Why is Microsoft not recognizing NA degrees?
Especially for employment?

Here is what it says on the box of the Microsoft Office regarding who can buy it:

"Current faculty and registered students at a public or private K-12, vocational school, correspondence school, junior college, college, university, or scientific or technical school meeting all of the following criteria:

(i) organized and operated exclusively for purpose of teaching its matriculating K-12 or higher education students; and

(ii) institutionally accredited by a Regional Institutional Accrediting Agency recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education. Note: Accreditation by a National Institutional and Specialized Accrediting Body alone does not qualify an end user as a qualified educational user."

 

I have found a list of recognised accreditors for their Academic Alliance programme which includes the following entries

There is also a document referring to an "IT Academy" which recognises the following accreditors (page 14)

 

Microsoft is a private entity...

They can set whatever standards they want....

 

The wording indicates to me that they are fully aware of DETC so I can rule out the common possibility they are unaware of DETC. Therefore the answer seems very simple and obvious, IMHO. They get plenty of applications and they want to select the best applicants. They believe that accepting RA only is one way to ensure that. I suspect that they also try to hire only those applicants from the higher ranked RA schools.

Before someone starts whining that they may be discarding great applicants. That may be true but they are just trying to select candidates from the "fertile" population possible. It is perfectly reasonable when they have far more applicants than positions.

 

I have a relative who went to work for Bill Gates in the eighties. He's now a millionaire, of course.

He told me that Microsoft is EXTREMELY picky about schools when it comes to hiring decisions as well.

Bill Gates has his own ideas, that's for sure.

 

The company that I work for is exactly the same way. I suspect that it is an extremely common policy for most large companies.

 

I might be missing something here. The original poster is quoting from a MS software box regarding eligibility to purchase it. It sounds as if it is describing the academic discount.

Where are people getting the eligibility for MS employment from this statement? The student/teacher discount and employment screening are two different things.

 

Michael Lloyd:

Oh, you are quite right; the things aren't really related. I just thought it was interesting that Microsoft seems to have a heightened awareness of educational matters, is all.

 

Its my English skills.

I actually wanted to show the 2 issues in the same post.

Dr. Bear posted this on the other chanel.

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20317

John Bear
Senior Member

Registered: Jan 2001
Location: Northern California, USA
Posts: 3656
Briefly summarizing info posted here regularly: Based on my year-2000 survey of registrars, roughly 20% accept DETC degrees regularly, 20% sometimes.

I believe that if I had asked about acceptance of DETC credits that had been independently evaluated by the American Council on Education -- some DETC schools have done this, ACCIS hasn't -- the acceptance would have been higher.

And I believe (sure wish someone would do this research) that acceptance of DETC degrees would be higher in the business world, although there are some big companies (Microsoft, e.g.) that absolutely won't, and don't even allow people in DETC schools to qualify for their student pricing.

although there are some big companies (Microsoft, e.g.) that absolutely won't, and don't even allow people in DETC schools to qualify for their student pricing.
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Hi John - Just had to chime in here to say that while this may be the policy in writing, I know from first hand experience that Microsoft does allow students in DETC schools to qualify for student pricing - as does Adobe. It is certainly possible that education vendors of Microsoft products are doing this in violation of Microsoft, but if they truly had a policy, my guess is they would have come down hard on those vendors.

As to your comment about wishing someone would revisit/update the research you did - I wish that too and have actually suggested it to more than one person. If I recall correctly you indicated it cost @ $3000 for postage and printing. I'll keep working on it

John Bear
Senior Member

Registered: Jan 2001
Location: Northern California, USA
Posts: 3656
Mary: Just had to chime in here to say that while this may be the policy in writing, I know from first hand experience that Microsoft does allow students in DETC schools to qualify for student pricing...

John: Here is what it says on the box of the Microsoft Office that my wife bought last year, regarding who can buy it:

"Current faculty and registered students at a public or private K-12, vocational school, correspondence school, junior college, college, university, or scientific or technical school meeting all of the following criteria:

(i) organized and operated exclusively for purpose of teaching its matriculating K-12 or higher education students; and

(ii) institutionally accredited by a Regional Institutional Accrediting Agency recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education. Note: Accreditation by a National Institutional and Specialized Accrediting Body alone does not qualify an end user as a qualified educational user."

I have no idea if this is ever enforced, and if so, how.

Mary: As to your comment about wishing someone would revisit/update the research you did - I wish that too and have actually suggested it to more than one person. If I recall correctly you indicated it cost @ $3000 for postage and printing. I'll keep working on it

John: That was about my cost: the mailing list, 1,000 letters (and 1,000 stamped envelope for returns), printing, hiring a temp to address, stuff, and stamp. My time, and the great amount of time Rich Douglas spent doing statistical analysis, were without charge. I'd be so pleased, and would gladly consult (without charge) with whomever was going to do it. Let's double the stakes and do it with corporate HR people as well, please.

Or how about an MBA or MA project at, oh, say, Aspen for instance?

 

It's true for us (UOP) as well,

While we accept nationally accredited (non-cert) degrees/credits for transfer, instructors must have a degree from a regionally accredited instituation (most likely an NCA requirement)

 

What would be very interesting to me if another study was done would be to see if there was detectable trend in improved utility of DETC degrees over time. (as I suspect)

 

I agree

But this survey takes time and money.

5 years may not be significant time lapse to conduct another study.

I guess that DETC would be a little higher this time, yet some say that maybe not because of some ex mills getting accredited by DETC it could actually bring the results down.

Just and opinion.

 

The first two lines of the original post.

 

Some NAs, such as DETC, are "institutionally accredited by a Regional Institutional Accrediting Agency recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education."
See http://www.ed.gov/admins/finaid/accred/accreditation_pg6.html for details.

So I suggest that students and teachers can legally buy the student editions of MS products.

Note that there is a minimum unit enrollment requirement (but no differentiation between quater and semester units)

 

Hmmm,

Perhaps because RA is the accepted US standard in education. DETC has been making many steps forward with a few back, but they are very new new at accrediting college/university programs as opposed to trade schools. I commend what DETC has done and would guess they will continue to make progress but they aren't RA.

 

Maybe we need to change this whole outlook of the "it's not RA" to maybe "it's not NA." For all the people that think NA is substandard to RA need to take a closer look at the NA accreditation bodies

http://www.ed.gov/admins/finaid/accred/accreditation_pg8.html

If you read closely you'll notice that Medical Doctor's are NA accredited:

Liaison Committee on Medical Education
1952/2002/S2007 Scope of recognition: the accreditation of medical education programs within the United States leading to the M.D. degree.

Individuals studying to become Dentists are NA accredited:

American Dental Association, Commission on Dental Accreditation
1952/2001/S2006 Scope of recognition: the accreditation of predoctoral dental education programs (leading to the D.D.S or D.M.D degree); advanced dental education programs and allied dental education programs that are fully operational or have attained "accreditation eligible" status, and for its accreditation of programs offered via distance education.

Individuals studying to become lawyers are NA accredited:

American Bar Association, Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar
1952/2001/F2005
Scope of recognition: the accreditation throughout the United States of programs in legal education that lead to the first professional degree in law, as well as freestanding law schools offering such programs.

Individuals studying in nuclear medicine are NA accredited:

Joint Review Committee on Educational Programs in Nuclear Medicine Technology
1974/2001/S2006
Scope of recognition: the accreditation of higher education programs for the nuclear medicine technologist.

Individuals studying to become optometrists are NA accredited:

American Optometric Association, Accreditation Council on Optometric Education
1952/2002/F2007
Scope of recognition: the accreditation in the United States of professional optometric degree programs, optometric technician (associate degree) programs, and optometric residency programs and for the preaccreditation categories of Preliminary Approval and Reasonable Assurance for professional optometric degree programs and Candidacy Pending for optometric residency programs in Veterans' Administration facilities.

If you look at this website you'll notice about 55 Nationally Accredited Bodies, including the DETC.

Hmmm, one would think national accreditation is pretty well recognized here in the U.S.

 

Unfortunately,

It just is not the accepted U.S. standard. It has gained in status and will likely continue to do so, but to ignore or misrepresent its current place is foolish.

 

It's true that many professions, such as medicine, law, or engineering, have national accreditation programs. But national professional accreditation programs typically supplementtraditional regional accredititation. For example, I would expect to only find ABA-accredited law programs or ABET-accredited engineering programs at RA universities. Possibly there are exceptions, but I suspect that they are rare. So most professional degrees would be both RA and NA, not NA alone.

 

Did you want to say RA and PA.

ABET, ABA is Professional Accreditation PA.

DETC is National Accreditation - NA

Learner