WY Department of Education Regulations

Members of this Board have LONG since BASHED Wyoming's post secondary degree granting school regulations. However, with the new bill, I feel that the Wyoming Department of Education’s Regulations are rather strict. After all how many times do Regional Accreditors re-evaluate a schools cirricula? :

New Rules:

“The House also passed SF78, which seeks to toughen licensing requirements and standards for nonaccredited private schools.
Rep. Jeff Wasserburger, R-Gillette, a co-sponsor, said the measure was brought because of a national magazine article that listed Wyoming as one of the most permissive states in its licensure and was allowing rapid growth of "mail-order diploma mills."

Bona fide schools have no problem with the bill, Wasserburger said, but bogus ones had better watch out.

The bill increases state fees and bond requirements for nonaccredited private schools and outlines when their licenses can be suspended or revoked.

It also would give the state authority to make unannounced inspections and require that the schools have an office staffed by at least one full-time employee.

Current law requires that 50 percent of instructors at private schools to have master's or doctor's degrees. The bill would extend a bachelor's degree requirement to the other faculty members.

That degree must be from a regional accredited institution to prevent schools from issuing degrees to their own instructors. “

Exitsing regulations:

http://www.k12.wy.us/higher_ed/statutes.html

21-2-401. State Board of Education to Administer and Set Minimum Standards; On-site Inspections by State Department

The board shall establish minimum standards for all schools...and provide for the investigation and evaluation of the schools as necessary to administer this article. In addition, the board shall, prior to issuing any license under this article and not less than once every three (3) years thereafter, inspect and visit the principal place of business of each degree granting post secondary education institution.

21-2-402. Institutional Requirements and Standards

Demonstration of financial stability through review of current financial statement prepared or audited by a certified public accountant.

Illustration of instructional methods used by the institution including methods of assigning, monitoring and evaluating work, awarding credit and granting a degree.

Supply professional credentials for each instructor of the institution including official academic transcripts verifying academic status, educational degrees attained and the degrees attained are from institutions accredited by a recognized and accepted accrediting agency as defined by the department rule and regulation.

In addition, verification must be provided that not less than fifty percent of the instructors employed by the institution have received a masters or doctorate degree in their respective field of study from a college or university accredited by a regional accrediting association recognized by the United States Department of Education.

21-2-404. Prohibited Practices

No post secondary educational institution under this article shall award a degree, earned or honorary, solely on basis of payment of tuition or a fee, nor shall the school award a degree solely on the basis of:
a) Credit earned at another school;
b) Credit for life experience or other equivalency;
c) Testing out of required coursework leading to a degree;
d) Research or writing;
e) Any combinations of factors specified above.

 

SACS works on a ten year evaluation cycle (I believe the other RA organizations are the same.) In reality, though, it's an ongoing process -- preparing for evaluation, implementing recommendations and quality improvement plans, and ensuring continual compliance.


As for this bill, SF 0078 the provisions that appear significant to me are:

-School must maintain physical facilities in the state
-School must have at least 1 full-time employee
-State Board of Education will visit and inspect at least once every three years. Visits may also be random and unannounced.
-Instructors must have an RA degree. 50% must have an RA graduate degree
-Schools must pay various fees, including pay for expenses associated with site visits
-Schools can only represent that they are accredited if they are RA
-License can be revoked for any misrepresentation or omission, past or present


Sure, I guess it's a step in the right direction. But these are hardly rigorous standards. Schools must have at least one full-time employee? Come on.

I do think DETC needs to get on the ball and do some lobbying on this, though.

The original language of the bill said that it applied to schools "not accredited by a recognized and accepted accrediting agency as defined by rule and regulation of the state department of education."

Apparently, someone in the legislature did not want to give this much discretion to the state department of ed. So they ammended the language to read: "not accredited by a regional accrediting association recognized by the United States department of education."

So DETC accredited schools operating in Wyoming would be subject to these regulations, which would mean that they would not be allowed to mention their accreditation.

 

There is nothing here that woudl keep K-W from continuing the bogus practice of awarding an MBA for the submission of a resume, completing 4 course and a thesis.

There is still no teeth. It only keeps out the worst of the worst. This is a knee jerk reation to address the perception that Wyoming is degree mill friendly It is not designed to address ensuring quality standards in higher education.

 

I can understand trying to eliminate bogus schools, but requiring doctorate-granting universities to have a staff of a least one person? That's unreasonable. It's just too strict!

That Wasserburger guy must be a Nazi.

 

This is not a real requirement. If the requirement was to have at least a certain number of full time member then you had a real requirement.

We all know that faculty can be "rented" with PhDs from stanford for 2K a year. A full time faculty would be a different story.

For your information, I was contacted once from a degree mill called "American International" that claimed WY state license. The degree mill sent me a WY state faculty application that I had to send to WY state with my RA transcripts so I could get my 100 dlls a course fee.

 

So, what does this mean for the Preston empire:

Q. Does Preston University USA have other campuses?
A. Yes, Preston University has affiliated campuses located in the various countries listed below:
 10 campuses in Pakistan located in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Hyderabad, Multan, Faisalabad, Quetta and Gujranwala.
· campuses in Spain located in Seville, Cordoba, Tenerife and Algeciras
· 2 campuses in Russia located in Volgograd and St. Petersburg
· 3 campuses in India located in New Delhi, Calcutta and Hyderbad
· a growing number of campuses in China located across the country in cities including, Jilin City, Harbin, Xian and other locations.
· 1 campus in Ajman, United Arab Emirates
· 1 campus in Chittagong, Bangladesh
· 1 campus in Tbilisi, Georgia
· 1 campus in Casablanca, Morocco
· 1 campus in Medan, Indonesia
· 1 campus in Finland located in Ylivieska

There's one in England as well, one in Venezuela and perhaps one in Singapore.

So, does this mean that Preston is going to have to provide all-expenses-paid junkets to Wyoming officials all over the planet every three years?

Will Wyoming be satisfied if Preston mainains one symbolic employee in Wyoming?

Or will the words 'School must maintain physical facilities in the state' be given a strict interpretation, requiring not only that the school maintain a token office in Wyoming, but that Wyoming-licensed schools actually operate from Wyoming territory?

(If that isn't what is meant, then what's the point of the site visits?)

That would be devastating for Preston's international empire. It also would be problematic for Kennedy-Western which, as I understand it, actually operates out of Southern California.

 

What struck me as odd was the liberal use of the word "soley". This appears to be a wink and a nod to those schools operating there that the legislature has done something and no we won't hamper your operation if you require just a smidgen more than these virtually non-existent standards. Ok, so you can't get a degree there if it is given soley for life experience. So, take a couple of courses and BANG you're done! This won't close any bad guy down, they'll just ...ever so slightly... modify their program so as not to violate the "soley" caviat. The State will have to put forth much more effort than this if they want to be serious.

 

It is quite pathetic that Preston is using the lame WY state license to put campuses all over the world. The owner is a business genious without doubt, he is profiting from the weak american licensing system. It reminds me to the Trinity college and University that used to claim "Delaware" Incorporation, when we know that everyone with few thousand can incorporate in Delaware.