Unaccredited Institution to Leave Wyoming

After Wyoming enacted legislation in 2006 requiring all private higher-education institutions to seek federally recognized accreditation within five years, Newport International University sued, arguing that the law violated the state Constitution. But in a ruling last summer, the Wyoming Supreme Court upheld the law, and the Laramie-based university has now decided to leave the state, the Associated Press reported.

Newport International relinquished its state registration on April 24, the AP said, citing information from the Wyoming Department of Education.

“It’s just been a struggle,” Thomas Ries, a spokesman for the university, said of the decision to depart. “Let’s just say it’s not a very comfortable atmosphere that the department puts us in.” He said the institution would now merge with Newport University, in California.

Newport International, which offers instruction overseas, once listed campuses in 14 countries on its Web site, according to the AP. The site was not operational today, displaying a message that it was “undergoing maintenance.” The university ran into difficulties in Kenya in 2005, when that nation nullified more than 200 degrees it had awarded there.

Wyoming’s Legislature approved the 2006 law in response to concerns that the state was becoming known as a haven for diploma mills and other institutions whose educational quality was unverified. At least one other unaccredited institution, Preston University, has left the state since then.

The state superintendent of public instruction, Jim McBride, said in a news release that the department and the Legislature would continue their efforts “until all private degree-granting institutions are accredited.” —Charles Huckabee