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South Korea Plans to Inspect Colleges That Want to Enroll Foreign Students

August 18, 2011, 11:14 am

Concerned that some colleges and universities are recruiting foreign students for purely financial reasons, South Korea’s Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology will begin inspecting educational providers that enroll overseas undergraduates, reports The Korea Herald. The inspections, which will start in the fall, will examine whether the institutions have adequate facilities to serve international students and cultural programs that bring Koreans and foreigners together. Ministry officials said they worry that a few colleges are tainting the international image of the country’s higher-education system.

In recent years, South Korean universities have been making a big push to raise their global profile, bringing in more foreign students and faculty members.

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  • old nassau’67

    In this age of Google, why any employer values, or any student wishes, a diploma from Ashford University stupefies me. I’m barely computer literate, but even I can, and did, type “Ashford University” into the Google search bar. Then, on AU’s (apologies to Auburn, etc) own home page, I clicked on “TN Disclosure” and read “As of January 1, 2009:Credits earned at Ashford University may not transfer to another educational institution. Credits earned at another educational institution may not be accepted by Ashford University.”
    Or click on “State Disclosure Language”, and read through the list of “cannot” or “not able to” enroll or transfer. Here’s an example: “The Iowa Department of Education does not approve the University as a whole, nor its other educational programs, nor is the University required to obtain the approval of the Iowa Department of Education to operate its programs.”
    ’nuff shown.

  • bethelcollege

    princeton67, if you’re going to critique Ashford on this, then you’ll have a problem. As of July 1, every college or university in the country that offers online courses is likely to have a similar list, thanks to the DOE. We have 20 states a year represented among our online students in the summer, and we are likely to need to be registered in every single one of them. What this list may imply is that–if you’re a student in Arkansas, say, don’t plan to take a course from us, because the university is not registered there. And the language for Iowa is similar to that in Minnesota, where my own college is registered–the Office of Higher Education doesn’t approve the university, or any university or college–one must register with them, which does not constitute approval. The difference may appear trivial, but it is not.

  • davidbinder

    Princeton67

    The language “As of January 1, 2009:Credits earned at Ashford University may not transfer to another educational institution. Credits earned at another educational institution may not be accepted by Ashford University.” is true of all institutions. Each institution decides what credits it will accept and how accepted credits will apply to degree requirements. It has nothing to do with Ashford or online courses. Ashford is making a disclosure that all institutions need to make.

    Many factors affect transferability of courses including accreditation of the institution where the credits were earned, uniqueness of courses at both institutions, relevance to the curriculum of the receiving institution, grade earned, etc.

  • davidbinder

    If my memory is correct, the issue is not DOE regulations but individual state laws. The issue is what under state law creates “presence in the state” for the institution. If presence is established then, as you note, the institution must comply with those state laws. The laws vary widely; in some states it must be a physical location, in others simply having a student from that state is sufficient, in others it may be faculty location, advertising, or some other factor … or a combination of factors. It is necessary to check the laws in each state. I congratulate you in having students from 20 states in your online classes, but depending on which 20 states registration may not be needed in all of them.

    WASC commissioned a legal review of the proposed DOE regulation, which is described in the review (dated June 30, 2010) as “Existing federal law requires that, as a condition for eligibility for Title IV funding, private postsecondary institutions are legally authorized to operate within the States in which they are issuing degrees. Under the Proposed Regulation, an institution will not be considered legally authorized unless all of the following four conditions exist: (1) the State in which the institution operates has a method of formally approving of the institution, whether by charter, license or other document issued by an appropriate State agency or entity; (2) the authorization is specifically for programs beyond secondary education; (3) the authorization is subject to adverse action by the State; and (4) the State reviews and acts on complaints concerning an institution and enforces applicable State laws.”

    Part of the issue is where is the degree granted — where the student is resident or where the granting institution is located? Note, too, that the regulation affects Title IV eligibility, not degree granting authority per se.

  • adam3smith

    kosbot – that’s an odd comment to add to a post about a version of Zotero that’s not tied to Firefox… the whole point of the standalone and the “Everywhere” idea is to broaden the appeal. And yes, the alpha version isn’t completely there yet, but there is no reason to think that it won’t get there.

    There were many good reasons to tie Zotero to Firefox initially – Chrome didn’t exist, Safari didn’t have extensions, neither did IE etc… and now that that situation has changed – and the mozilla based technical tools like xulrunner have made the standalone possible without a prohibitive amount of development time – the project has reacted.

    And there are also good reasons _not_ to be entirely agnostic about software and platform. There is a trade-off involved. The more generic a piece of software is, the less tightly it integrates with any given piece of software: The only way to get high-quality citations into documents, for example, is to interface directly with the respective word processors.

  • 609zr

    Only 3 out of South Korea’s 331 universities rank among the world’s top 500 universities, so tainting their image is unlikely.  Their  ability to facilitate foreign students and faculty is very poor.  The lack of knowledge regarding the outside world and the inability to speak English make them poor hosts for anyone wishing to broaden their multicultural experience.

    South Korea’s negotiations with Uzbekistan for natural gas exploration has created an influx of radical and moderate Muslim Uzbeks and mosques.  While SK claims to have a low crime rate that is only true among Koreans.  The crime against foreigners is high.

  • cust0s

    Hah! Well, I love knowledge, but I often find myself giving others the very same advice that my own professors gave to me when I told them I was considering the PhD after the masters, “You’re a good person, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not even my enemies!” :)

  • willardhall

    I have to agree with JoelCairo. I’m sorry you’ve backed down. Shame. Ignore the bullies and blowhards who sometimes dominate the conversation on this blog. Stick to your guns Mr. Sweeney.

  • richarddeu

    Nice reference to Russell. The Ph.D. credential began generations before the “boomers” as was noted in Mr. Sweeney’s previous post. William James’ 1903 critique is still relevant: “Originally published in the Harvard Monthly in March 1903, ‘The Ph.D. Octopus’ by Harvard philosopher William James offers a powerful critique of the ‘tyrannical Machine’ of graduate education and the growing obsession with examinations, diplomas, and ‘decorative titles.’”   His article is easily found on-line.

  • isaacsweeney

    Thanks! I didn’t really back down. See my response to JoelCairo.

  • bermane

    Back in the 1970s when some of the baby boomers were ready to finish their graduate education, jobs were few and far between.  Most people don’t remember that it was a time when profs in the old eastern schools were staying on longer and opportunities were opening up in the boonies faster than in the Ivies–it’s how our provincial institutions became places to work without apology.  Remember those taxi drivers with the PhDs?  Many did get the doctorate but by the time things opened up at Harvard or Princeton, they were already 10,15 years down the road (literally and figuratively, and who wants a PhD who hasn’t done anything but make a living for a decade?  Not Harvard, not Princeton–newly minted PhD’s are much cheaper to hire.  So back then, many of us, seeing the roadblock ahead, jumped if something, anything opened up and we left our studies ABD never to return.

  • ksingh

    In terms of accessing the jobs, you don’t need a PhD to teach at most community colleges, yet more and more PhDs are getting jobs at community colleges because the tenure track market is so tough.  And a PhD, despite what most administrators say about the focus on teaching, brings a bit more prestige to the school.  I teach at a very large, fairly influential community college, and there are just as many PhDs as Masters level teachers. 
    I’m working on getting my doctorate because you need a terminal degree to achieve full professor rank, but I’m getting a DA in Community College Education instead of a PhD in my discipline.  I love my subject, but at the stage in my career where I am, the DA makes more sense than going back and entering a traditional PhD program. 

  • lenci5362

    I jumped through all the hoops, all the way to taking and passing the orals and writing several drafts of my thesis. My challenge was in the thesis advisors -2 – that had differing views and feedback, to the degree that I became disillusioned with the entire process. Dropping one of them was also not an alternative since they both carried weight within the department. As my career took a different path than teaching in academe, the need for a Ph.D. proved to be immaterial. The real world does not reward – either financially or in status – those with Ph.D.; it’s only in the academic Ivory Tower that this still matters.

  • commserver

    I have been adjunct since 1987. I started with just BS. I soon realized that I needed to get a more advanced degree so I earned MS.

    Since I earned MS it seems that the trend, even in adjunct positions, is towards getting terminal degree.

    The number of doctors (doesn’t matter if PHD or Dxx) looking for teaching positions has created the situation where the institutions of higher education come to expect terminal degrees as criteria for consideration.

    I was in situation where I was told that I was being replaced. I later found out that my replacement has doctoral degree. That convinced me to pursue the doctoral degree.

     I have long had a desire, both professionally and personally, to doing so. I am now enrolled in doctoral program at the ripe old age of 61.

  • josa33

    Perhaps once upon a time you could teach at a university without a Ph.D., and do so for the love of the subject, but because of the over-production of Ph.D.s (particularly in the humanities) there is just too much competition to do so now. If there are 100-200 applicants for a tenure-track job (which is increasingly the case in the humanities), it only makes sense that those with Ph.D.s would get preference over those with only masters or bachelors degrees, even for jobs at teaching (as opposed to research) institutions.

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