Dubious Distinctions

I think you’ll find more often that there are claims of degrees from accredited universities, or well respected foreign ones, that don’t exist.Over the 33+ years of covering higher education in my neck of the woods for a weekly paper, I’ve probably found 6-8 without the degrees claimed and 3-4 from diploma mills. A couple of the former have been from schools that never offered a degree in the subject or in at least two cases of English schools never even offered PhDs.When I checked with one culprit’s previous employer, the Dean wouldn’t say why he was fired, but made it clear he was not eligible for rehire. The phony PhD holder claimed the “Red Brick” school in England had no record of his degree while on duty with the USAF because it was classified “Top Secret” by NATO.I ran across another one who did in fact have a bachelor’s degree from University of Georgia in Athens. But nobody at UGa could explain how he got it with only about 70 semester hours credits and 15 of those being in ROTC and most of the rest being what would now be considered remedial courses.It seems to me…and maybe things are different these days….there has been an assumption that nobody lies in academia. And so nobody bothers to check resumes/vitas/whatevers.

Mr. Evans’ comments reflect the myopic insularity that so often characterizes higher education today. All of my degrees are from accredited institutions (six, including both doctorates, by American regional agencies and one by the British agency) and I now lead an unaccredited institution. Why unaccredited? Because my institution is new and accrediting agencies do not allow an institution to even apply for candidacy until it has been in existence for a number of years and has graduated classes in the programs it wishes to have accredited. Regardless of how good our education is – and we are working very hard to be certain that it is – our current students will graduate with unaccredited degrees. Students come to our institution – knowing clearly that it is unaccredited – because quality and focus we offer. Will we seek accreditation? Certainly, as soon as we are permitted to by agency rules. Until that point in time, our students will have a degree that is “virtually worthless” and will have “no chance of getting hired.” Mr. Evans is incorrect on both counts, and he and others with his attitude are missing some great graduate degree holders.

11174142, it has nothing to do with “myopic insularity.” It has to do with, for example, the rules of our own accreditation, which does not recognize degrees from unaccredited institutions.I am aware of the issue with new institutions and the timeframe for accreditation. This situation is surely problematic. However, on the whole, the unaccredited institutions I’m discussing have absolutely no way of demonstrating that their faculty are qualified, that they run their operations in a financially sound way, or that, in short, the degrees they grant are “real.”I’m more than familiar with the limitations of traditional regional accreditation. Anyone who has had more than one go-round with the regionals (I’m on my fourth one) knows that they have, as I say, a “limited imagination” with regard to what they recognize as legitimate academic practices. This, like the need to have an extant program before seeking accreditation, certainly poses obstacles to legitimate institutions seeking to get off the ground, and as such should be looked at with an eye to reform.However, the tremendous majority of unaccredited institutions–I’m confident in saying it’s well over 90%–do offer “worthless” degrees. It’s unfortunate that your institution (provisionally granting your assertions about its quality and integrity) is caught in the same net as they are. But it is the truth that no decent, regionally accredited institution will accept a degree from an unaccredited school as its final credential. Those that do are looking for their own kind of trouble, and if they’re smart will simply avoid it.la4097237, the issue of false claims for degrees is why, generally, responsible schools require transcripts for all degrees. The specific case you mention, with regard to UGA, is difficult, but the fact is that if the institution has granted the degree, it counts even if the record is suspicious. Again, this is WHY accreditation matters. If UGA granted a fraudulent degree without requiring the student to complete legitimate requirements, they have in turn imperiled their accreditation. SACS will come down on this kind of conduct like a ton of bricks–of the regionals, they are the most rigid and don’t look kindly on evasions of the rules.Lee77, in some instances, yes. In that case, a Google search or a look on the website of the appropriate regional agency will tell the story. That’s a different situation. We have several faculty and staff members from defunct institutions (all undergrad, however, so it’s less crucial than the terminal degree), and institutions that go out of business very often lose their accreditation first. If the student completed the degree when the institution was accredited, it counts.

While I have no experience with unaccredited institutions in the US, I shudder at the thought that Mr. Evans lumps these with foreign universities that are not accredited by an American agency. I’ve witnessed Masters Degrees granted in the US (by accredited universities) that would not have met the rigid standards of the unaccredited university in Asia that I graduated from. Within Asia, when I mention the name of the university where I completed my Ph.D., I command respect, yet insular Americans (yes, even professors) who have never heard of the institution automatically question its validity–I can see that they are thinking ‘diploma mill’. This attitude (fully endorsed by Mr. Evans) prevents serious international collaboration and perpetuates cultural and academic stereotypes. I would suggest that Mr. Evans broaden his view of academia and standards by attending some international conferences where the vast majority of research presenters are from “unaccredited” universities.

As a state official responsible for deciding what degrees are valid, I deal with these issues all the time. Most colleges have methods in place to evaluate foreign degrees and that is generally not a problem. Since U.S. accreditors lack federal recognition for their non-U.S. accreditations, we ignore such overseas accreditation because our state law only recognizes accreditation that is federally recognized.The use of unaccredited degrees, even pure degree-mill degrees, is fairly common in U.S. colleges, especially those lacking regional accreditation. By fairly common I mean that if I look through the faculty credentials at any sizable non-regionally accredited college, I’ll find one or two unaccredited degrees.Remember that all colleges, including all private colleges, get their degree authority from governments. For that reason, the first thing I want to know about a college is not whether it is accredited (which may relate to quality but has nothing to do with its legitimacy), but what state authorizes it to offer degrees ? (the federal government and Indian tribes can also issue that authorization, but that is fairly rare).There is a world of difference between a degree issued by a new, unaccredited college authorized by a state with reputable standards and a bogus degree issued by a fake college such as Almeda, Canyon College, Novus U or Breyer State, none of which have the legal authority to issue degrees.Alan ContrerasOregon Office of Degree Authorization

I’m afraid a lot of this stems from a combination of naivete on the part of the candidates for such doctorates, questionable practices on the part of the schools involved (how many of these schools presented themselves to potential doctoral students as, “accredited by X (worthless organization) and a member of Y (standard accrediting organization)”, or merely as “accredited”?), and a poor job being done by legitimate academia to educate the public on the differences among various sorts of schools. As a department chair, I regularly had adjunct faculty who would proudly tell me that they had enrolled in such programs, where they were told that they could get the same degree in far less time on their own schedule. These usually were professionals who had been out of school for decades and wanted to retire from business into a second career in academia. They may have graduated from respected universities which were not accredited at the time, although they would almost certainly be now. The alphabet soup which constitutes accreditation is difficult for academics to understand, let alone students who come from backgrounds unfamiliar with the concepts.As for international schools, I have often, in an attempt not to let my ignorance of other countries guide my decisions, looked into the qualifications of the faculty at institutions offering the degrees presented by applicants. Although I’ll admit I have little interest in hiring a graduate of a new and unknown university from any country, I’ve occasionally been shocked by what I found. One applicant’s school listed a total of six faculty members, only three of whom had terminal degrees themselves, and none of those in the discipline in which the candidate had received a Ph.D. (yes, I understand that in new fields it can often happen that there are no prior faculty with degrees in the discipline, but this was an established field and there was virtually no relationship between the doctorates of the faculty and the student).

It seems to me that the emphasis on whether or not an institution from which an individual graduated is accredited, rather than his or her intellect, knowledge and character, has gotten this nation in the trouble it is today, relative to poor performance of public school students and persons earning exorbitant salaries on Wall Street.Students in schools all across America are being taught by so-called “certified” teachers who graduated, presumably, from accredited institutions of higher learning. Since Wall Street has crumbled- or almost crumbled til being bailedout- and students are failing routine standardized tests, one is compelled to ask: Who is doing the “certifying?” Accredited to do what?Individuals teach children, not institutions, accredited or not. Individuals buy and trade stocks, bonds, derivatives, etc., not institutions. Point-blank, Evans, you’re shortchanging your principle if the “ranking” of an applicant’s institution is the major consideration in your decision to hire or not. I think that you and anyone else who think like you on this issue is fool of s–t. Even “un-accredited” institutions have libraries. Haven’t you heard of independent study? If I’m not mistaken, a number of highly “accredited” universities encouraged it when I was a student in the 60′s.

shariyat, it’s hard to tell what you even mean, but one thing I can tell you is that I have over 15 years’ of full-time faculty experience. So I guess they did make faculty deans. The problems of the California Community Colleges have plenty of parents, and the faculty are among them. Wturnertsu, I wrote a pretty big dissertation. I know quite a bit about independent study. As for education, I’m not talking about high schools and below, I’m talking about college–different deal. There are certainly tremendous problems with the way teacher education is done in this country, but the actions of the accrediting bodies are only a small fraction of what causes them. And actually, no, a lot of unaccredited institutions don’t have libraries. One of the things accreditors look at is the adequacy and suitability of library resources to the mission of the institution. It is, finally, true, that indviduals, not institutions, are primary actors. Nevertheless, the odds of an individual presenting a doctorate of some kind from Joe’s School of International Business (to follow up on the GWB example you raise) being as good as someone with a doctorate from an accredited school, whether it be Harvard or Louisiana Tech, are not very good. Part of the test is having the judgment to pursue your education at a recognized institution. As far as “ranking” goes, here I propose only a binary one: doctorate from accredited institution, or not. While it’s reasonably difficult to earn a “real” doctorate, this isn’t a hard test, particularly in the world where there are a large multiple more fully qualified applicants than there are positions for them. Why go outside a completely reasonable, accepted norm under those circumstances?

They’re fine. They’ll put a candidate in the pool if s/he is otherwise interesting.

I am President of one of those unaccredited institutions that is currently moving through the regional accreditation process. Our small university offers a masters and doctorate in Education. I am also the local superintendent of schools and we started this university because teachers produced by the local “accredited” universities were not meeting our needs. Our graduates will, by the rules of the accrediting agency, graduate from an unaccredited institution. Both of our degrees are rigorous and are taught by practitioners who hold advanced degrees from accredited institutions. You mention in passing that it is a shame that we are thrown into the same barrel as the diploma mills. I would posit that it beyond shame and moving toward travesty. While we welcome the accreditation process, as it strengthens our program and processes, we question a system that in fact either (1) shuts out new institutions by denying their graduates equal access to employment (if this isn’t a 14 amendment issue, it is surely one of simple decency and fairness) or (2) limits fair competition at the university level in the name of accreditation (the UGA example for instance indicates that accreditation is not always about quality). Perhaps as a human resources decision maker you should take the time required to make an informed decision about each candidate. What was their curriculum? What was the content of their dissertation? Perhaps the courtesy of a phone call to the institution would also be helpful. In the mean time, institutions that are, in good faith, moving through the rigors of the accreditation process should be given a bit more respect and consideration.