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President of Institution Accused as a ‘Sham University’ Is Arrested on Visa-Fraud Charges

May 3, 2011, 12:34 am

The president of Tri-Valley University, a shuttered California institution that authorities have called a “sham university” that admitted foreign students so they could remain in the United States on student visas but did not require them to attend classes, was arrested on Monday after being indicted by a federal grand jury late last week, the Contra Costa Times reported. The indictment accuses the president, Susan Xiao-Ping Su, of 33 counts of violations that include conspiracy to commit visa fraud, money laundering, and making false statements. Ms. Su has previously denied accusations that she and her institution exploited byzantine government regulations to commit visa fraud.

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  • bscmath78

    Did you know that Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa have provided information that the best (Science/Math) are only 5% better than the worst (Business)? Science/Math even edged out Social Sciences/Humanities. Priceless!

    5% looks like less than the measurement error of the CLA test.

    * So, is 4-year university/college a waste of time and money for everyone (on average, within the margin of error)?

    * Are all students equally deficient (on average, within the margin of error)?

    * Are CLA scores worthless?

    * Are CLA based studies worthless?

    * Are weed-out courses failing to weed-out the deficient?

    * Are all of the above, true?

    Who was counted by Arum and Roksa?

    Are you a Business Major if you declared Business as your intention during the first week of your freshman year and then proceeded to actually graduate as a Business Major, within 4 years, at the exact same university? Were the drop-outs, slow-pokes, major switchers and transferees, excluded from the calculations? Were foreign and ESL students in or out? Do you know? Would it make a difference? It would be useful to know.

    I couldn’t tell from page 11 of “Improving Undergraduate Learning: Findings and Policy Recommendations from the SSRC-CLA Longitudinal Project” by Richard Arum, Josipa Roksa and Esther Cho, who was counted as a Business major. Page 11, Figure 6, “Predicted 2009 CLA Scores by College Major” is the source of the 5% difference that I gave at the start of this post. http://highered.ssrc.org/files/SSRC_Report.pdf

    Conventional wisdom suggests that your ideas about the value and importance of weed-out courses are valid. They appeal to me. I’ve seen them in action. I would hope that they are true. But what do the CLA scores show? Also, weeding can be observed, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t weeding out the “ugly duckling”, who might have become a swan or the next Ford, Carnegie, Mellon or Rockefeller.

    I provide more explanation of my 5% value and additional issues with the project document and “Academically Adrift” in a series of posted comments at:

    http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/richard-vedder-on-the-ills-of-higher-education/28716

    Although at the beginning, I said Business was the worst, it looked from Figure 6 that Business might be sharing the cellar with Education/Social Work, but I thought that they might be slightly ahead, so I went with Business. It does not alter the validity of the above comments.

  • bscmath78

    If you actually believe “Academically Adrift”, or actually believe in CLA scores, or actually believe anything based on CLA scores, then shouldn’t you expect students to be dumbed down by CLA deficient profs, adjuncts, TAs and administrators?

    Do students need more bad examples? Do students need more bad role models?

    Do students need?: “The blind leading the blind.”

    Shouldn’t all profs, adjuncts, TAs and administrators be tested each Labor day to get their current CLA scores?

    * Shouldn’t profs be required to score higher than 99.9% of their institution’s whole undergrad student body?

    * Shouldn’t adjuncts and TAs be required to score higher than 99% of their institution’s whole undergrad student body?

    * Shouldn’t administrators be required to score higher than 95% of their institution’s whole undergrad student body?

    Shouldn’t the same criteria be applied using any CLA replacement, alternative or competitor that is being considered for measuring students?

    What a great way to clear out the deadwood. What a great way to improve teaching, while reducing costs.

    Why not implement this first in Sociology? Then expand to all of Social Science/Humanities a year later? Then observe the effects on Social Science/Humanities for a decade or two or three, as competing, contradictory studies do battle over whether things are better, worse, the same, ambiguous or unfair to one or more groups/factions/vested interests/special interests.

    “Live by the CLA, die by the CLA.”

    “What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”

    Science/Math and the other non-Social Science/Humanities majors would be the controls, continuing CLA-free for at least 30 years. But their scores would be part of the institution’s whole undergrad student body scores. Free of the screaming, wailing, weeping and gnashing of teeth.

    Priceless!

  • bscmath78

    Back in the olden days, departments like Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics:

    * Each had one course for their prospective majors and various service courses for non-majors.

    * Each had, for all their freshman courses, a “warning shot across the bow” with a multiple choice test at the start of class to test the retention of high school material. You could see your rank.

    * Each gave failing marks from the beginning, starting with the first assignment.

    * Each had a real differentiator, the first test with lots of failing marks. This got rid of:

    - The poorly prepared

    - Those who couldn’t keep pace

    - Those who didn’t want to make the investment to do well

    - Those who realized that university-level was a whole different kettle of fish

    Most switches occurred by November. Christmas exams persuaded nearly all the rest.

    The remainder probably all passed the course, but a certain proportion looked at their marks and decided not to continue in the major. So by September of second year the cohort had been cut down to those who were in it for the long haul. This was an effective and efficient weed-out, with a low apparent official failure rate, since people were weeded-out early.

    There were plenty of easier courses, some bird courses and lax BA degree requirements so those who weren’t interested in studying were kept happy while not contaminating the departmental environment of the physical sciences.

    Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics also cultivated a reputation of being tough, discouraging enrolments in the major in the first place. Freshman intentions to be a Math Major dropped from 4.5% to 0.5%, from 1966 to 1980.

    Even toys knew it.

    “Math class is tough!”

  • bscmath78

    The source for my claim that “Freshman intentions to be a Math Major dropped from 4.5% to 0.5%, from 1966 to 1980″, was a graph that accompanied this Dec 13, 1989 NYT article. Unfortunately, the article available on the NYT website is missing the graph which would support my claim.

    http://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/13/nyregion/education-measuring-the-interest-in.html

  • ajkind

    Arrest the president of these fake universities also:
    http://www.itu.edu
    http://www.npu.edu
    http://www.unva.edu
    http://www.svuca.edu
    (few more)

  • bhwilcox

    This “visa” game is an old trick. Kaplan University has been at it for years and years. However Kaplan is allowed to operate and continue this fraud because of its political connections to the Department of Education and the Department of Justice. The government of the United States is powerless against Kaplan University because of the money and influence of the Washington Post Kaplan University’s parent corporation. As long as the Washington Post is allowed to lobby congress and influence federal judges it will continue to defraud the US tax payers of billions and harbor dangerous “students” who pose a clear and present danger to our country.

    Do you really think that terroist world wide don’t know that the quickest way into America is a student visa from some school like Kaplan?

    Ben Wilcox

  • cmfry

    And yet just one article (US Government to Join…) previously, Mr. Wilcox, you made the comment that we must be wary of overstating the reality. Here, now, you overstate that when an individual arrives in the US on a student visa and overstays (or in this case purportedly arrives under false pretenses) they are a terrorist. This is the gravest of overstatements because it not only is a huge assumption, it also fuels the conservative fire that is ignorance of anyone speaking with an accent or carries an air of difference from definition. I simply ask you heed your own caution, Mr. Wilcox.

  • softshellcrab

    I agree with Mr. Wilcox. You forget we are talking here about law breakers. Yes, when someone comes illegally and stays illegally, I DO assume the worst about them. Why shouldn’t I? After all, their first move in coming here was to break our law! Why should I give them “understanding”? I say put them onto prison chain gangs, working for us for free. I have no sympathy for these lawbreakers.

  • theart

    Keep in mind that from the other side of the world, any university with a splashy web site looks as legitimate as another. Most of these kids have no intention of doing anything wrong and don’t know that they did until they get rounded up. On the other hand, the loophole only needs to be exploited by one out of a thousand to put us at risk.

  • bhwilcox

    Your points are well made and well taken. However there is one small and important nuance that makes all the difference. Be wrong about a sham diploma mill like Kaplan University and the US taxpayers are out millions of dollars. But be wrong about one “student” i.e. (Muhammad Ata) and well you know the rest…….

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