Colloquy Live: 3/21/2001: State Oversight of Unaccredited Colleges

State Oversight of Unaccredited Colleges

Wednesday, March 21, at 12:30 p.m. U.S. Eastern time

What should states do about unaccredited colleges that operate within their borders or online? Do current regulations do enough to protect students from enrolling at institutions that may not provide them with a real education?

Unaccredited colleges have long vexed state regulators who try to ensure the quality of educational offerings in their regions. The Internet has made it possible for some unaccredited colleges -- of varying levels of quality -- to seek students worldwide, raising more concerns about how states should regulate such institutions. Some state officials report numerous complaints from students about the quality of education at some of these institutions. Officials have also accused certain institutions of falsely implying that they are licensed. But the speed with which the colleges relocate has made it difficult for state regulators to enforce their rules. Some of the colleges, meanwhile, say they are offering high-quality courses, but are hindered by a bias against distance education and nontraditional learning.

» States Struggle to Regulate Online Colleges That Lack Accreditation (3/23/2001)

Alan L. Contreras is the administrator of the Office of Degree Authorization of the Oregon Student Assistance Commission. Oregon is known for its tough regulation of unaccredited colleges, investigating complaints about institutions that operate in the state and warning students about questionable institutions that operate online or elsewhere. The state maintains a list of institutions whose degrees cannot be cited there and tells people who do list degrees from such institutions to stop doing so.

A transcript of the chat follows.

Andrea Foster (Moderator):
Welcome to Colloquy Live. I'm Andrea Foster, an assistant editor here at The Chronicle, and our guest today is Alan Contreras, administrator for Oregon's Office of Degree Authorization. Oregon's approach to regulating unaccredited higher-education institutions is among the strictest in the nation. It posts online a list of 33 institutions whose degrees are illegal to use in the state. thanks for joining us, Mr. Contreras.

Alan Contreras:
It's really good that The Chronicle is paying attention to the issue of diplomas mills and unaccredited institutions. The advent of the internet has made these issues even more important because it's so much easier for people to market these sub-standard programs.

Question from George Brown (Virtual Universities of Australasia & the World - http://www.virtualuniversities.net):
Firstly, I would like to take this opportunity to commend Mr. Contreras for taking such a firm stand against unaccredited institutions and degree/ diploma mills in the US. Although I am located in Australia, we feel the brunt of unaccredited universities delivering their programs into Australia and this is of great concern.

How do you differentiate between a state licensed/ approved 'legal' college/ university and a degree/ diploma mill? The Oregon site lists universities that some may suggest are quite legal and legitimate (such as Berne which is quoted in the article). What criteria do you use to determine an 'undesirable' virtual university be listed on the website?

Alan Contreras:
Oregon law makes no distinction between the different kinds of unaccredited institutions. Under Oregon law, any degree from an unaccredited institution is considered an invalid credential unless my office has evaluated the institution. The procedure is a little different for foreign schools, and we treat Berne as a foreign school. The problem with Berne is a problem with St. Kitts. We have asked Berne to provide evidence that they have gone through an accreditation evaluation with the government of St. Kitts. We have asked them to provide their application materials and their review done by the government, and they have not provided that material.

[Editors' note: Officials affiliated with Berne insist that they are accredited by the government there.]

Question from Andrea Foster:
Many high-quality providers of distance education complain that state and federal regulation of higher education has a bias toward traditional instruction, making it hard for good, online programs to get recognition. Do you think that's a fair criticism? How can states fight diploma mills without hurting legitimate, but non-traditional, approaches to higher education?

Alan Contreras:
Oregon makes no distinction among institutions based on mode of delivery. I don't see any reason to assume that the distance ed program is "bad" simply because it is a distance ed program. The key issue is whether the program is academically sound. The traditional baseline for a determination of academic soundness, at least at a minimum level, is accreditation. The problem with relying on simply a state license for a college is that there is too much variation among state laws. Some states have very high standards, some have none whatsoever, and there's every possible variation in between.

Question from Marci Schwartz, University of Pennsylvania:
Should different standards be used for assessing traditional and distance education? How can accreditors move towards assessing outcomes rather than just input?

Alan Contreras:
I don't think there's any reason to use different standards in evaluating a distance ed program versus a standard residential program, at least in the area of faculty qualifications, the content of the curriculum, and the basis for awarding credit. Obviously, if you have a distance ed program that is serving mainly adult students who may be working and going to school part-time, you might want to evaluate student services a little differently, simply because you don't have 2,000 19-year olds living in a dorm. I think one of the key differences that accreditors are going to have to start looking at is library services.

Question from Robert Lofft, Council on Naturopathic Medical Education, Eugene, Oregon:
Is federal legislation to outlaw diploma mills a possibility? The problem seems almost completely ignored in higher education journals. Meanwhile diploma mills continue to proliferate. The "correspondence school" industry, more so than ever, has become an incredibly lucrative and even a politically powerful industry.

Alan Contreras:
I have not heard of any attempt at the federal level to make "diploma mills" illegal. One reason is a question of definition: What is a diploma mill? I think that most people would agree that not every unaccredited college is a diploma mill. So the difficulty is in distinguishing among different kinds of unaccredited colleges, bearing in mind that every college is unaccredited when it is new.

Question from Dr. Hyacinth C. Ezeamii, Albany State University:
What is the current regulation used by the state governments to protect students from unaccredited colleges?

Alan Contreras:
Every state is different. In some states, there is no protection. In Oregon, the legislature has declared that degrees from unaccredited institutions are invalid credentials. The same is true in New Jersey, and I think the same is true in Indiana. The New York legislature is considering this issue right now. State Senator Goodman (I'm fairly certain that's his name), is working on this subject, and you may want to contact his office.

Question from George Brown (Virtual Universities of Australia & the World - http://www.virtualuniversities.net):
Your laws are clearly focused and aimed to protect citizens from 'undesirable' institutions. However I believe the implementation of your laws would be a difficult task, especially in the area of fly-by-night virtual universities. What proactive measures do you believe governments should be using to monitor diploma mill activity on the Internet?

Alan Contreras:
Diploma mill activity on the internet is extremely difficult to oversee. Oregon does very little in this area because there's no obvious way to regulate it when the advertising emails are coming out of Romania for institutions that are nominally in England, the money goes to Cyprus, and the owner of the school is said to be in California. So the method that Oregon has chosen to use is to forbid use of the degrees. It is both a civil and a criminal violation in Oregon to use an unaccredited degree as a credential.

Question from anonymous:
Do you think the general public is aware that accreditation can be lost for NO OTHER REASON than that an institution does not have a "war chest" of private funding? Who should decide what is "enough money" to continue operating?

Alan Contreras:
I don't have a good answer to that. I don't think the public has a clue to most issues relating to accreditation. The method that most states use in a situation where an institution doesn't have much money is that the institution purchases a bond, which is less expensive than maintaining a large cash balance, in order to make any necessary student refunds. The decision ought to be made by whatever board of directors has authority over the institution's operations. This could be a public board of higher education, or a private board of regents of some kind.

Question from Ron Alim:
I want to attend a foreign university (in Latin America), what accreditation requirements should I check for? and is there a standard international volume that contains such information? Thank You

Alan Contreras:
Yes, there is a standard international reference. The one we use, we get from the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. Any college registrar's office ought to have this foreign school directory. With very rare exceptions, anything in that directory is a legitimate institution, and its degrees would be valid in the U.S.

Question from Robert Lofft, Council on Naturopathic Medical Education, Eugene, Oregon:
Many legitimate practitioners in the health professions (e.g., medical doctors, chiropractors, osteopathic doctors) obtain doctoral degrees in other branches of the health sciences from unaccredited "correspondence schools" and then append the degree's initials to their names in order to broaden their patient appeal. Does anyone know of steps being taken to inform the various professional associations and state licensing boards of this practice, with the possibility of having the practice formally declared as unethical?

Alan Contreras:
In Oregon, it is illegal. We communicate with the state licensing boards fairly often about the use of any credential from an unaccredited institution. A health professional practicing in Oregon cannot add the term "Doctor" or "PhD" to their credentials, unless they earned the degree from an accredited institution or a foreign institution that has the equivalent of U.S. accreditation. Under Oregon law, the equivalent foreign accreditation does not simply mean a rubber stamp from some government official. It means that the institution must have gone through an actual program review.

Question from George Brown (Virtual Universities of Australia & the World - http://www.virtualuniversities.net):
Do you believe the concept of a global accreditation system will ever come to fruition? GATE was one attempt to create such a system, however this has fallen through. What attributes would a global accreditation system need to possess?

Alan Contreras:
I doubt that it is possible because the attributes it would need to possess would be a high enough screening standard that the world's major institutions would find it acceptable. I think there is too much difference among different countries to make this very likely. The only exception might be some international agreement or treaty regarding the purchase of degrees without any academic work being required. I suspect we could get agreement on that issue. The problem is enforcement. How do you enforce such a law in a very small country where a diploma mill operator makes huge political contributions?

Question from Andrea Foster:
If you were a consumer of distance education, in a state without the kind of activities you oversee in Oregon, what would you look for in a distance-education institution? Are there red flags that should alert someone that they may get ripped off?

Alan Contreras:
There are certain obvious red flags. One is if the degree program appears unusually short or easy. Another is if the degree is extremely inexpensive. For example, if you can get a degree for $500, it probably isn't any good. I strongly recommend that anyone interested in distance education check the institutions in one of the standard guidebooks. The ones that I use are Bears' Guide to Earning Degrees by Distance Learning and Campus Free College Degrees by Thorson. There's a link to their web sites from my web site, which is in the article in The Chronicle. There's another book called Distance Degrees by Wilson. And there's another specialized book called Baker's Guide to Christian Distance Education. A sizable part of the distance education market is for religious degrees, and we recommend Baker's Guide as a starting point.

Question from John Campbell, Northern Arizona University:
I understand that the Western Governors' University (WGU)has achieved candidacy status with NCA(?) but it is not yet accredited. Would a degree from WGU be recognized in Oregon? Also, how would a consumer differentiate between an institution like WGU and, say, Preston University?

Alan Contreras:
Oregon law permits my office to treat candidate status as meeting our standards. As it happens, WGU went through an evaluation process with my office, so this issue did not come up directly. I don't think Preston is accredited; if they have candidate status, then someone who obtained a degree from them after they achieved candidate status would have a valid degree in Oregon, but I am not that familiar with Preston.

Question from Dick Suhar University of Phoenix:
By virtue of being an on-line institution some accrediting agencies will not accredit organizations that lack a bricks and mortar presence. I am a program evaluator for ABET and we currently cannot accredit programs without laboratory facilities. How can institutional policies or laws be changed to permit accreditation of other wise good programs that unfortunately do not meet agency accreditation requirements. Some agencies aka DETC will not accept an application from an institution that provides doctoral programs. This requirement prevents otherwise good programs from being accredited.

Alan Contreras:
My understanding is that DETC is not approved by the U.S. Department of Education to accredit at the doctoral level, but I may be mistaken. The changes that you are describing will happen over time as distance education becomes more acceptable. Oregon does not limit the approval of distance education programs simply because they are distance education programs. As long as they can meet the standards that we expect of any program, with regard to academic quality and faculty qualifications, they can be approved.

Question from Paul Coverstone:
Can you tell me what the status is with regards to recognizing the Monterrey Institute for Graduate Studies? For a while it was listed on your state site as not accepted, then it was removed. Thank you

Alan Contreras:
The current situation is a little confusing. We put the institution on our web site for a few days because we were informed that its offices in Florida and in Texas were not approved by those states. We then asked the institution to provide information about its status. We have written to both the state and national education authorities in Mexico to get a better idea of what this institution is actually authorized to do. We have not heard back yet. One of the issues that we need to clarify is whether this is a foreign institution operating in the U.S., or whether it is a U.S. entity that is a unit of a foreign institution.

Question from John Derry, Dallas Christian College:
In recognizing accreditation bodies, does Oregon only acknowledge the six regional accrediting associations in the U.S. or does the state consider others as affirmed by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation?

Alan Contreras:
Oregon law considers any accrediting body recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as legitimate, so that includes the regional accreditors, but it also includes the specialized accreditors and the national accreditors.

Question from Willard Uncapher, UC Davis:
Do you see the proliferation of alternative accreditation 'institutions' as important? Perhaps the question of whether 'place' matters will be answered so differently as to lead to different evaluation schemes

Alan Contreras:
I see a real problem with accreditation bodies creating themselves for the purpose of accrediting sub-standard institutions. The recent experience trying to accredit Western Governors University shows that the regional accreditation model is not well adapted to dealing with unusual modes of education.

Question from Jason Vorderstrasse, retired admissions officer:
In your response to Mr. Alim, you referred to receiving a book from AACRAO listing foreign schools. I am aware of an AACRAO book which lists titles of degrees awarded in various countries, but not a book (as opposed to a series of books) which lists Ministry of Education-recognized schools Which book are you referring to? Are you referring to the Projects for International Education Research series, published by AACRAO and NAFSA: Association of International Educators? Or are you referring to the International Handbook of Universities?

Alan Contreras:
I am referring to a CD-ROM. It's called the World Higher Education Database 2000. It combines the International Handbook of Universities and the World List of Universities.

Question from Willard Uncapher, UC Davis:
How does one deal with institutions that get accredited in one part of the world, but whose accreditation might then be applied to teaching and evaluations in different regions?

Alan Contreras:
Every institution has a right to determine the validity of credentials of someone who wants to teach there. If someone applies to teach at a college and the institution has any doubts about the person's preparation, the institution should evaluate the situation based on its own standards. If the institution itself is accredited by a country that is known to have poor evaluation standards, then I see no reason to accept its graduates as having legitimate degrees.

Question from Clyde Forrest, UIUC & ILL, AAUP Board.:
is there any ranking of States by how well they police unaccredited institutions ?

Alan Contreras:
There is no ranking, but John Bear in Bears' Guide to Earning Degrees by Distance Learning discusses the standards of a number of states. In addition, there is a book called Diploma Mills that came out in 1988, by David W. Steward and Henry A. Spille put out by the American Council on Education that includes some information about state laws. It's somewhat out of date but perhaps still helpful. My understanding is that Oregon, New Jersey, Indiana, and perhaps Florida prohibit the use of diploma mill degrees. There are a number of states that have strong laws regarding actual operation of colleges within the state. Some of the most well known are Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, and Oregon.

Question from Ana Mostaccero, Global Alliance for Transnational Education:
In response to an earlier question about The Global Alliance for Transnational Education:GATE as a pioneer in the area of transnational educational accreditation, has supporters and detractors. GATE is an existing and growing organization that has many international proponents, such as major international alliances, like the European Distance Education Network. EDEN has an agreement with GATE to establish a quality network.

Alan Contreras:
I don't know very much about GATE, although I have heard of them and read a story of two in The Chronicle about them. They have no particular standing under Oregon law, unless they become a federally recognized accreditor. I don't think they are one.

Comment from Dick Suhar University of Phoenix:
Follow up.. DETC is approved by the US Department of education but it will not accept an application from any institution that has a doctoral program. This practice precludes any institution from gaining accreditation for its master or bachelor level programs. The message is clear on the DETC web site... Drop the doctoral studies if you wish the rest of your programs to be evaluated. By the way ABET does not accredit any doctoral programs. So if a school makes such a claim, it is bogus.

Question from Sarah Carr, Chronicle:
Do you think that the tightening regulations in several states related to unaccredited academic institutions have had any effect on the overall number of diploma mills out there?

Alan Contreras:
Maybe a little, but not very much. Diploma mills are by definition very small operations. It's very easy for them to simply pull up their roots, cancel their P.O. Box, and go somewhere else. If they cannot find a safe haven in the U.S. they will start showing up, as they already are, in the Caribbean, in Africa, and in Asia. I think the only effective mechanism for limiting the popularity of diploma mill degrees is to prohibit their use as credentials. That will have the effect of limiting the market.

Question from Ricky Martin:
According to US Laws, a foreign school must possess accreditation recognized by the US Department of Education, in order to participate in Federal Student Loan Programs (Title IV). Why do you therefore list Berne University (a Title IV approved school) as unaccredited? What are your standards? I note, in particular, that Berne University is the only Title IV approved school among the many schools you list as unaccredited.

Alan Contreras:
Whether or not a foreign institution is Title IV approved makes no difference under Oregon law. When the U.S. Department of Education certifies a foreign school for Title IV approval, it does not do an independent academic evaluation. Oregon law requires that a foreign school have accreditation or approval that is equivalent to U.S. accreditation. In the case of Berne, we have asked the institution to provide evidence that it has actually gone through an approval process. We have asked three times now, and the institution has been unwilling or unable to show the documents necessary to prove that it was actually evaluated at a level equivalent to U.S. accreditation.

Question from Gerald Cross, NY State Education Department:
With regard to distance education, it's difficult, if not impossible, for a state to close down a diploma mill that has no physical presence within its borders. Are you aware of any efforts for states to join forces to address this problem?

Alan Contreras:
I agree that it is difficult to deal with this situation. The way Oregon law read. we prohibit the offer of degrees in or from the state of Oregon. That allows us to deal with situation in which the provider might be located here in some limited way, but are only offering degrees online or to out of state residents. It is not a perfect system, but it is helpful. The key issues is to prohibit the use of unaccredited degrees as credentials unless the institution meets the standards of your own state. I understand that there is a state senator, Goodman, I think, who is interested in this issue.

Question from Jason Vorderstrasse, retired admissions officer:
To follow up on your response to Mr. Uncapher, which countries do you believe have poor evaluation standards?

Alan Contreras:
St. Kitts in the Caribbean is a problem. There are other situations that a little unclear, because when we see that an institution is operating in another country, but it does not appear on that country's list of approved institutions, it's hard for us to tell what standards, if any, that institution had to meet. In general, we see most of the problems coming from the Caribbean, and from south Asia.

Question from Kate Gulliver, Distance Education Initiative, New York State Education Dept.:
Do you think that states could accomplish anything in this area by working together? We have a concern about this issue in New York State. Although we have a very structured process and standards for approving higher education programs, we can't protect New Yorkers effectively from these fraudulent institutions that reach them on the Internet. Our Board of Regents are very concerned, since some of them have been recipients of these "spam" messages.

Alan Contreras:
I get the spam messages too, and there is nothing we can do, that I can think of, to prevent these messages from going out to people. What we have done in Oregon is set up a web site that warns people about these issues and lists the names of many of these unaccredited institutions so that a citizen who does a web search for the name of an institution from which they are considering taking courses will see that that institution's name on our list of illegal institutions. We can do that because the use of these degrees is illegal in Oregon. If the use of these degrees were made illegal in more states, that would go a long way toward fixing the problem. Because a degree is a credential, not an opinion, we don't think we will run into an free speech problems.

Question from Andrea Foster:
One of the problems facing states in this area is that online education organizations are mobile and can move their offices around. Does that point to the need for more federal regulation?

Alan Contreras:
I think some federal regulation in this area would be helpful, but it is not going to be easy to design appropriate regulations. I wish I had a better answer.

Question from Dick Suhar University of Phoenix:
Since Oregon does not recognize unaccredited degrees, how does the practice of engineering get regulated if a registered professional engineer receives a degree from a nonaccredited institution ? Many states have provisions for licensing engineers based on years of responsible experience. These people enjoy multiple state registration by comity.

Alan Contreras:
Without knowing the Oregon regulation in this specific field, I can't tell you how Oregon handles the experience issue. Someone with a degree from an unaccredited institution cannot use the degree itself as a credential in Oregon; however, if they can obtain professional licensure based on experience or licensure in another state, that is outside our jurisdiction. I know that Oregon does this with nursing programs.

Question from Andrea Foster:
Are students who enroll in unaccredited universities fully aware of what it means for an institution to lack accreditation? Do they care, or do they just want a college degree, regardless of how they get it?

Alan Contreras:
I think in many cases, they don't understand what it means. This is especially true in the case of diploma mills that claim to be accredited, but the accreditation is either fake or unrecognized by the U.S. government. These students don't understand the difference between a real accreditor and an unrecognized accreditor.

Andrea Foster (Moderator):
That's all the time we have today. Thanks, Mr. Contreras, for participating.

Alan Contreras:
I think they key issue in dealing with diploma mill degrees is that more states need to prohibit their use as credentials. That is a very straightforward approach that requires a minimum of regulation. The Oregon law that does this is Oregon Revised Statutes 348.609. The fact that people are starting to pay attention to this set of issues is a good sign, and the fact that we have an opportunity to share information from around the country about what various jurisdictions are doing will help to provide a starting point for states that are interested in doing something about the problem. Finally, it is a mistake to equate distance learning with diploma mills. Some distance learning programs are perfectly legitimate. The key issue is whether a program is accredited.

Andrea Foster (Moderator):
Thanks to everyone who sent in questions. A transcript of the chat will be posted here shortly. On behalf of The Chronicle, thanks for participating in today's Colloquy Live chat.