Unaccredited universities

[Jon_Dahl]

Two days ago I discovered something that was, at least for my naïve mind, very surprising. My ex-girlfriend had spent three or four years studying in a private university and she had done her BA there. She couldn't continue with the MA program due to lack of funds. After an interesting conversation two days ago, I went to check the official list of 190 best universities of the country where my ex studied. I didn't find her university there. I checked the list of top-5 universities of the city and I couldn't find her university there either. I spoke with three of my friends, and they told me that the university is not sanctioned by the government. Some of its courses are, but the university is not. I didn't quite understand what all that meant. My friend, who is a teacher, told me that she couldn't teach in public schools if she had graduated from that university.

One of my friends said that these 'quasi-universities' exist in the USA too, but I couldn't anything from Google.

What do you guys think? Do you know someone who has graduated from a university that is not listed anywhere?

I think that term "unofficial" is wrong in this case. I will edit the thread title once I have a better one.

[Knaight]

The standard term is "unaccredited", although I'm personally fond of "scam". They're all over the U.S - I live near two just off the top of my head, and one of them is so bad that the Colorado Department of Education has a lawsuit out against them that basically comes down to them claiming to give a useful education at all being a lie used to defraud people. Then there's the likes of Phoenix University.

[Telonius]

I think the official word (at least in the US) is "accredited" university for an official university, and "unaccredited" for an unofficial university. I think I've met a few people who've attended an unaccredited universities. There are a few legal differences between them, mainly on the university's end - like whether or not they can claim certain things as tax breaks. But they also matter on the students' end: not being able to have it "count" for jobs that have specific educational requirements, like your friend not being able to use it as a reference for being a teacher.

There's nothing about being unaccredited that necessarily makes it bad. A lot of them are things like seminaries or divinity colleges. They don't really need to be accredited, since they're already getting all of the tax stuff for being a nonprofit and a religious institution, and the graduates are only ever going to use the diploma to qualify for a position in the religious institution they're attached to. Some of them are as high-quality as accredited colleges. Some of them are real institutions that just haven't gotten accreditation yet because they're so new. But practically speaking, a lot of fraudulent unaccredited educational institutions are basically diploma mills. You pay them money, they say you're certified in something, even if you haven't taken any courses in the subject.

[Jon_Dahl]

Thank you for the comments! What about this university, in general? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeVry_University

[KillingAScarab]

Thank you for the comments! What about this university, in general? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeVry_University

The impression that I got from them was that, similar to ITT Tech, which location you attend and at what time can make all the difference. Consider these two comments from /. regarding the closing of ITT.

The other problem you run into with a number of for-profit colleges is that they will be accredited, but not by the same body as the majority of other institutions which are training people for that field. If you are transferring from one of those to a university to complete a bachelor's degree, you may find a good portion of your credits earned may not be transferred.

[Jon_Dahl]

The impression that I got from them was that, similar to ITT Tech, which location you attend and at what time can make all the difference. Consider these two comments from /. regarding the closing of ITT.

I'm sorry to generalize, but if one "branch" of the university is bad and another one good, doesn't the bad one's reputation reflect badly on the good one?

[Knaight]

I'm sorry to generalize, but if one "branch" of the university is bad and another one good, doesn't the bad one's reputation reflect badly on the good one?

Yes it does, particularly because a 1:1 bad:good ratio is incredibly optimistic. There's a reason diplomas from these places aren't worth much.

[lylsyly]

Even the terms accredited and non-accredited can mislead the unwary. The "Institution" where I got one of my two BAs was "accredited" by a body that only accredited the "Smallest" schools in that field.

Any one else got a BA for 5400 US dollars? in 2011?

My first BA (late 70s) cost far more than that (and took longer) at the University of Central Florida.

(Go Knights!)

[Telonius]

I don't have any direct experience of them, but I get the impression that a lot of them depend on people who are applying to jobs that don't have the time or resources to follow up on references too carefully. The hiring manager just wants to see: "College? Attended one and graduated - good enough for me." If they do go back and check, the college will say, "Yeah, they graduated," so the box gets checked. It's only if the job cares enough to look at which educational institution they're putting down that there would even be an issue. As long as the person does a good job after they've been hired, they'll almost never go back to check.

It is kind of hard to tell if a school is legit just by looking at the name, especially if the school is kind of small. The US has literally thousands of colleges, many of them too small to register on the big rankings, so it's hard to know if it's accredited. Berea College, or Rochville University - almost nobody's heard of either of them. But Berea's a legit, accredited school in Kentucky with a billion dollar endowment, while Rochville is an online "institution" that gave a diploma to a pug dog. Then you have schools that just happen to be far away from the person doing the hiring. International example, but in my own job I've encountered a person who graduated from the "Lovely Professional University." That was about the scammiest-sounding name I'd ever heard, but it turns out it's actually a real university in India. (Apparently there was a Lovely candy company that endowed it).

[Jon_Dahl]

Thank you for the insight, Telonius, and that dog with a diploma is one of the funniest real-life things I've seen in a while :D

[Scarlet Knight]

But could he play football?

[Knaight]

But could he play football?

No. Otherwise he would have got a scholarship from it for that diploma.