Accredit or Discredit.
Accreditation, because it is a voluntary process that institutions such as on line universities undergo, means many things to many people.
Some universities on line consider it an essential part of the rapport that they hope to establish with their prospective students, a means of fostering mutual trust as well as standardizing and improving the quality of education offered by they and others in the sector. Some institutions claim that accreditation is unnecessary in order to achieve their educational mission. While this may be true, it is up to the prospective student to do her research and to know exactly what she will be getting for her, or his, hard earned dollars. Some institutions aren’t about education, they are all about money, and they simply fake it.
The so-called diploma or degree mills that enable people to buy a degree, sometimes without ever having opened a book on their ’subject’ are a example of this. These institutions, of which there are still many in cyberspace, often use bogus and almost untraceable fronts to ‘accredit’ their business. These ‘fronts’ are sometimes businesses that they themselves set up or had set up for them in order to lull the the prospective student into a false sense of security. If you check the CHEA listings and can’t find your school of choice, beware. Get in contact with the Department of Education and check if the school is legitimate.
Alternatively, send an e-mail to the school itself and ask for name of the accreditation agency and double check the name with the CHEA database of recognized accreditors.
Getting a degree on line for which little or no work is required but for which a sum of money must be paid may look attractive in the short term, but in the long run it can cost you not only your reputation, but also a lot more money and a career shot down in flames.
In other words: caveat emptor – buyer beware! This article by Melissa Klein and Susan Edelman in the New York Post graphically illustrates the dangers of getting involved with degree mills
It gives a whole new meaning to the term B.S.
Hundreds of current and former residents of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut purchased high school diplomas and college degrees from a Washington state diploma mill that has been shut down by the feds.
The article further states:
The on line diploma mill, St. Regis University, issued the fake degrees from 1999 until being closed in 2005.
Buyers received diplomas from St. Regis University or one of more than 100 fake schools with names such as “Holy Acclaim University.”
“Pick your major, pick your grade point average,” said Thomas Rice, an assistant US attorney in Washington. “It was a grocery store of whatever you wanted. You paid for it and then it came in the mail.”
Whether the victims were unwitting or people who were well aware of what they were doing, the only winners were the degree mills themselves. And after all, who wants to be operated on by a surgeon who learned his operating skills watching TV, or have a filling done by a dentist who only skimmed through the textbook. I know I don’t.
An accredited university on line will offer you a recognized degree which honors you as the professional that you will have worked hard to become. There’s just no beating that!
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