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Thursday, March 15, 2007

One of UD's Favorite Diploma Mills...

...has been hounded out of another state. It takes a lot out of UD to track the fates of these non-traditional institutions who only want to help people better themselves online... to watch them attempt to put down roots in a community and then, sure enough, as reporters, employers, and legislators gang up on them, to uproot their homes and their children and try to start a new life somewhere they hope will be more welcoming...

Luckily, there's Alabama.


Here's an earlier posting of mine about Preston University:

America has much to learn from the university licensing standards of Pakistan. The Pakistani government, after investigating Preston University, a far-flung entity with campuses in their country, “classified all 15 Preston campuses in that country as ‘illegally operating.’ The Islamabad campus in particular was deemed ‘seriously deficient,’” writes a reporter for the Billings Wyoming Gazette.

Why then did a high-level Wyoming delegation which went to Islamabad and was shown a good time by Preston while it inspected its campuses (Preston has a presence in Wyoming too), determine that Preston was “in compliance with Wyoming law”? Why did some of the delegates go further and introduce legislation on their return that will help checkbook universities like Preston?

Well… first off, it looks as though these folks examined only the architecture and interior design of the campus, not whether anything went on in its rooms. They declared themselves satisfied that it has a “clean,” “two-story building,” in “good condition” with “adequate space.” I used to live in a two-flat like that, but I didn’t try to get it accredited.

Given their interest only in whether Preston’s buildings stood up, it’s not surprising that, as the reporter notes, “seven months” after the ten-day trip, the four visitors “have little to show” for it:

“For example, each of three inspection reports by Deputy Superintendent Quinn Carroll and the department’s finance director, Fred Hansen, was about 1 - ½ pages - about as long as the application form for opening a private fish farm in Wyoming.”

Gills flapping, an outraged member of the group responds to this challenge with Diploma Mill World’s magic word: “I can’t see how anyone has a problem with a decently priced education with nontraditional students.”

Nontraditional! sings Tevye. Nontraditional! We are simple people! Leave us alone!

As the reporter probes the story a little more, things get ontologically obtuse very quickly.

Current laws, one of the delegates explains, “don’t gauge the quality of a school’s academics - only whether a school is really a school.” But - but - when is a school not a school? When is a school a school? What beyond academics distinguishes a school qua school? Is a school really a school, as Wyoming suggests, if it has a building with the word “school” on it?




And here's the update, from the Chronicle of Higher Education:


In response to a crackdown on diploma mills in Wyoming, an entity known as “Preston University” is moving part of its operations to Alabama, where laws are laxer.

According to the Associated Press, the, ah, institution will continue to operate an online business program in Wyoming under the name “Fairmount International University.” It has campuses in Pakistan and Dubai as well. In 2001 Preston was caught pretending that it employed professors that it, in fact, did not.

Wyoming, once a haven for dubious institutions, has since gotten tougher, causing a number of diploma mills and similar operations to flee or otherwise to shift gears.