… David Lynch to tell you that the weirdest shit in America goes down not in Washington DC, Land o’ Elites (Republican voters this time around seem determined to elect a President who’s never visited, let alone worked, in DC), but in what William Gass called the heart of the heart of the country (Lynch was born in Missoula).

In many years of blogging about universities, UD’s never seen one more unsettling, more surreal, than North Dakota’s Dickinson State. Here’s a post, from last year, about this school – its president at that time was hiding out from administrators trying to boot him from his office (his physical office – though fired, he refused to go)… The same president pioneered the ‘physical capture’ enrollment technique (maintain healthy numbers by enrolling anyone who, for whatever reason, even for a second, crosses into campus territory — a kind of eminent domain for the state of North Dakota involving human bodies instead of private property)…

Dickinson State fell out of the news for a few months – they seem to have convinced the president to get out – but crazy shit was still churning away, and now it’s hit the fan. For ten years the place has had a program for Chinese students – actual name, not kidding, Top Up, and Disney – where they bring these people over for seven months at Walt Disney World, and six at Dickinson State … dueling surrealities… I mean, imagine someone from China whose only exposure to the States is Dickinson State University, North Dakota, and Walt Disney World, Orlando…

Although Dickinson got rid of the eminent domain guy, the same enrollment approach – rope ’em any old way – has pertained, with Dickinson-deputized agents trolling China, telling people who can’t speak English that they can go to the United States and play in a theme park and get a degree.

That ain’t all. Things have taken on a real Blue Velvet tint with the suicide of a guy who’s maybe been running the show:

… Douglas LaPlante, 59, dean of education, business and applied sciences, was … found dead near a city park, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the Dickinson police said in a statement.

Because anyone can do it!

The MCI is the Indian qualifying exam for doctors.

Kyrgyzstan hosts Indian med school students rejected from schools back home.

… story UD lives for.

It’s got a dab of diploma mill and a pinch of plagiarism…

The longtime CEO of a behavioral-health agency in El Paso that receives millions annually in government grants holds a doctoral degree from an institution the federal government has called a diploma mill… [Cirilo] Madrid was paid about $100,000 over 13 months for the work he performed under the contract with [a firm under investigation for corruption]. The primary product of his work is a 20-page document, which included information he says in the deposition he lifted from other documents and did not give proper credit or attribution.

… Plus it’s got a whole lot of crony capitalism.

It lets itself be duped into hiring diploma mill grads and giving them huge salaries and responsibilities.

Not too bright out there in the heartland.

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UD thanks Rick.

The On-Line College Crapshoot

But read the article for details.

… to go in to the University of Central Arkansas campus. Like the similar University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, UCA appears to be an almost wholly criminal enterprise (scroll down). The basic form of intellectual inquiry on both campuses is: How can I steal all the school’s money?

UCA keeps losing presidents due to their personal money management issues… And now it’s losing vice presidents. This one vp – who seems to have made international students work harder than they’re legally allowed (the story doesn’t describe the nature of the work – personal work for the vp?) – is harder to get rid of because he’s a professor. So what they’re doing is giving him no classes, firing him from the vice presidency, and keeping his salary (somewhat lowered) intact. Beautiful tenure tale, no? Behave very badly, and get $90,000 for doing nothing. Tenured professors, take note.

This guy

also accompanied now former UCA President Allen C. Meadors [latest presidential bad boy] on a trip to Mexico that included planned stops at two universities, but the second visit was canceled and the two spent two nights in the resort town of Cancun.

Meadors, in emails to university administrators, said the second stop was canceled because it would have been an additional seven- to eight-hour drive to the second university.

That makes sense. Wasn’t until the president and vice-president got to Mexico that they realized there are distances between cities.

Clearly we need to take all decision-making out of the hands of the current UCA administration. We need to figure out exactly what’s going on there. A fact-finding mission would be a good place to start. Might shake things up a bit.

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Mr UD said the story of the distant cities and the unforeseen issue of transport reminded him of something Mao once wrote:

Coal and iron cannot walk by themselves; they need vehicles to transport them. This I did not foresee.

Begin the day with UD by asking yourself: Why are several online courses of study at the University of Florida double the price of their equivalent on-campus programs? Mass Communications on campus, for instance, is around $14,000; online, $28,000.

Is it worth twice as much money for you never to see or speak to a professor or a classmate? To use up no resources of the university’s physical plant? To have a faceless overworked underqualified drudge as your air-traffic controller? Everyone knows cheater-ridden online university education stinks. Why in the world does the University of Florida make online students pay double for the privilege?

Very simple answer. Read this.

Because it can.

“I was one of the first to teach a fully online course during the mid 1990s facilitated by Real Education later renamed eCollege. Despite claims, the lack of face to face interaction significantly diminishes the quality of many courses,” writes a professor of finance.

List, list, o, list!

We have witnessed the skyrocketing of impersonation fraud on SATs, ACTs and even graduate admission and licensure exams all with strong security measures that are nonexistent for online courses. Though surveys report cheating rates similar to in-class students, research shows online students view many actions acceptable that are not for in-class peers.

… [E]mployers may question the motivation of an online student living a reasonable distance from a campus of similar or even superior quality. An education is more than text on a computer but the seasoning surrounding the classroom environment that enhances interpersonal and communication skills and provides a network of diverse friends.

… Many for profit and even public universities use subcontractors with limited credentials who simultaneously teach for a number of institutions on a per class basis.

Online: The sub-basement of higher education.

And there it is. That’s just it. Selling degrees, as all diploma mills know, is incredibly easy and incredibly lucrative; and it’s always possible for this or that legit university to realize that two can play that game. Most of the three billion up there is legitimate work at legitimate UK universities; but a chunk of it involves trading on your university’s name for cash.

Things got so bad at the venerable University of Wales that they’ve shut the place down entirely.

The university has been hit with a series of scandals involving affiliated foreign colleges that award University of Wales degrees. Last year, Malaysian singing star Fazley Yaakob, who headed an affiliate in his homeland, turned out to have faked his qualifications, and a Bangkok affiliate turned out to be illegal.

The latest scandal involves Rayat London College. A report last week said foreign students there were sold the answers to exams that allowed them to enter a University of Wales MBA program with a British visa.

Here’s an administrator who needs a little public relations help. You see how he keeps defensively smiling and pretending everything is just peachy, peachy, peachy. The name University of Wales at the moment is trashy — hopelessly associated with either rampant negligence or a willingness to prostitute itself for money. No doubt gradually the newly constituted group of universities there will recover; but you only look like a fool when you deny the obvious.

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UD thanks Edmund.

… still has the capacity to startle.

The president and dean of Bishop State College both bought their degrees from diploma mills.

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UD thanks SS.

Italian police on Friday said they discovered a fake university in the north of the country where around 10 students were paying around 7,000 euros ($9,600) for a worthless, unrecognised degree.

… Four people attached to the fake university were reported to justice officials for fraud, the police statement said.

The University of West Bohemia law school (Plzeň, Czech Republic), was famous for its fast-track law degree, awarded tout suite to anyone with money, until some journalists got hold of the scam and it had to shut down.

Now there’s a lawsuit from a guy pissed that he can’t make people call him Magister anymore (his degree was rescinded). He wants his diploma mill degree back.

Closer to home, there’s this pathetic guy, who bought his PhD at a diploma mill and made everyone call him Doctor until some journalist noticed that Madison University is way bogus.

Asked who was on his dissertation committee, Rogers said, “Oh, God, it’s been eight years. I don’t remember.” Asked for a copy of the dissertation, he said all his copies were at his house in Norfolk, Virginia…

and he lives in North Carolina now and is unable to access it.

Bravo, Hagerstown Community College. Kaplan came at you, melons bobbling, wanting you to direct your graduates their way.

Kaplan’s chief executives, after all, have to maintain their tens of millions of dollars in personal compensation, and they can’t go trolling homeless shelters for tax-money-bearing eager minds anymore. So they came up with this let’s cooperate! idea…

But in a blunt email to Kaplan, HCC (I wonder what the prez of HCC makes a year, compared to the zillionaires at Kaplan) has said no way.

As Kaplan moves ahead with its new marketing plans, please do not state or imply HCC is a Kaplan partner or that the HCC faculty or staff are suggesting our graduates consider Kaplan as the next step in continuing their education.

We tell our students, quite frankly, that there are much better transfer options for them to consider. In summary, we do not believe Kaplan’s partnership offer is in the best interest of our current or former students.

Asked to elaborate, an HCC spokesperson alluded to the for-profit industry’s notorious

recruiting efforts, financial-aid programs, job placement rates, and other business practices. Just this month, the U.S. Justice Department and four states filed suit against one for-profit school, stating possible violations to the federal Higher Education Act.

She also mentioned that Kaplan’s more expensive than the schools HCC traditionally recommends.

Why does it cost so much???

ZILLIONS of reasons.

It’s not just that it will finally address the scourge of “lugging stacks of books across campus.”

In the words of its one of its faculty members, “People shouldn’t be discriminated for where they chose to live.”