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How Did a Trump-Approved Accreditation Agency Miss the Red Flags at South Dakota’s Ronald Reagan National Univisaty?

Reagan National [University] has connections to a different kind of troubled institution, via its ties to the University of Northern Virginia. 

In 2011, federal immigration officials raided UNVA, threatening to suspend the college’s ability to accept foreign students. The suspicion: that Northern Virginia was a so-called “visa mill,” a college accused of peddling a chance to live in the U.S. rather than offering a meaningful education. 

The Virginia government closed Northern Virginia in 2013 because it wasn’t accredited. It resurfaced the same year with a South Dakota address — the same one Reagan National used on business filings, plus the same agent, Xianhua Fan, spelled slightly differently from the name listed for Reagan National’s president.

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Reporters unearthed these disturbing facts about RNU; the accreditor missed them. It also missed a few other signs that not all is on the up and up at RNU:

RNU Motto: Crescat Scientia; Visa Excolatur

VISA: Official Card of RNU

Visasion Statement: We aim to be, visa-vi other schools, the very best.

School Song:

F-1 me you sweet sweet visable u

J-1 me cuz that’ll work for me too

Just one look at you my heart grew tipsy in me

You and you alone can get a visa for me

Margaret Soltan, February 16, 2020 7:38AM
Posted in: kind of a little weird

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6 Responses to “How Did a Trump-Approved Accreditation Agency Miss the Red Flags at South Dakota’s Ronald Reagan National Univisaty?”

  1. charlie Says:

    Trumpster LOVES him some for profit uni grift. After all, he was involved in two of them, Trump University, AND, Trump Institute!! Given all that, don’t expect any oversight…

  2. Jack/OH Says:

    Our local Podunk Tech, a onetime backstop commuter school for ethnic locals, has had hundreds of housing units popping up the last decade in 10 or 12 dormitories. Plus, there’s been aggressive recruiting of Middle Eastern, Asian Indian, and a few Eastern European and Chinese students who pay full freight.

    I’d like to believe it’s all in the interest of larnin’ about them thar’ other kulchurs and international comity, but my belly-feel tells me money and power are the big drivers.

    We had one local property that was likely worth no more than $400 thousand change hands for $1.1 million before its mostly empty buildings were demolished and a new dorm plunked atop the land.

  3. charlie Says:

    Hey Jack, nice to see you again. It appears that what you’re describing regarding the local property is a “land flip” scheme. That was prevelant during the S&L debacle, where those institutions lent money to a tight circle of speculators who bought and sold property, not because their was any financial efficacy in the deall, but simply to bid the value up, and then walk away when all of the equity had been siphoned off. It was a crime if the scheme’s intenet was to defraud the institutions that made the loans.

    Can’t say what you’re describing at Podunk Tech is the same thing. But why would any institution make loans to build college dorms, when for the past eight years, aggregate college enrollment has fallen? I’m guessing Podunk Tech ain’t singular, but is as you describe it, a not too selelctive regional commuter school. Why would anyone bid up the price of that particular asset?

  4. Jack/OH Says:

    Charlie, I’m not sure of the financing details, which were published in the local paper, and seemed to me needlessly complicated. But, I’m not in the real estate finance business.

    The prices paid for properties that had been empty for years, had fallen into disrepair, were slated for demolition, and likely had no other bidders were eye-popping.

    Good to see you and Margaret and a few others are still at it.

  5. theprofessor Says:

    Long practiced around these parts. Back when then-Mayor Hornswoggle was in office over a decade ago, vacant and distressed properties in part of the downtown quietly started changing hands repeatedly, with prices zooming upward and many of the mortgages provided by a particular local bank headed by the local Democrats’ financial godfather. No renovations were taking place, mind you, and the purchasers were shell companies within shell companies. Then, about nine months after the flipping started, Mayor Hornswoggle announced that a new civic arena would be constructed in a most unexpected place, and you can guess where by now. The momentary owners of the real estate received a most handsome price for their properties. The hideous building was shoehorned into a small space with virtually no adjacent parking, replacing a 60 year old building that had been renovated only a few years before, was located on a major highway and surrounded by acres of adjacent parking.

  6. Jack/OH Says:

    theprofessor, thanks.

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