Feb. 26, 2007

Tussling Over Transfer of Credit

Given that a clear majority of traditional-age undergraduates attend at least two institutions at some point in their college careers, the issue of how smoothly (or not) academic credits or degrees earned at one college transfer to another has steadily climbed the ladder of public policy problems in higher education.

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The issue, which matters because it costs students (and governments, if those students receive state or federal financial aid) money and time if they have to repeat coursework unnecessarily, was fought out, but not resolved, during 2005 discussions over renewing the Higher Education Act, and it earned a prominent place in last year’s report of the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education.

Yet there are really two related but distinct transfer of credit problems, a reality underscored during a fractious discussion Friday on the third and final day of the Education Department’s opening negotiated rule making session on accreditation in a hotel ballroom just outside Washington. (Here you can find recaps of Day 1 and Day 2 of the meeting, which federal officials used to collect information and ideas about whether and how to propose new rules about accreditation.)
The problem that affects by far the most students, department officials and accreditors at Friday’s session agreed, involves the growing swarms of students who start their educations at community colleges and find that four-year institutions in their own or especially other states decline to embrace the credits or associate degrees they’ve earned at the two-year institutions.

The solution to that problem, most policy makers and college leaders agree, is for more pairs of institutions to craft articulation agreements or for states to adopt accords that either set agreements involving specific institutions or develop common course numbering systems or statewide common cores for transfer. That’s a painstaking process and one that is happening at too slow a pace, the experts generally concur, but community college officials strongly oppose any attempt (federal or otherwise) to force institutions to accept credits they’re not comfortable with.

Most of Friday’s discussion was about the other transfer of credit issue: the fact that some number of colleges routinely reject academic credits earned by students at “nationally” (as opposed to “regionally") accredited colleges, which are overwhelmingly for-profit rather than nonprofit. Those concerned about this problem characterize it as snobbery and bias against nontraditional institutions, while many traditional academics say they are merely safeguarding their institutions’ academic integrity.

Although for-profit colleges enroll a small fraction of American college students (under 6 percent), the institutions’ public visibility and political might are disproportionate, as evidenced by the fact that a full quarter of the slots at this week’s federal negotiating session on accreditation were filled by representatives of for-profit colleges (the number climbs even higher when you factor in another nontraditional institution, the nonprofit but fully online Western Governors University, which is also susceptible to skepticism as a relatively new player in higher education).

Officials of for-profit colleges and national agencies that accredit career-oriented institutions argued forcefully at Friday’s meeting that the Education Department should require accrediting agencies to ensure that the institutions they monitor have policies that do not, as a matter of course, reject students’ transfer credits simply because they were earned at a nationally accredited college — and that they follow those policies.

“Students are required too often to repeat coursework, pay for something twice, use the public’s resources in terms of federal and state financial aid, and have impediments put in the way to advancing their career objectives,” said Mark Pelesh, executive vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs at Corinthian Colleges, Inc. Yes, there have been lots of discussions and studies and statements about the problem, including a 2005 Government Accountability Office report, he said, but now, “it’s high time we do something that has some regulatory teeth and impact.”

“I’ve lost faith in the higher education community’s ability to really solve this problem without some regulatory or legislative action,” said Elise Scanlon, executive director of the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology. “I’m not somebody who loses faith very easily. But when you talk to students every day, and yet no one seems to recognize that, it really does affect the way you see this issue.”

Pelesh, Scanlon and others focused most of their comments on the effects of the transfer denials on students. But they also acknowledged, as has been clear in the for-profit sector’s push for new rules or laws on transfer of credit, that part of the reason the issue is so important to commercial colleges is because of what the perceived discrimination says to students and others about their institutions.

“Students who may not even be interested in transferring credits nonetheless will ask us whether other institutions will accept their credits,” Pelesh said. “What they’re really asking is, is this a legitimate institution? Is it part of the legitimate postsecondary higher education world?” And policies that openly distinguish between credits earned at for-profit and nonprofit colleges — turning down their nose at the former — send a signal that answers that question No, he said.

The other members of the accrediting panel were generally sympathetic to the notion that college policies on credit transfer should not discriminate against nationally accredited institutions, and noted that major college groups, including the American Council on Education, had embraced a 2000 statement by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation that specifically said that colleges should ensure that “transfer decisions are not made solely on the source of accreditation of a sending program or institution.” Ronald Blumenthal, senior vice president at Kaplan University, a major for-profit college provider, pointed out, though, that the statement “is a principle, which includes the word ‘please,’ “ which others acknowledged.

But in a recurring theme of the three-day meeting on accreditation, some members of the federal panel used a range of arguments to actively discourage the Education Department from turning to the federal regulatory process to try to solve problems, including this one.

Judith S. Eaton, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, which coordinates accreditation nationally and recognizes 60 accrediting agencies, questioned whether the department had a legitimate legal basis for trying to change transfer of credit policies through accreditation regulations rather than a change in federal law (Pelesh, of Corinthian, insisted that legislative provisions giving the department latitude to monitor accreditors’ policies on admissions standards provided the legal authority).

Eaton and Steven D. Crow, executive director of the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, one of the six regional accrediting agencies, said that it would be a mistake for the Education Department to use federal regulation to require accreditors to oversee the transfer policies of the colleges they oversee. (That has been the stance of virtually all nonprofit colleges and their representatives, including the American Association of Community Colleges, which fought efforts in the 109th Congress to add to the Higher Education Act a transfer of credit requirement like the one the for-profit institutions are pushing the Education Department to impose through regulation now. The Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers led the opposition to that effort.)

“I’m very skeptical that you can load this onto an accrediting agency … without turning us into a federal auditing agency,” Crow said. He also warned that imposing such a policy would result in any student whose credits are rejected by a college appealing to its accreditor for relief. “It would turn us into the largest complaint agency over this stuff,” he said.

Ralph S. Wolff, who heads the senior college commission of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, also warned that imposing such a requirement would take away the right of institutions to set their own standards for what they see as equivalent in quality to their own courses and degrees. It would be a mistake to do this, he said, just like “it would be problematic to tell institutions which degrees are acceptable for admission to graduate school.”

That it was left to Wolff to make that argument reflected the fact that college and university leaders were largely excluded from the federal accreditation panel’s discussion last week. In addition to the multiple representatives of for-profit higher education on the rule making committee, several of the other negotiators included officials from state higher education departments, large public university system offices, and scattered experts on accreditation.

But the nation’s research universities and liberal arts colleges — which would typically be expected to most view issues such as federal regulation of transfer of credit policies as an intrusion into their affairs — have had no seat at the table. College lobbyists have viewed that imbalance as a purposeful effort by the Education Department to tailor the entire conversation around accreditation to achieve its desired results, which they see as trying to turn the accrediting process from one aimed primarily at ensuring that colleges are improving to becoming “agents of public accountability,” as Wolff described it Friday.

“One of the reasons I fight so much about regulation,” said Crow, in explaining his posture throughout last week’s rule making process, is that it’s important that accreditors not be seen as “having abdicated [their] control to a federal agency.... I don’t want it to appear that we are becoming more and more owned by and controlled by the department in how we’re doing our work.”

Exactly how far the department plans to push in trying to use its oversight of accrediting agencies to bring out transformation in higher education will become clearer in about three weeks, when department officials — in advance of the next round of meetings by the rule making panel on March 26-28 – releases draft regulations on the wide range of issues discussed here: whether the agencies should set minimum standards for colleges’ outcomes on student learning, how much information about their reviews accreditors should make public, transfer of credit, and the like.

That’s when the real fun should begin.

— Doug Lederman

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Comments

no difference between the two

There is no fundamental difference between the two forms of accreditations. Both are conducted by non-profit associations established by consent of a group of institutions. Both accreditations are based on the principle of voluntary application by an institution, both are institution-wide in scope, and both use peer reviews to judge whether an institution meets published standards of academic quality and institutional integrity.

DETC enjoys the precisely same national recognitions as the regional bodies do, and DETC has the same kind of accreditation standards which address curriculum quality, faculty qualifications, student services, and ethical and business practices.

There are some interesting differences: DETC is expert in distance learning technique and specializes in accrediting distance education instruction. It has over a half century of experience in doing this. DETC evaluates institutions completely every five years, while regional accreditation is conducted once each decade. Between five-year reviews, DETC does a comprehensive subject specialist curriculum evaluation of every new program before students may enroll, while the regional associations do not.

But at the core, the accreditations are very similar, and both are virtually identical in philosophy and scope of activity. To term one more acceptable or better than another is not at all accurate.

Will the credits a student receives from a DETC-accredited institution be accepted by a traditional college or university? What dictates this?

There is never any guarantee any accrediting association can offer that a student’s credits will transfer to another institution. This is because each institution reserves the right to make its own decisions on which credits to accept and which to refuse. Sometimes, a regionally accredited college will reject DETC institution credits based on the fact that the institution where the credits were earned is not regionally accredited.

The fact that some regionally accredited colleges refuse to accept credits from another school solely because it is not regionally accredited flies directly in the face of national policies advocated by American Council on Education (ACE), the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO), Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), et al. The real issue here has less to do with the academic quality of the sending institution, and more to do with anti-competitive business practices of the receiving institution. Competition is heating up in higher education, and there are forces at work to control the inroads being made by “upstart” operators. Congress, the Department of Education, and the Department of Justice have been looking into this anti-competitive practice by higher education, and we suspect we will see significant activity in the coming months on this matter.

I know first-hand the quality and the rigor of the academic degree programs of the DETC institutions. Each DETC institution program is evaluated by several professors who teach at regionally accredited institutions. These professors are asked to respond to over 200 questions about the programs they are evaluating. There is no question that at the end of this process, the DETC program is comparable to the quality and rigor of a similar program offered by a RA college.

So, when you look at the reasons provided by a college for rejecting DETC credits, “That it is not offered by a regionally accredited institution,” the reasons boil down to prejudice, ignorance or anti-competitiveness. Or better put, it is the result that the receiving institution person simply does not accept DETC accreditation as being legitimate, despite what the Secretary of Education or CHEA has decided.

The challenge DETC graduates face in transferring credits is to convince the receiving institution that their academic work is truly legitimate. I am happy to say that of the DETC graduates who try to transfer their credits, about 70 percent are successful today. This percentage will continue to increase as the hundreds of thousands of DETC institution alumni are able to convince skeptics that DETC accreditation is a “real” accreditation, and that people can place their faith in it.

More details read an excellent article by Accreditation Guru by Michael Lambert posted on this website; http://www.military-advanced-education.com/article.cfm?DocID=2040

Lastly, Congress doesn’t believe one is better than the other. See HEAAmendment2007 that congress passed prohibiting regional accredited schools from this form of discrimination.

Chris, at 2:25 pm EST on November 14, 2008

The really sad thing

Our thanks to IHE for keeping us informed about these issues. Florida has well-established articulation between its public 2-year and 4-year colleges, yet some courses still seem to fall through the cracks during transfer.

The larger contest is between the for-profits and public colleges. Each are certified for federal Title IV monies by a different accrediting guild. As mentioned in our letter to the Wall Street Journal, the fault line between these two sets of guilds is very wide, and this issue reveals the high levels of distrust between them regarding so-called accreditation standards. (For a copy of the letters: http://home.earthlink.net/~fheapblog/id19.html )

The really sad thing about this is that students caught in between the national and regional accrediting guilds are being ground to pieces! Yet, this is forgotten in the squabbling between the so-called accreditors too busy looking out for their own prestige and self-interest. Very revealing of what they are really all about.

Glen S. McGhee, Dir., at Florida Higher Education Accountability Project, at 7:51 am EST on February 26, 2007

Government Must Intervene

Educators have been left alone too long.

They have established an elitist educational system that denies opportunity to the disadvantaged to become educated from an institution that will open doors.

To level the playing field requires a per discipline accreditation system rather than a per school system with the goal to reduce the costs while improving quality.

This country does not know the difference between a democracy and a theocracy. It sends its troops to die in Afghanistan and Iraq with no benefit to the American people because of that failure.

It permits its leader to veto embryonic stem cell research based upon personal myth rather than fact.

Only by improvement of our formal education system will we be able to overcome the problems the concentration of money, power, and stupidity has wrought upon us.

That begins with accreditation of all journalism and law schools by multiple agencies with total freedom of transfer. The effort must be focused upon the quality of education rather than the profit or non-profit status of the school or the size of the endowment, who owns the buildings or how tenure is obtained.

William Sumner Scott, J.D.

Judicial Equality Foundation, Inc.

wss@jefound.org

William Sumner Scott, J.D., at 8:55 am EST on February 26, 2007

If you have ever had the pleasure of admitting a student that had attended a for profit insitution, they come in two distinct varieties: those who come from well established institutions and those who come from less then adequate institutions. It would seem impossible for the federal government to establishe “rules” on transfering of credits. Just because a student “earns” a credit does not mean they can do the work. Many for profit institutions concentrate on the “meat” of the discipline, and do very little to “round” out the student: english, speech, history, etc,etc,...all the courses that are necessary in an undergraduate degree program. Also, does a “c” mean a “c” some for profits, or do they need to keep their graduation rates up, etc so they can keep churning the student body, to keep aid dollars flowing in. I often have marveled on the “one on one” service that for profits give their students when they file financial aid. I have interviewed many students who have attended for profits about their financial aid, and the studnet has no idea what the school (for profit) did but they knew it was “all paid for.” That is scary when some of the aid was loans and the students did not understand that they had loans.

So, all things are not always equal. I believe the best type of articulation is institution to institution. Yes it is work, but it is necessary work. Or do we just start handing out degrees on the street corner? Then what will it take to work in a fast food restuarant, lets say in 50 years? We will need a BS degree to work there? Becuase everyone will now be able to get a BS degree with very little work and effort?

Jim, at 8:55 am EST on February 26, 2007

“....imposing such a requirement would take away the right of institutions to set their own standards for what they see as equivalent in quality to their own courses and degrees.”

But this is the whole issue. An accredited institution has the mark of being accredited....the “quality” should already be there. There should be no discussion on whether or not a course is worthy of being accepted because supposedly, the accreditation agency has already made this assessment in accrediting the school!

The idea that one accreditation agency is “better” than another, that one school is permitted to have lesser standards of quality than another makes the transfer issue the problem it really is (and it’s the kind of stuff that I am sure makes the Spellings Commission and others crazy in their attempts to “reform” accreditation). If the standards between the accreditation agencies were unified, there would be no problem in a career student transferring to a four-year public institution.

This is not to say a course on professional development would have to be accepted as a core requirement at a four year institution. But it does mean that there could be some kind of national articulation agreement that would not penalize the students or the tax payers. If a student earns an Associate’s Degree at an accredited, for-profit school, that degree should be able to transfer in whole to a four year institution. The remaining courses to be completed can be at the discretion of the academic advisors, but not as a means to add more courses, repeat courses, or otherwise penalize the students for their choice of college. Anything other than this basically says accreditation means nothing.

I think the accreditation agencies need to have articulation agreements between themselves first, and then they can move to make changes in the universities they accredit. There is no way colleges and universities will be on the same page if their accreditation agencies are not.

So you want some real fun? Get all these accreditation agencies together and make them come to a consensus on standards of quality and transfer of credit. Then they won’t have to worry about becoming a government branch, a complaint department, or an ineffective group of academic “clubs.” Get accreditors on the same page, and I am sure the Department of Education will be happy to just sit back and watch.

kgotthardt, at 9:21 am EST on February 26, 2007

Follow the money...

Using the term ‘nationally accredited’ for these for-profits means they’ve already won.How? By using their advertising dollar clout with media to sell their spin. Call them ‘cash-for-credit,’ because that’s what they are. And if you want to know why Bush administration constantly advances their point of view these days, just follow the money. Cash-for-credit profiteers operate big PACs, just like other big businesses. Not-for-profit educators (public and private) don’t try to buy credibility that way. IHE should never write a story about this gang that doesn’t point that out. And for heaven’s sake, at least go back to labeling them ‘for profit,’ instead of ‘nationally accredited.’ They created their own the accrediting bodies to have the illusion of academic integrity — they don’t allow real third-party evaluation because they know they wouldn’t pass!

MsW, at 10:02 am EST on February 26, 2007

MsW, if national accreditation agencies and regional accreditation agencies were forced to come to a consensus on academic standards between themselves, money would not be the issue and education would improve. You can’t buy academic integrity, nor can you establish it through snobbery. You can only level the playing field by focusing on what is best for the students.

It seems to me that national accreditors would not want their students to (continue)get a bad rap, nor would they want their students to fail in the workplace, the capitalistic environment that is the backbone of their industry. So reaching a consensus between the accreditors would, for once, remove money and elitism from the decision making process.

kgotthardt, at 11:15 am EST on February 26, 2007

Bitter Diatribe

I’m surprised at how much venom is reserved for these institutions. By and large they seem to be serving students that traditional schools aren’t interested in, so where’s the problem? And it’s not like traditional higher ed groups don’t have their own professional lobbyists. They’ve got dozens of them, and they don’t come cheap. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons college costs are so insanely high.

Scott, at 11:41 am EST on February 26, 2007

differences among accreditors

The issue of differences among accreditors, and how those affect transfer of credit, is one of the most important in higher education, and IHE continues to cover it very well.

It is important to remember that there are genuine, objective differences among accreditation standards. For-profit colleges can apply for regional accreditation (the U of Phoenix has had it for decades) if they want to meet the standards. They generally don’t.

There is nothing “wrong” with schools that choose to get national accreditation, but the decision is made by the school based on its goals and needs. Except in rare situations involving highly specialized schools, the school is not forced to pick one or the other.

The reason that credits from such schools don’t always transfer well is that the course content is often not intended to meet the same goals as courses at regionally accredited colleges. Again, there is nothing wrong with that, but no college should be forced to accept course credit when the course does not have appropriate comparable content.

Finally, federal authorities have, as usual, forgotten that the principal oversight of college standards (and indeed the legal authority to issue degrees at all) comes from state governments, not accreditors. State law always supersedes accreditation standards, and many states have specific requirements that don’t match those of accreditors. For example, Oregon requires a year of English composition for all degree programs at our approved schools, which accreditors don’t require.

Until federal authorities recognize that state governments need to be part of these qualitative discussions, many such discussions will be of limited utility.

Alan Contreras, Administrator at Oregon Office of Degree Authorization, at 12:05 pm EST on February 26, 2007

Open Institutions

Mr. Sumner refers to “opportunity to the disadvantaged to become educated from an institution that will open doors.”

They’re called “community colleges", and not only are they a heck of a lot less expensive than most for-profit institutions, they also do a better job helping academically deficient students get up to speed.

Steve Foerster, Director of Instructional Technology at Free Curricula Center, at 12:35 pm EST on February 26, 2007

Accreditation

Most of you who have commented have ignored the fact that some us work at for-profit colleges that have earned regional accreditation, not that it makes us better educators than other for-profit schools. The point still seems to be that we all struggle with the question of whose credits mean what.

Michael D. Cook, at 12:50 pm EST on February 26, 2007

What about Scott’s point people?

Scott, your point is well-taken and I’m disappointed that nobody in the thread has chosen to address your issue. For the record I agree; for-profits and nonprofits operate in almost completely separate realms (save the small overlap between for-profits’ offerings and some two-year community colleges’ vocational programs).

DC Observer, at 1:45 pm EST on February 26, 2007

Response to Steve Foerster

Mr. Foerster,

You and I have a definition of “doors” issue. Perhaps I should have used the term opportunity.

The local community college graduate rarely gets to the Board Room of a Fortune 500 company or to any other job of great importance.

Full transferability of credits is needed so that when the gifted in a poor school recognize they belong somewhere else they can transfer quickly.

William Sumner Scott, J.D.

Judicial Equality Foundation, Inc.

wss@jefound.org

William Sumner Scott, J.D., at 2:21 pm EST on February 26, 2007

Does a C Mean a C?

Please tell me the reliability and validity coeffiecients of grades not only in for profit v.s. non profit colleges but also in among non-profit institutions?

kenneth d. feigenbaum, at 4:02 pm EST on February 26, 2007

Standard Proficiency Exams

These are common in many fields — commonly called license exams.

Can they be brought to the accreditation table so that a C becomes reliable or improved or diminished, as the case may be?

No one has defended the present system — yet the proposed reforms are far short of solutions to the problems identified.

Quizzical, at 5:05 pm EST on February 26, 2007

A Question for Quizzical

Licensing and national exams may work for some disciplines but how do you develop an exam for the visual and performing arts? I fear that the discussion of the transfer of credits, graduation rates, learning outcomes are all leading to a call some kind of “No Child Left Behind” national examination for college students by the DOE. If you think what we have now is a nightmare any move in this direction would be worse.

I know that many would like to believe there is a way we can measure “apples to apples", but some of our institutions are oranges and others aren’t even in the “fruit family". As desirable as it may seem I’m not sure there is a way that you can ever develop any system that addresses the true differences not only between for profits and non profits but between specialty schools and liberal arts colleges, state supported reasearch university and comprehensive universities.

What makes the higher education system both great and fustrating is that it is not a system at all. I too would like to see a world where students are not being denied credit for work they have already done. However every year I see students who apply to my school with degrees from for profit schools who can’t draw from observation ( a fundamental requirement of our curriculum). When I ask to see the potfolio they submitted to enter the for profit school the answer is always ” they didn’t ask for a portfolio".

I would love to see things work better for students who transfer I’m just not sure if examinations gets us any closer to a solution.

Arts Educator, at 6:51 pm EST on February 26, 2007

Response to Arts

There is no discipline subject to wider judgment than the arts. Many schools have standards that are uniform, most ask for samples of work to date. The no portfolio example you cite can be easily eliminated by standard procedures.

The objective is to transfer the process from the school to educate to build its reputation to a focus on the student to become educated to build a life.

More open enrollment — rather than deny admission, provide opportunity, instruction, and then prune the field.

My school used a double blind exam system — grades were non-political. Profs were often surprised by who excelled. Nepotism vanished.

Quizzical, at 7:46 pm EST on February 26, 2007

Re: Follow the money...

MsW, your generalization leaves out the scores of schools that are both non-profit and nationally accredited. Many acupuncture schools, for example, are nationally accredited (by the Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine) and are also not-for-profit. In many ways, it is truly a labor of love.

Acupuncture School Teacher, at 9:00 pm EST on February 26, 2007

Art Educator, you said, “I’m not sure there is a way that you can ever develop any system that addresses the true differences not only between for profits and non profits but between specialty schools and liberal arts colleges, state supported research university and comprehensive universities.”

I don’t think accreditors need to address the differences. I think they need address the commonalities, and there are some, whether they want to see them or not. For example, most accredited colleges that offer degrees are required to have core courses because that is part of the accreditation process. So a student who earns an associate’s degree should be able to transfer that degree to another school (assuming the student is accepted to that school). Likewise, students who take individual classes should be able to transfer those at least as electives. You are right that some colleges are not even in the fruit family (I enjoyed that metaphor, by the way). But all colleges ARE in the tree family, and those trees are supported by the earth of accreditation. So that is where to start.

I also appreciated your comment on portfolios. As someone who doesn’t hold standardized tests in highest esteem, I think portfolios are essential for every graduating student, no matter what field he or she chooses to pursue and no matter what institution he/she wants to transfer to. A test score does not necessarily demonstrate what a student can do besides take tests. A portfolio does.

I don’t mean to keep posting and posting here, but this is something I feel very strongly about, and it’s something I have had to deal with professionally and personally on many levels. So I hope you understand my multiple responses.

kgotthardt, at 9:35 pm EST on February 26, 2007

Same in Australia

This debate is very familiar to an Australian reader, even down to the unfortunate rancour. The problem therefore seems more fundamental than the differences between regional and national accrediting agencies and other peculiarities of US higher education.

I believe that disputes over credit transfer arise from the differences in status between institutions and is accenuated by the size of the status differences between institutions. Even if all schools were accredited in 1 system or even subject to a national law on credit transfer the high status institutions would find ways of distinguishing themselves from lower status institutions.

The fundamental solution would therefore be to reduce the stratification or status hierarchies between institutions, but such egaletarianism may be too much even for governments otherwise sympathetic to for-profit institutions.

Gavin, Principal Policy Adviser at Griffith University, Australia, at 4:25 am EST on February 27, 2007

transfer of credit

A related issue of concern regarding credit transfer comes from study abroad. Who transfers what?

Many programs are private, they rent space, hire staff, give classes and recommend credit for degrees. Study Aborad Programs are not credit granting institutions. Often they are private companies for which earnings are a critical factor. By setting up off campus centers they avoid a host university and its fees, they hire staff at lower salary and often qualifications that leave us with questions.

A foreign host institution or unversity has its limitations but it is a legal, credit granting institution what gives a certificate for what it asks that we accept. Off campus centers are a different matter.

Jerry

jerry johnson, academic director at ISEPS, at 6:55 am EST on March 7, 2007

Reply to William Sumner Scott’s comments

I encourage you to choose your words even more carefully. What constitutes a job of “great importance?” Is it only a large salary at a Fortune 500 company (and I dare say there are CC grads in that position) or could it be an RN with a 2 year degree that takes care of sick people? If I was in the hospital, I’d take the community college RN grad over a CEO any day. And where is it written that “gifted” students need to transfer “quickly” from a “poor” school? As one other commented, community colleges serve the function of providing quality education at an affordable cost. It helps “gifted” students, and those not so labeled to go into the workforce or transfer to a 4 year institution. Of course transfer of credits is an important topic to both sides and that is the issue here but please be careful about generalizing and lapsing into sterotypes that should not factor into the discussion.

Dianne Guarino, Assistant Director of Admissions at Nassau CC, at 3:25 pm EDT on March 13, 2007

Transfering Credits Between For-Profit and Profit

Nationally accredited schools or for profit schools have a inherent conflict of interest. They seek to improve their profits by improving their respectability by buying influence sine in many cases they cannot earn it. As someone in this thread pointed out they are free to pursue regionally accredited status, however many of them would need meet the requirements so they try to minimize its importance. There are legitimate and very real differences between regional and national accreditation or non-profits and for profits. For profits are constantly trying to trivialize them in order to assist their bottom line, not so much their students. The concept of trying to make the DOE force regionally accredited schools to accept their credits for the sake of the student is absurd at best. They are concerned about their bottom line and legitimacy. But one can’t blame them, they are businesses and that is a big part of the problem. They have a inherent conflict of interest.

Alphonso Quashie, Paralegal, at 8:56 am EDT on March 16, 2007

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Cornell University

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Director of Student Recruitment Outreach
Drexel University

Drexel University is a nationally and internationally recognized as a pioneer in cooperative education. see job