Who is on "our" side?

[Virtual Bison]

There are different ways of organizing.  Other than the great Glen S. McGhee and his FHEAP, I'm not aware of any formal public organizations that deal specifically with our issues.  

Frankly I wonder how many people even understand our issues.  People in education seem to be afflicted with socialist conformist syndrome, and people who aren't so afflicted tend not to be in education too long.  

I don't know that Libertarians are particularly on track either.  Half of them are "social" libertarians, meaning they are essentially either gay or pot smokers (or gay pot smokers), single issue self-interest types.  Of the economic libertarians half of them are Ron Paul types who want to talk all day about Tri-laterals and the Federal Reserve, and don't know or care about practical free market higher education issues.  (As if higher education could ever be called practical.)  And don't get me wrong, I like Ron Paul thematically (less government is good), it's just the implementation that tends to go awry.  

When Spellings was running the DoEd she tried without success to get the cartel to install some "accountability" into the process, such as measures of learning/teaching outcome success.  So although the regime change obviously put that on the back burner, clearly there are some people in the uppermost regions of higher education who understand the notion that for accreditation to be justified it has to mean something.  

If accreditation is going to stand for "quality" you need to be able to measure the quality.  If it's just going to be protectionist thugs beating up on newcomers and cut rate competitors it is less than worthless and needs to go.  

I do see that message in other contexts.  For example, the National Right to Work Foundation is fighting against union goons and forced unionism in the workplace.  But everyone has to work, not everyone has to start up a college.  I see a limited market for members, and an economically outclassed one at that.  Guerilla warfare?  Unless the Organians shame everyone into peace the options seem limited.

A lot to go on here.

But to get started that FHEAP site you linked did look interesting. The Accreditation process is pretty messed up really. I believe that there are some things about it that do not make sense, like how Ashworth College (A school I actually attended BTW) is accredited but other DL programs which are actually harder were rejected. I think that its really a closed system and not really democratic at all.

But to get onto the subject of Libertarianism I think its the only system that I truely can believe in. And Acedemic Freedom is just one aspect of it. I really do not care if my neighbor is gay (as long as he is not a public official trying to tell me what school I can lawfully put on my resume) or smokes pot, but primarily I think there are too many restrictions on freedom. If I am a job seeker and want to put some POS university whose address I found on the back of a matchbook cover, and I get hired for a job than its my employer's fault for not doing the research.

Now I hate Diploma Mills. And I do mean mills in the sense of bogus schools which require nothing more than a credit card number to graduate. But in my line of work I have seen people put all kinds of crap on their resumes, including certifications which are not even real, membership in professional organizations I never heard of and employment at places which are not even in business. Employers need to be smart otherwise its their fault.

RA schools have done more harm to education than diploma mills will ever do. They've made the entire idea of higher education questionable. That's why no one can pin down what a diploma mill is or is not - because these so called "real" schools are capitalizing on the same thing. Going to school isn't about learning anymore.

They do the same thing at the High School level. Don't want to go to High School? Just walk over to your nearest adult education facility and "Test Out" with the GED.

So what should be done about it? Nothing. People just need to realize that all colleges and universities are nothing more than CORPORATIONS out to make a buck. The entire concept of higher education is a scam. There are no "standards" in quality.

A degree is only a piece of paper. Like money and religion, its value is in the eye of the beholder.

No argument. I heard about one dude in Georgia who got his cat a high school diploma from a supposedly legitimate school.

I also heard of College Athletes at Big Ten schools who get admitted with ACT scores of 8. But thats a seperate subject altogether.

There is an easy solution to what you perceive to be deficiencies at such DE schools. Don't attend UoP or Kaplan or DeVry or whatever school you think sucks. If you own a business then don't hire an employee who has a degree from such a school. If you are looking for a house and you know that one of your prospective neighbors has such a degree, move somewhere else. Problem solved.

Good advice.

BTW Devry is a pretty challanging school. I work with DeVry grads and they are all pretty sharp. ITT is not bad either. They have liberal admission standards but the graduation requirements are pretty tough.

In fact I suggested long ago that one ought to better and carefully RESEARCH a school he's interested in, whether accredited or not, in order to realize whether there are significant chances of having to answer later about the school's 'problems'. Phoenix would be one I'd steer clear of for that reason.

Good point.

Out of curiosity, is U of Phoenix a bad school?