High Standards

Top academic institutions have very high standards. Therefore, it is understandable that some of these schools choose to defend the calibre of education that they offer.

There is definitely a need for balance, however. They can’t accept lower calibre credits or students will abuse the loophole. However, they can’t make students repeat classes that they have adequately completed at another accredited institution.

Nonetheless, there needs to be some clarity concerning why regional accreditation is preferred to national accreditation. Can someone explain that please?

Regards, Donnell Duncan, Founder and President, The Cracked Door, “If the Door is Cracked, the Door is Open”

Donnell, Civil Engineering (Structures) Graduate at Georgia Instititute of Technology, at 7:30 am EDT on October 19, 2005

Pot calling the kettle black?

“They have a ton of money and, unlike public, more reputable institutions, employ this dirty political tactic in order to make more money.”

I won’t work for most for-profits — but neither am I going to claim that not-for-profits are as a clean as Caesar’s wife.

Take a look at American University. Harvard in Russia. Adelphia. Football scandals. Graduation rates. Number of under-employed college graduates, ill-prepared to join the workforce. Amount of non-teaching staff. Hardly a picture-postcard to send home.

Bart J., at 10:32 am EDT on October 19, 2005

Credit

It is simply absurd that so many universities consider others as their inferiors or their credits as incompatible. Perhaps Universities with similar standing need to be compelled to allow transfer of credits — though not from substantially inferior universities.

Kevin, Undergraduate, at 11:30 am EDT on October 19, 2005

Inferior

Then I would say that the regional accreditation groups need to do their job better — but individual schools should be more careful about arbitrarily denying credit that doesn’t come from their own hallowed (and income bringing) halls.

It seems absurd that credits from many fine state and elite private schools can’t be transfered (a friend had problems transfering some credits between U of I Champaign and UCLA — both fine reputable schools that should be able to give better recognition of each other’s credits).

Kevin, Undergraduate, at 6:22 pm EDT on October 19, 2005

Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to

Patty, It might be a better idea for students to seek and receive assurances that certain credits will count before they pay tuition. Most students seem unwilling or unable to do this.

Many so-called “fine and reputable” schools often are considered to have easier courses than other schools. So, if a school wants to ensure uniformity of education then it could rightly claim that even a credit from a “prestigious” school isn’t adequate.

Of course, nobody really wants to attempt an objective course-by-course comparison between schools, because to do that would be quite embarrassing, both to schools that do poorly and “elite” schools that find out that their level of difficulty is the same as, or less than, a school with the word “state” in its name.

Larry, at 2:02 pm EDT on October 20, 2005

Data

I would be curious to see what data is being used to determine whether there is aproblem with transfer. Does anyone know where the data is and what it says?

Mike Allen, Associate Registrar at University of Texas at Austin, at 3:13 pm EDT on October 24, 2005

Recognition of Accreditation Agencies

It is interesting to me that no one in this discusssion seems to have mentioned the Council of Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA-http://chea.org). CHEA essentially “accredits the accreditors.” For years, I have followed the practice of reviewing the recognition of the accreditation held by a particular institution when considering transfer credit. For the most part, all CHEA recognized accrediting agencies have the the same high standards as do regional accreditors and we have reconsidered the recognition of credits and degrees from institutions holding accreditation by accreditors recently recognized by CHEA (e.g., TRACS in 2001).

I agree that there can be bias in transfer decisions. For example, many institutions will not accept credit from religious institutions because they are not regionally accredited (or have only attained candidate status to date), even though their professional accreditation has very similar standards as do the regionals. While many such institutions are now pursuing dual accreditation with regional recognition, it seems to me that the significant number of such institutions that hold dual accreditation should cause regional accredited schools to stand up and take notice of the comparability of standards among these accrediting bodies (which are all CHEA recognized I might add).

I do hope that we are not federally mandated to accept all credit that some students have completed but allowed to judge based on the institution’s recognition of quality education and applicability to institutional mission. However, I do agree that there needs to be a broader perspective so we are not forced to endure what will surely result in “reverse discrimination” of transfer credit.

Reid Kisling, Registrar at George Fox University, at 1:37 pm EDT on October 26, 2005

Regionals Have the Right to Reject National’s Credits

Jamie. From what I understand regional accreditation is a much more rigorous process and their institutions must have better faculty and facilities just for starters. That would be reason enough to reject transfer credits from a nationally accredited institution who does not have such high standards. That’s seems reasonable to me. The nationals can simply get regional accreditation, what’s wrong with that. I guess it would cut into their bottom line if they had to offer a better educational product?

Alphonso Quashie, Legal, at 4:26 am EDT on March 20, 2007