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PA Sues Online 'University' For Spamming
CousinLarry writes "Online 'university' Trinity Southern University (Google cache of disabled site homepage) has been sued by the state of Pennsylvania." Besides spamming, this self-described school has, as another reader points out, "awarded an MBA to a cat owned by an undercover Pennsylvania deputy attorney general." I bet my cat could get a PhD.
Has Timothy(or the submitter) never heard of The Internet Archive?
You can actually look at the pictures, too.
Sleep is futile.
Actually, degree mills like this hurt all American universities. I was talking with the head economist of a UK based multinational a while ago, and he throws all American CVs in the bin unless the university is a well known and respected one, simply because he doesn't have time to fuck about checking their accreditation.
Thereby reducing the average IQ of cats, while greatly increasing that of MBAs.
The poster is alluding to a quote by Mark Twain:
More Twain quotes on cats here.
Does what you're proposing sound *efficient* to you? Who do you think would pay for that certification? The student who becomes a worker. Why? because either the school pays for it directly (which filters down, with a surcharge, to the student), the student pays for it directly, or the employer pays for it directly (which filters down, in the form of it costing more to hire the student, thus the student is worth less pay).
OR...and this is just an idea...the inefficient "free market" BS can be muzzled a little by having places that call themselves "universities" slammed and their owners put in prison.
Want to see the economy do well? Improve *efficiency*. There's a reason the worker production figures are so important, you know.
Anyone with a brain should have read "fraud" from every bit of this. Their website has a web page (thanks to Zen Punk for the archive.org link) about their "accreditation". It's full of buzzwords, and says that they've been accredited by the "National Association of Prior Learning Assessment Colleges". Oddly enough, a Google search for this only produces the page in question, a link to a message board saying that this "university" has been spammed heavily - and a website for the supposed association, which is now off-line. Thankfully, the Way-Back Machine never forgets. Same buzzword bingo on that page, no contact information other than an e-mail address. How anyone could conceivably look at these websites and decide that this was legit is beyond me. Ah, well. They'll get what they deserve.
N.B. There's also a CNN article about this as well, which seems to be a carbon copy of the local story linked in the blurb.
Well, the most recent PISA study pretty much debunks your argument.
While the godless, pinko, commie, socialist, anti-american, linux-using Finns with their wicked socialist public school system came ahead just of about everybody, students from the free enterprise, privatized great nation of the US of A didn't look too well.
Get a clue!
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Universities aren't accredited so much as their programs are. For example, if you want a bioengineering degree that actually means something, you want a school that is "ABET accredited". They do other engineering stuff, too (ABET="Accredition Board for Engineering and Tech." or sth. like that). And they are certified by CHEA (Council for Higher Ed. Accreditation). Given a college name 30 seconds of Googling will find out if they're accredited in a given field, and by whom.
MIT is very much accredited. "Everybody knows they're just fine" is not nearly enough to continue in business, not least because neither the federal government nor any state will extend grants or loans to students attending institutions that are not accredited by a recognized governing body. No accreditation = no $$$$, period. Recognized accreditation commissions are organized regionally in the United States - the US Department of Education would probably be the best place to start for a comprehensive list.
The reason the organization that accredits UC Berkeley has any clout is that it accredits Berkeley.
Nope. The reason the organization that accredits UC Berkeley has clout is for the same reason the organization that accredits MIT has clout - without it, the money dries up and the joint either shuts down or converts over to a for-profit trade school.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
There are reputable books on colleges. For starters, you could go to Peterson's and look up the name of the college or university.
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Also, accrediting bodies are okayed by the US Secretary of Education. For more on that, see http://www.ed.gov/admins/finaid/accred/index.html
In that case it's "Bowser is soo smart. He comes here when I call him!" And typically also "bah, cats are dumb/evil/etc because they can't be bothered to obey."
My cat and my dog both obey my commands.
My cat (a DSH) knows her name (she's about 6 months old), and will come consistently when called. (My old cat, who died a year ago was the same way.)
My dog (Border Collie) knows his name, and will come consistently when called (and has done since he was about 3 months old.)
Cats are not pack animals, so they really have neither a "master", nor "servants" or "staff"
That is incorrect. Cats *can* be pack animals, or *can* be solitary, and they have a very complex social hierarchy when they are part of a group.
Either way, you can know that it's the cat's genuine assessment of you, and not some hard-wired reflex kicking in.
Bullshit. It's as much a cat's "genuine assessment" as a dog's "genuine assessment" would be.
Cats *are* social animals, just as much as dogs are.