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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.
Like most people, I get way too much spam to forward every single piece to the FTC. But I *do* make it a point, whenever a piece of spam for fraudulent university degrees makes it past my filters, to send those e-mails along.
I wouldn't mind so much if:
* Getting a college degree at any level weren't so much work
* Getting a college degree at any level didn't cost so much
* There weren't so many underprivileged highly intelligent people who never get college degrees because they can't afford it or are under the impression that they can't get financial aid
There is an active on-line community at DegreeInfo.com who research and discuss the merits of each institution.
Here in the UK The Open University has been providing fully accredited distance learning since the early 70's.
I went to a brick and mortar Uni myself, but have worked with several graduates of such institutions, both in the banking and academic worlds (I'm a banker and part time visiting lecturer at a local Uni), and they were fine; like most things, you get out of it what you put into it.
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I am not condoning degree mills but what you say is certainly not always right.
there is a guy that used to work here that did get his MBA from a degree mill... he paid $1500.00 for it and had it in 12 days.
he used it to get into this place, HR is typically stupid and will only hire people with degrees, he had over 20 years of experience in his field but no degree, hell he was better than the MBA's here.
over the 5 years I worked with him we became friends and he confided in me this fact.
he left here over a year ago because he saw the bull crap that management was pulling. He now works as a department manager in a competing company, making more money and has been commended twice with awards there already.
sorry, but my friend that bought his fake degree to get around cooperate HR stupidity.
and I am sure that many people do that more and more.
I do not condone it, I believe that you need to be forced to waste 4 years of your life and tens of thousands of dollars just like I did so you can gain that piece of paper that really does not way anything about your abilities.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Amazingly, the Village Council hired a member's son-in-law as village administrator. His credentials (completely unchecked, of course) included just such a fine degree. He would step into the middle of a complete downtown rennovation project.
Three years later, he has returned to Arkansas (thankfully!), but has taken with him $45,000 in severance pay. His computer remains at the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the rumor being it may contain child porn.
And the Village has a new $100k street sweeper no one wanted. Meanwhile the police department mucks through on 25Mhz Pentium I desktops.
The Administrator position is open. We can pay the cat well.
I believe that Guardian Newspaper ran a small campaign a few months back in their science section about "Dr" Gillian McKeith, the author of "You Are What you Eat", a number 1 book and popular TV programme over here in the UK. It turned out she'd actually got her doctorate from an online institution (it may even have been Trinity Southern, I forget the name) - either way, it was "accredited" by the same bogus board as Trinity Southern (and if you've read her book, it's pretty obvious she has no clue what she's talking about - chlorophyll is apparantly "high in oxygen", and "the 'blood' of the plant will really oxygenate your blood." when you eat it...depite the fact there's no light in your gut...).
, 12980,1285600,00.html
The Guardian's point was that millions of people were buying this book under the impression she was an accredited doctor, when in fact she was nothing of the sort. However good her advice may have been, she was still misleading the public over her credentials... see http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0
In a similar theme, the journalist in question got his cat a "nutrationalist specialist" certificate...
How would you find out easily? Universities are accredited by different organizations. MIT isn't accredited at all, last I heard, under the theory that people already know they're just fine. The reason the organization that accredits UC Berkeley has any clout is that it accredits Berkeley. This doesn't sound that organized to me.
Fake online universities put up all sorts of fake stuff on the web to try to give the impression of legitimacy. I'm not aware of a list of "real" universities to check credentials against, and this tactic implies that a simple google search might not be all that helpful. (Putting up a page saying "this university is fake" doesn't fix the problem; they have tons and tons of names.)
Lea
The only one whom people who get this sort of degree are cheating is themselves.
As well as legitimate degree-holders from any school whose name isn't deeply ingrained in the public consciouness as legitimate. Sure, everyone knows a degree from "the University of Pennsylvania" is legit. But what about "Pennsylvania Polytechnical College"? Or "Pennsylvania Institute of Technology"? Hint: I made up one of the latter two.
it'll be pretty obvious once they start fucking up their job royally because they don't know what they're doing.
The Peter Principle applies. They may never find themselves in a position where their fraudulence is exposed. Meanwhile, they coast by, collecting a paycheck while better employees struggle to pay back their student loans.
I am in about 98% agreement with you. In fact, most cats will obey, if trained to do so. My cat will obey most reasonable requests, but only after considering it and the reward, first. Thus, he obeys and retains his independence at the same time.