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PA Sues Online 'University' For Spamming

Posted by timothy on from the can-they-get-to-university-of-phoenix-soon? dept.

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.

3 of 313 comments (clear)

  1. uce@ftc.gov by Dachannien · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  2. Not all distance learning is a scam by The+Mutant · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --

    A message from our sponsor

  3. Re:Real Victim by chialea · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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