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.

Comments

You insensitive clod

[shoppa]

My cat already has a PhD!

Re:You insensitive clod

[rsidd]

Ah but has your cat published a paper in Physical Review Letters?

More about the second author of that paper (scroll down to "Hetherington and Willard article)

Ralph

[bigtallmofo]

When I grow up, I'm going to Bovine University!

Re:Ralph

[TummyX]

My cat's breath smells like cat food

Smart Cat

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our new feline overlords

Real Victim

[teiresias]

The real victim here is any online College or University that's trying to become a credible institution. With process stories like this few people will want to take the option of online Universitys and even fewer employers will take them seriously.

Re:Real Victim

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Real Victim

[chialea]

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

They had other problems:

[BostonPilot]

They also could not spell:

Perspective students submit a detailed self-evalution for the degree of their choice, BA, BS, MA, MBA, or PhD. A TSU registrar will evaluate your application within 5-7 days and contact you via email with the results of their evaluation.

Why is anyone surprised???

[Joey Vegetables]

From the article:

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."

Thereby reducing the average IQ of cats, while greatly increasing that of MBAs.

Re:Why is anyone surprised???

[tootlemonde]

Thereby reducing the average IQ of cats, while greatly increasing that of MBAs.

The poster is alluding to a quote by Mark Twain:

If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.
- Notebook, 1894

More Twain quotes on cats here.

What happens when you don't force accreditation

[Nine Tenths of The W]

I'll take Britain's godless socialised education every day over educational free market capitalism. Employers shouldn't have to waste time determining whether a university is real or not. This is just as disruptive as the fear of litigation that prevents people giving bad references

Re:What happens when you don't force accreditation

[Albanach]

In a "Godless socialised education" system, there's no incentive to succeed whatsoever. When public schools do bad, they just get more money, and their "customers" have no choice. They are forced to go to them. Monopolies are bad, especially when the Government has them.

With your great education have you even looked at education beyond your own borders? Do you think other governments aren't capable of recognising the place for rewarding success? Do you think governments are incapable of intervening when they see failure?

In the UK there's no obligation to go to your local school, you can pick any as long as you have the grades to get accepted - and others in Europe can pick one of our universities too. Yet in the US if you don't have the necessary cash you may well be forced to stay in state and go to a local school rather than explore the best that should be available to your academic ability.

I would still take a mediocre private education over the best our Government can offer, thanks.

Ever head of Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Glasgow, Edinburgh? If your government can't offer better perhaps it's time you elect a new government? Free market education determines that access is based as much on wealth as it is on academic ability. That's plain wrong.

Re:What happens when you don't force accreditation

[dAzED1]

you don't get it.

It harms the reputation of ALL online schools, and American schools in general. If a person is born poor, and works his ass off to go to a good school that he can afford...one that isn't well known...then that school is much more likely to be dismissed as worthless by a prospective employer now.

The point isn't that the people who started this online "school" might (since its only "might") go to prison, the point is that the damage is already done, and for every one of these you remove, another dozen will have found a loophole in the unrestrainted market and will be doing the same thing again. A cat got a degree? Ok, so the next fake online school will simply have you verify age, and species. Maybe take a test that any 4th grader could pass, and give you a "MBA" if you pass it. Tada.

The damage is still done. Maybe not to those who can afford to go to internationally reknown Ivy league schools...but not everyone can afford to go to those. There is a happy medium between complete government control, and none at all.

Re:What happens when you don't force accreditation

[CaptainZapp]

In a "Godless socialised education" system, there's no incentive to succeed whatsoever. When public schools do bad, they just get more money, and their "customers" have no choice. They are forced to go to them. Monopolies are bad, especially when the Government has them.

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!

Better mirror

[Zen Punk]

Has Timothy(or the submitter) never heard of The Internet Archive?

You can actually look at the pictures, too.

I don't understand

[Icarus1919]

I really don't understand the furor over this. It wouldn't be the first college degree mill out there, and it certainly won't be the last. The only one whom people who get this sort of degree are cheating is themselves. I mean, sure, at first it may seem like they are cheating employers that take this sort of thing at face value, but it'll be pretty obvious once they start fucking up their job royally because they don't know what they're doing.

Re:I don't understand

[Feanturi]

I've been getting these diploma spam emails for almost as long as there has been spam, and it always struck me as fraud and made me wonder why they weren't being arrested. You're not just cheating yourself, you get cheated as well, and for money. That's fraud, as it devalues the real thing, and fleeces the ignorant. It's about time someone started getting in trouble for it, only took like 11 years or so.

uce@ftc.gov

[Dachannien]

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

Cat with an MBA

[Nine Tenths of The W]

Let's see, cats:
Expect everyone else to do the hard work
Fuck things up and cause damage through boredom
Demand the best of everything without being willing to work for it
Boss people around
Fly into fits of rage
Have short attention spans
Spend 21 hours a day resting

Is there any reason a cat shouldn't have an MBA?

Not all distance learning is a scam

[The Mutant]

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.

New name

[Israfels]

That's DR. Socks to you buddy!

SCO, RIAA, and the MPAA may be in trouble.
We found the source of the lawyers!

You forgot some victims...

[Libertarian_Geek]

All those cats that put forth the effort and hard work to earn their PHDs.

Re:Which is smarter?

[Lev13than]

This university could answer an old question.
Which is smarter, cats or dogs?

Well, the cat earned an MBA so I'm putting my money on dogs.

Depends on what you expect from one

[Moraelin]

In the end, it's not really whether the cat or the dog is smart, it's whether it does what you expect from a pet. That's usually (A) what people mistake for "intelligence" and also (B) what motivates them into grasping at straws for "proof" that their favourite pet is smart.

Some people seem to like the unconditional obedience of an animal hard-coded to obey the pack leader. Even if the "pack leader" is a human.

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."

Some of us, on the other hand, have no need for basically a biological Tamagochi hard-wired to obey.

We like a cat precisely _because_ it's independent and doesn't need a "master". Cats are not pack animals, so they really have neither a "master", nor "servants" or "staff". You may be a cat's room mate, or friend, or a danger to be avoided, or (in rare cases) even an enemy. Either way, you can know that it's the cat's genuine assessment of you, and not some hard-wired reflex kicking in.

So we tend to generalize and anthropomorphise the other way around. "Yay, Fluffy is so smart because she can think for herself and doesn't need a master." And conversely "Dogs are complete retards for _needing_ to be someone's slave."

In reality, both points of view are false and based on false premises.

An animal's intelligence is what helps it stay alive in its natural environment, _not_ how well it fits your emotional need. In that aspect, both felines and dogs/wolves are "smart", just in different ways.

Wolves have perfected survival by hunting larger prey in packs, so teamwork and having a pack leader is essential. A lone wolf can't kill, say, a deer, so acting as a pack is what their very survival depends on. So for the pack to work, the animals are basically hard-wired to follow and obey the leader. It's a survival trait.

Felines on the other hand, with some exceptions (e.g., lions), live on prey they can kill one-on-one. Not only they don't need a pack to hunt, and not only there isn't enough meat on their prey to feed a whole pack, but a pack would also get in the way of stealth. If you've watched a cat hunt a mouse, you've noticed that it relies on not being seen until it gets within relatively short range. Trying to do that as a whole pack of cats, would just dramatically increase the chances of being detected early.

Hence, for cats the survival trait was to _not_ follow someone else.

Both approaches work, so they're both intelligent.

obligatory smart-ass kid joke

[MyDixieWrecked]

A first-grade teacher, Ms. Brooks, was having trouble with one of her students. The teacher asked, "Harry, what's your problem?"

Harry answered, "I'm too smart for the 1st grade. My sister is in the 3rd grade and I'm smarter than she is! I think I should be in the 3rd grade too!"

Ms. Brooks had had enough. She took Harry to the principal's office.

While Harry waited in the outer office, the teacher explained to the principal what the situation was. The principal told Ms. Brooks he would give the boy a test. If he failed to answer any of his questions he was to go back to the 1st grade and behave. She agreed.

Harry was brought in and the conditions were explained to him and he agreed to take the test.

Principal: "What is 3 x 3?"

Harry: "9".

Principal: "What is 6 x 6?"

Harry: "36".

And so it went with every question the principal thought a 3rd grader should know.

The principal looks at Ms. Brooks and tells her, "I think Harry can go to the 3rd grade."

Ms. Brooks says to the principal, "Let me ask him some questions."

The principal and Harry both agreed.

Ms. Brooks asks, "What does a cow have four of that I have only two of?"

Harry, after a moment: "Legs."

Ms. Brooks: "What is in your pants that you have but I do not have?"

The principal wondered, why would she ask such a question!

Harry replied: "Pockets."

Ms. Brooks: "What does a dog do that a man steps into?"

Harry: "Pants"

Ms. Brooks: What's starts with a C, ends with a T, is hairy, oval, delicious and contains thin, whitish liquid?

Harry: "Coconut."

The principal sat forward with his mouth hanging open.

Ms. Brooks: "What goes in hard and pink then comes out soft and sticky?"

The principal's eyes opened really wide and before he could stop the answer.

Harry: "Bubble gum"

Ms. Brooks: "What does a man do standing up, a woman does sitting down and a dog does on three legs?"

Harry: "Shake hands."

The principal was trembling.

Ms. Brooks: "What word starts with an 'F' and ends in 'K' that means a lot of heat and excitement?"

Harry: "Firetruck"

The principal breathed a sigh of relief and told the teacher, "Put Harry in the fifth-grade, I got the last seven question wrong.