Schools want regional accreditation. Fopros also want regional accreditation. It gives them status, recognition and confidence with their students who might want to take their class units and transfer them to a four year or other institution.
Fopros will go to extremes to get this accreditation. In order to get accreditation schools must meet a number of standards - course offerings, financial stability, library facilities and a certain quota of full-time faculty to name a few. No where does it say the schools must actually be carrying out their objective of student learning - interesting, eh?
There is also a waiting period...but businessmen and business women do NOT like to wait to make money....so...
they buy struggling not-for-profit schools....with that comes a big jump in the accreditation process. University of Phoenix bought Jordan colleges, a string of not-for-profit colleges in MI. With that purchase came the school's state authorizations.
Another school tried, Ave Maria, tried to do the same but failed in MI and ended up going to FL where it had better options = opportunity to buy an existing not-for-profit college.
It sounds very business like, doesn't it? Can't build it yourself, takes to long to get to profitability? Then buy it.
Does this mean that fopros do not meet the needs of students? Not at all. But, it does mean they have taken short cuts to get the approval of accrediting authorities.
And for whatever reason, many perceive a shortcut as equal to decreased quality.
Business people see shortcuts as good business.
What do you think?
Great post Bill, I am intrigued with your question and answer here and would love to hear more...
You said: "Does this mean that fopros do not meet the needs of students? Not at all."
Can you elaborate a bit more...? Lots of good discussion start-up here... I look forward to your ideas on this one....
Posted by: ellenweber | June 10, 2006 2:33 PM | Permalink to Comment