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This college was accredited by a DeVos-sanctioned group. We couldn’t find students or faculty.
As any Soylentil with any connection, recent connection, to the institutions of learning anywhere is aware, the drive by business types for "accountability" has destroyed and maimed education wherever it has landed. But now it turns out, the entire program may have been a fraud, something of a Potemkin Amway Village, if you catch my meaning. On the the Fine Article!
USA Today, but in Europe, of course. [usatoday.com]
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Reagan National University was supposed to be a place of higher learning, but it was unclear how it awarded degrees. By all appearances, at present, it has no students, no faculty and no classrooms.
An agency meant to serve as a gatekeeper for federal money gave the university approval to operate anyway.
That accrediting agency, financially troubled and losing members fast, exists mainly because it was saved by the Education Department in 2018.
Accreditation might be the driest part of higher education, but these independent groups have huge importance: If they approve a college, the government agrees to give federal grants and loans to the students there.
Yes, it is all about the Federal Dollars, much like the Mercenary Company of Betsy DeVos's brother, Blackwater Higher Education, or whatever it is called now.
The agency in question, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges & Schools, has a history of approving questionable colleges, with devastating consequences. It accredited ITT Tech, Corinthian Colleges and Brightwood College, massive for-profit universities whose sudden closures last decade left thousands of students without degrees and undermined the value of the education of those who did graduate. Those closures led President Barack Obama’s Education Department to strip ACICS’ powers in 2016.
After a federal court decision, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and President Donald Trump's administration reinstated the accrediting agency. By that point, it had lost dozens of colleges and their membership fees. It needed new members, and fast.
I have alway suspected that the drive for "accountability" was actually an attempt to lower standards so as to allow For Profit On-Line Universities [youtube.com] to claim accreditation. Seriously, HOWARD is not a threat! Panera Bread!
How did Reagan get accredited?
ACICS has accredited 63 institutions, mostly for-profit universities that offer less-than-four-year degree programs or certificates. Those institutions’ focuses range from veterinary care to massage therapy to flight schools. Some even have international locations.The agency’s members in 2016 numbered 290.
Critics of the agency have warned the pressure to add members could lead ACICS to accredit low-performing institutions.
It took a USA TODAY reporter a few hours to find that Reagan National does not appear to be functioning at present.
For an institution of Higher Education, that is pretty much the death knell. USA Today doxxes you. And they used the name of one of our least intellectual Presidents, well, besides Dubya and Stupid. Stupid45. At least Reagan National University is not as explicit a fraud as Trump University, or, is it? Secretary of Education? Or Something Else? Impeachment also applies to cabinet positions. High Crimes and fake accreditation, all over the place here.
