Diploma Mills

I thought it was very interesting when Dr. Harrold spoke about diploma mills during his talk on Tuesday. I found an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education that addressed some of that issue. The article, Inspector General Warns Accreditor Over Online College, Raising Fears Among For-Profit Institutions (2009) indicated the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association was in trouble for accrediting a college that was questionable. I took in interest in this as the HLC of the NCA is our accrediting agency. It appeared the American InterContinental University was being scrutinized for the way they count their credit hours and program length. The IG of the Dept. of Education recommended the "limiting, suspending, or terminating" of the organization. This could be a huge issue, as this all pertains how online credit hours are measured. Since most colleges now have extensive distance-learning programs, it will be interesting to see how it all turns out. The for-profit higher education sectors would be most impacted, as nearly all of them seek their accreditation through HLC. The OIG is cracking down on those accreditating agencies that appear to be lax in their accreditation process. As Dr. Harrold mentioned the for-profit organizations will need to reconsider their standards and how they assess their programs.