A WORD ON ACCREDITATION

Is IUE Accredited? Yes, the IUE is fully accredited by the Commission on Higher Education (CHE), a division of the World Association of Visioneers & Entreprenologists (WAVE), a not-for-profit accrediting and certifying body, founded in the State of Hawaii in 1991.

Is CHE recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as an accrediting commission?

NO! IT IS NOT A GOVERNMENT RECOGNIZED ACCREDITING BODY

WAVE’s Commission on Higher Education (CHE) is not recognized by the U.S. Department of Education nor has it ever applied for recognition. We encourage you to contact us to learn why.

Accreditation, as we know it today, was instituted by the Federal Government to allow students to apply for federally insured education loans, making it easier for them to bear the cost of the continually rising expense of a higher education.

Accreditation, within the United States today, assures uniformity in that every institution of higher learning offers essentially the same courses, programs and credentials, and that the system and structure is virtually identical in overall presentation. The system not only seeks conformity, it demands it!

So, if we were to accept the accreditation of a Department of Education recognized regional or specialized accrediting commission, we would be unable to offer anything different and would, by default, become one of the thousands of schools, colleges and universities that dot the global education landscape. The world does not need another cookie-cutter institution of higher learning. The nearly 50% dropout rate proves that. On the contrary, what it so badly needed is the kind of institution that we are and have always been - and hundreds, if not thousands, many more like it.

SECTION 1

Why Accreditation and Where Did It Come From?

The prevailing belief regarding accreditation of institutions of higher learning, as it is accepted today, is that it was created and implemented for the following reasons:

It grants accountable standing to all schools, colleges and universities through the implementation of an established and accepted process that is regularly administered to ensure rigid compliance to the accrediting body’s standards, and

To assure students, applying student and/or those paying for higher education programs that adopted and enforced standards ensure high quality, practical, and relevant programs.

Accreditation as we know it today began with the founding of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges in 1885. Over the next 75 years the growth and acceptance of accreditation, as a useful process, was unremarkable at best.

It eventually gained some traction and a degree of credibility when Harvard -pursued by the NEASC to become accredited for nearly 60 years - finally accepted accreditation as World War II was drawing to a close around 1944-45.

To help absorb returning veterans unable to find work, the federal government developed a program, later called the GI Bill, allowing veterans to apply for benefits, including one to help defray the cost of a higher education, making that a viable option. From that point on, the federal government played a steady if slightly increasing role in higher education accreditation.

In 1952, for example, there was the reauthorization of the GI Bill for Korean War Veterans. The original GI Bill legislation had stimulated the establishment of a number of new colleges and universities to accommodate the influx of these new students.

Over the next few years, the rising cost of education eventually compelled the government to broaden the legislation, eventually offering federally insured education based loans and grants to graduating secondary school students considering higher education as an alternative to seeking employment right away. Passage of this legislation prompted government to take an increasing interest and role they played in the accreditation process.

With the growing popularity of government insured loans and outright grants, the federal government required the inclusion of certain rules and regulations in the accreditation process to create growing assurance that it could reasonably expect repayment of loans by those students to whom financial assistance was granted. The various regional and national commissions readily adopted and included them in the overall process because it was required if they were to be recognized by the DOE which naturally became the oversight organization.

What one should take away from this narrative, so far, is that government oversight of accreditation commissions has absolutely nothing to do with program quality, institutional credibility, institutional viability or the transfer of earned credits between institutions. It is, quite simply, about controlling the financial resources set aside for and spent on higher education.

It comes down to this: accreditation, as we know it today, was developed to allow students to apply for federally insured education loans, making it easier for them to bear the cost of the continually rising expense of a higher education. It has gained acceptance, largely because few – if any – people understand why the process was recognized, monitored and sanctioned by federal/national governments around the world.

SECTION 2

Standard Accreditation Neutralizes the New and Different

As we move on, please note that there is a popular aphorism that says something to the effect … If you want to truly understand what is going on and why ... follow the money trail.

As far as accreditation and how it impacts something like inter-institution credit transfer is concerned, this may help you understand the whole procedural issue a little better. Under the current system, every college has the right to set standards and refuse to accept transfer credits. If, however, a student has gone to a school that is only nationally accredited and not regionally accredited, it may be particularly difficult to transfer credits - or even credit for a degree earned - if he or she then applies to a regionally accredited college. Sound a little confusing? Welcome to the club!

One of the primary purposes of accreditation is to reduce and/or nullify the entrance of potential competitors into the higher education arena. If there is one thing that the current field of conventional institutions of higher learning do not want, it is additional competition. Accreditation today, is not an inclusionary system, but an exclusionary one. Among other things it also mandates that one major benefit to both the government and already accredited school, colleges and universities – CONFORMITY.

Based upon this fact, we know that accreditation granted by any of the six regional commissions and/or that of any of the dozens of specialized accrediting commissions – all those recognized by the United States Department of Education – the end result of what can only be described as obligatory compliance, means that every institution must offer programs that put accredited institutions in lock-step. More succinctly – every institution must offer the same kinds of programs using identical teaching/learning and learning assessment methodology.

The world does not neither needs another cookie-cutter school, college or university, nor does the existing body of currently recognized institutions of higher learning want one.

REALITY: DOE sanctioned accreditation mandates that every school, college or university comply with standard policies, which only recognize the rote learning model. Real-world, practical, hands-on skills assessment is not condoned without a rote-based examination to tie everything together. CHE will, under varying circumstances, accept rote learning and assessment methodologies, but it also accepts other learning and assessment approaches alternatively.

REALITY: CHE accreditation is non-restrictive, allowing unconventional procedures and processes if they are deemed to work or have a reasonable expectation of working. The various skills that come into play in something as changeable and variable as entrepreneurship and entreprenology, for example, must unencumbered academically, to avoid creating a watered-down version of the subject simply to meet arbitrary limitations and restrictions imposed by even the most well-intentioned of bureaucracies.

SECTION 3

Government Oversight & Regulation Subdues Creativity

You may already know that many governments – no matter how unintentional – tend to suppress creativity at a very early age. Sir Ken Robinson - a noted education expert and world-renowned expert on the subject – found, through his research, that fully 95% to 98% of all children entering the formal education environment, are highly creative. Continuing research led to discovering how – as children moved through the educational system – their initial creativity adapted. The expectation was that creativity should have increased, even if only slightly.

FACT: Without exception, at some point between induction into the system, and the fifth or sixth year of formal education, the creativity was dramatically lower. In essence, the system had managed to educate creativity out of them. This phenomenon persisted throughout their formal education and beyond.

Accreditation is the instrument that is used to initiate, drive and maintain conformity. Creativity and innovative predispositions are deemed, for the most part, disruptive and not to be encouraged, particularly regarding higher education.

SECTION 4

Standard Accreditation Impels Increasing Costs

Have you ever found yourself asking the question, “Why is a college education so expensive these days? The obvious answers to that question are:

• The increasing cost of maintaining a campus,

• The increasing cost of maintaining, updating and expanding facilities,

• The increasing cost of hiring, paying and providing benefits for a full-time, tenured faculty.

Education, in and of itself, is not or should not be as expensive as it is. Obviously, the items above cost a great deal of money. The fact of the matter is, none of the listed items have much relevance when it comes to learning. The tuition you pay must, in turn, pay for all the above expenditures and one other major cost you do not hear about – the cost of accreditation.

Accreditation today literally determines:

• what you learn

• how it must be taught,

• how you – as a student – are to be tested and how often, and

• how many weeks, months and/or years it will take you to learn what you signed up to learn

More than that … accreditation costs money … a lot of money.

SECTION 5

Government Loans = You Begin Your Career in Debt

The more you think about it, the more you’ll realize that government loans amount to little more than making it easy for you to create a substantial liability for the graduate. You cannot escape your indebtedness. You can never declare bankruptcy and free yourself from the obligation. If government, along with accredited institutions of higher learning, worked harder to control the costs associated with higher education – costs that can and should be controlled – then you, as a student, would not have to make a decision that has the potential to put you in debt before you even know what it is you want to do with the balance of your life.

Summary

After surveying students from many mainstream, accredited, cookie-cutter institutions, we confirmed one tragic fact — getting a degree from an accredited traditional or conventional institution of higher learning will not guarantee you a job. In fact, most students were graduating with substantial debt, a piece of paper or parchment that validates an unwarranted expense for something that you could have obtained in less time and for a much smaller investment in your future. The most disconcerting fact is … students graduating today is … there is little hope of a brighter future on the horizon.

We looked at some of the best-known universities in the world, and learned – beyond a reasonable doubt – that their average graduate was successful simply because he or she could afford to attend such a school in the first place.

REALITY: A Harvard law student successfully completes their program. He or she knows they have a substantially better chance of landing a great job with a high-powered law firm than a student who was an equally successful law graduate from the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), even though the programs they each took, were virtually identical.

Why? Because Harvard is far better known and is believed to produce superior graduates. Harvard is, therefore, more highly recruited than UNLV. The other thing we know is, the tuition and fees at Harvard far greater than that of UNLV or most any other institution of higher learning in the United States … simply because it is Harvard.

A FINAL NOTE: Earning credits or a degree from a school, college, university or other Institution of Higher Learning that is accredited by an accrediting body recognized by The U.S. Department of Education, does not carry with it the assurance that similarly accredited schools, colleges, universities and institutions of higher learning - even those accredited by the same accrediting body -will accept earned credit hours as Transfer Credits, Courses and/or Degrees. The decision to accept or reject Transfer Credits, Courses and/or Degrees is solely at the discretion of the institution to which application for transfer or continuation of education is made.

Schools, Colleges, Universities and Institutions of Higher Learning must be accredited by an accrediting body recognized by The U.S. Department of Education if and only if the Institution Participates in programs offering federally guaranteed Education based grants, loans and/or Funding. Neither Federal Grants nor federally insured student funding of any kind is available to students who are foreign nationals at the time of registration.

Accreditation by a recognized accrediting body is not and cannot be construed as certification, endorsement or validation of institutional or program quality by The United States Department of Education.