By Professor Doom
With all the
Progressive silliness on campus today, it’s easy to miss a big underlying
cause: a broken accreditation system.
For newcomers, a
quick primer on accreditation:
Scholars came
together to share information, and these gatherings turned into universities,
with a mission of education: either humanity (by researching new knowledge) or
of humans (by the teaching of that knowledge). As these institutions became formalized,
scholars met with other institutions to learn from each other on how best to
run a university. These meetings became established in the US in the 19th
century, a time when travel and communication weren’t nearly so trivial as
today; it’s why we have regional
accreditation, despite the fact that this is an outdated monopoly system
(if “Bob’s SKool of Degree Grantin’ “ opened up across the street from Harvard,
it would be every bit as legitimate as Harvard, since both have the same
accreditor).
Accreditation was
intended to be a good faith system for universities interested in improving
themselves. The whole accreditation system is based on good faith, and so
institutions always self-report their own legitimacy. When there was no money
involved, and accreditation was voluntary, this was fine, but the student loan
scam only provides money to accredited schools…and accreditation was never
designed to deal with the inevitable corruption that comes with billions of
dollars.
UNC really
highlighted how broken accreditation is. UNC, for nearly 20 years, ran
wholesale fake courses in their African Studies Department; time and again
faculty complained about the fraud, but UNC administrators investigated
themselves and cleared themselves of wrongdoing, time and again. After so many
years and thousands of students, the evidence was overwhelming to the point
that the accreditor finally noticed.
The penalty? 1
year of probation where UNC would have to stop committing fraud. Additionally,
UNC would have to prove to UNC that UNC was no longer committing fraud, and
then UNC would report to the accreditor that it had investigated itself, and
shown it wasn’t committing fraud anymore. And, that 1 year is up. All that
unpleasantness is just a distant memory now.
Seriously, we
really need to re-examine whether the assumption of good faith in accreditation
is such a good idea, and whether the lack of penalties for violation of
accreditation really makes sense with billions of dollars on the line. Part of
the reason why UNC’s penalty for 20 years of fraud where they actively lied to
accreditors time and time again was so light is because accreditation doesn’t
stipulate any penalties—good faith, you see, why should there be
penalties when the institution means well, right?
I’ve been at a
fake school where acts of academic fraud were an everyday occurrence. I
honestly thought the school was defrauding accreditation but…the way how
accrediting rules are written, the school can do whatever it wants as long as
admin says it means well. It’s nuts.
Anyway, after the
systematic pattern of fraud was simply too well documented to deny, SACS (the
accreditor) finally took action:
The
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will not lose accreditation over
the academic fraud that occurred there, but it will face one year of probation,
the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges
announced Thursday. In October, the university released a detailed report about
widespread and long-lasting academic fraud at the university. For 20 years,
some employees at the university knowingly steered about 1,500 athletes toward
no-show courses that never met and were not taught by any faculty members, and
in which the only work required was a single research paper that received a
high grade no matter the content.
--one of the many lies admin told, and passed on here,
was that the fraud only affected athletes…or didn’t affect athletes, as admin
changed their tune depending on what spin they thought might work best. In any
event, over 3000 students, many non-athletes, took these fake courses.
With
punishment meted out at long last, admin gladly accepted this “huge” penalty:
"The
commission’s decision is the next step -- an expected consequence -- in
Carolina’s tireless efforts to ensure integrity in everything we do and that
the past irregularities are not allowed to recur," Carol Folt, UNC's
chancellor, said in a statement.
Hey, Carol’s
title isn’t twice as long as her name…good for her. Still, I have to laugh at
the “tireless efforts” phrase. Admin worked tirelessly to cover up this fraud,
destroying the careers of whistleblowers and flat out lying in writing to SACS
repeatedly. I really feel the need to point out that not a single administrator
lost their job over facilitating this fraud…not even one. Tireless, they say.
The complete
lack of firings is a detail that requires some reading between the lines. The
gentle reader should understand that a fired administrator would have nothing
to lose by testifying against UNC, perhaps even providing evidence and a
detailed account of exactly how deep the fraud went, or is still ongoing.
So, yes, the
complete lack of firings is strong evidence of deep systematic corruption at
UNC, corruption that, since all the same administrators are there, could easily
still exist. But I’m sure good faith will be enough to protect from that.
As an added
bonus, more administrators were hired to deal with the probation, with
documenting that UNC wasn’t doing wrong any more. It’s a substantial document:
In January,
UNC submitted a 200-page report to the accrediting body detailing the steps it
has taken since the scandal came to light. The university will have to submit a
similar update after the probationary period.
So, they have to
write a page a day, more or less. They probably opened up a whole new fiefdom
with at least half a dozen vice presidents, each paid 6 figures a year…to write
a page a day. I do so love sites that allow comments, so that readers can give
a few clarifications to how ridiculous this all is:
Imagine you
forged documents for years and your punishment was "send documents to
prove you stopped."
While
brief, this comment pretty much sums it all up. For years, UNC submitted
fraudulent documents telling SACS how legitimate UNC was. After finally being
caught out, UNC’s punishment is, indeed, to submit another document telling
SACS that UNC is legitimate. Good faith, you see.
I’m not a bad
person, I generally think the best of people, but I assure the gentle reader
that UNC isn’t remotely the only school doing this. The for-profits receive
condemnation for their frauds, but the only difference is the for-profit
schools are actually being investigated by (more) legitimate bodies than
accreditors. The only reason frauds at non-profits (and particularly state
schools) are not being regularly exposed and shown to be massive is because
there is no legitimate entity to do such an investigation. They’re fully
accredited after all, and…good faith!
It’s weird how so
often I disagree with an article’s coverage, but generally don’t have a problem
with the comments (ignoring the very brief comments). A rare comment I take
issue with:
About time, but I'm not sure probation is sufficient. I know of schools
that have been closed for less. I don't care if this is UNC--this violation is
pretty serious. There need to be more than cosmetic changes.
Schools have
been closed for less? When and where? Outside of a few for-profits that were
shut down by accreditation (more accurately, the Feds shut them down for wildly
blatant fraud, and accreditation
lamely decided after the fact that the schools should be shut down), I’ve
seen perhaps one other school…but that school was closing anyway. I’ve never
seen a state school shut down by accreditation, but then I’ve never seen one
realistically investigated. Good faith!
One year of
probation for 20 years of unethical behavior. I'm sure some of the NCAA schools
who lost scholarships and were not allowed post season play would love that
kind of punishment.
Ultimately, this
is why the fraud at UNC was, eventually, caught: it was simply too blatant for
the other sportsball institutions to overlook. UNC’s fraud was helping UNC win
games, and that was cutting into the sportsball wins at the other schools. But
this issue goes far deeper than sportsball, even as I begrudgingly yield my
gratitude to college sportsball for its help in revealing this fraud.
Does anyone not
see that this light penalty will motivate other schools, especially
sportsball-fanatic schools, to double down on the fraud?
The completely
blind and deaf accreditor who overlooked the decades of systematic fraud and
lies of UNC-Chapel Hill? If you open a school in North Carolina, you’ll have to
use that same accreditor. Every school in Florida, in Louisiana, in Georgia, or
anyplace south of UNC also has no choice but to use this fake accreditor.
Keep that in mind:
every school that uses SACS could just as easily run a 20 year fraud, and now
knows that the penalty for it will be a year of probation. Gee, how do parents
feel about sending their kids to one of these schools? Just assume good faith
by the school, you’ll be fine. I guess.
Really?
It's time for SACS to be sacked. Every single institution that has worked hard
to earn its accreditation from SACS should sue for fraud over this because any
accreditation it grants is meaningless. Talk about an accrediting agency being
a discredit to the profession! If UNC's 20 years of institutionalized fraud
doesn't merit the permanent loss of accreditation, then nothing does.
And so every degree from a SACS-accredited
school should not even mention it came from an accredited school because the
accreditation means nothing. When you consider that Penn State’s accreditor
likewise couldn’t possibly know what’s going on in the showers (because it
could only hear about such incidents from the administrators—good faith!), it’s
not much of a stretch to wonder if perhaps no accreditors are doing much of a job.
We’ll just have
to hope good faith is good enough. Too bad you can’t pay tuition with good
faith, eh?
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