DSU audit suggests diploma mill
February 10, 2012 at 3:10 pm in Grand Forks Herald
Findings include foreign students earning degrees without meeting requirements,/b>Dickinson State University is still evaluating which employees were involved with violating policies that resulted in hundreds of international students not meeting minimum admission requirements, lacking official transcripts and receiving unearned degrees. Continue Reading
If the SBHE wasn’t so preoccupied with cartoons & advertising slogans maybe they could spend a little more time overseeing the institutions under their control. First Chapman & NDSU & now this.
Makes me proud that the only time ND universities are in the national news (CNN, MSNBC) it is for racist logos & diploma mills. This is not a good week for ND
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WTF Flying Nurse?
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Frustration Skate. Lots and lots of frustration. I love UND. It is hands down the best school I have ever attended, and I have attended a few. You would never know that by looking at the news.
MSNBC runs a headline about diploma mills while CNN has a story about the continuing controversy and how it is negatively affecting the schools image.
UND has one of the top rated flight schools in the country. It has programs and degrees no one else can match. Unfortunately, at last count a 4 year degree and all of your ratings is going to cost you $110,000 – $120,000 (those numbers come from UND).
If I was a parent and trying to decide between Embry Riddle ($130,000) or Purdue ($110,000) or one of the smaller community college flight programs and UND, and all I hear about is distractions and fiscal mismanagement, do you think I am going to drop a single families home worth of change to go there?
We need to get our house in order and we need to do it soon. In case you haven’t noticed, we do a tremendous amount of flight training for Chinese students. Is that contract now in danger because of DSU?
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This is a result when institutions adopt a business model wherein generating revenue streams becomes the priority. Education and admission standards all get dumped. You spiral up enrollment and tuition, and lower overhead by having TAs and adjuncts teach 70% of the courses. This is not unique to DSU; it’s at all NDUS schools and, indeed, in most public universities across the country.
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This is so true. I have a niece attending a University out of state. She has met her professor once in the last 6 months. All of her classes and coursework is handled by the TA that was assigned. An assumption of mine is that her professors real job is to write papers, research etc in order to bring government research funds into the institution. My guess is that it is the same within our state borders as well, maybe not to the same degree…
My question is, when did it become a professors responsibility to be an income generation machine vs an educator? And if they aren’t an educator why do we have a tenure system?
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Most people don’t understand what a racket higher ed is. The group with the biggest salaries—administrators and coaches—never set foot in a classroom. Presidents are nothing more than cheerleaders and fundraisers. Most have lapdogs that handle damage control while they hide under their desks. Nationwide, 70% of the teaching staffs are TAs and adjuncts. At some schools, undergrads never see a faculty member in four years, except in huge lecture sections.
The question is: Is it better to pay a bundle and go to a private 4-year college, where there are no grad programs and thus no TAs, but you get faculty at the first year, or spend less at a big public university where over 50% of the students take 6 years to graduate?
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At the University of Arizona (where I started my graduate career before coming back to UND) we called it UofA, Inc.
The history department was 3 professors short, and had been for years. There were no new hires on the horizon because all new faculty dollars were being spent on the space program (The Mars lander was made in part at UofA and several of the professors have major multimillion dollar NASA grants. UofA also makes the giant parabolic mirrors used in giant telescopes.).
The message was loud and clear, if you do not have a product to sell, do not expect any help.
In addition to the lack of resources, tuition increased over 25% in two years. I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I do know when to hit the eject button.
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My comments are being removed as fast as I can type them.
There is NO penalty too severe for what has happened at Dickinson U.
We need to clean house, and there should be lots of people who knew what was going on, but did not speak out, going to prison.
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I think most colleges and Universities are operating as diploma mills. The college bound students of today need to be very practical with choosing their careers. I will not start belittling useless diplomas, but most of us know they exist.
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