So I was clicking away, and found myself at the website of the American Military University.
Is this legit? Are they sufficiently accredited or is this another diploma mill?
WRS
If ou look at the hotlinks on the left side of the page, the second one down was
Admission’s Criteria (sic). No bona fide academic institution would make that mistake. Also, accreditation in WV in under the auspices of the North Central Association. I saw no claims of NCA blessing.
No discussion of ROTC programs.
My best guess is diploma mill.
According to the homepage and (very important) cross-checked at the forums at www.degreeinfo.com (highly reccommended for anyone considering distance-education, they’re hard-ass on diploma mills), American Military U. is just one unit of the APUS.edu school system, who have a DETC (Distance Education and Training Council) accreditation. That is which is usually granted to postsecondary “technical” schools that do distance-ed. The the school system is a candidate for “Regional Accreditation” through the North Central Association as of this year (vunderbob, AMU does have TWO news blurbs with links about NCA accreditation candidacy status in their home page, as of the time I write this this). “RA” is the condition given to recognized academic postsecondary institutions by consortia of established schools as a self-regulating system for higher education in the USA.
Until the RA candidacy goes through (2006 at best), APUS students still face a bitch of a time getting their credits/quarter hours and grades recognized for transfer to RA institutions, or applying to RA graduate/professional schools using their APUS degree and GPA – unless the course in question were under some sort of cooperative program with an RA institution (which would count as credits or degrees from the accredited school, so why not skip the middleman? More on that later). And before this year, they would have faced a herculean bitch mother of a time getting those credits and grades even looked at by Establishment Academia.
Being a DETC school, they’re considered a legit “higher” technical school and their programs are eligible for federal education money such as the GI Bill; their accumulated credits degrees are recognized by the military for meeting promotion and assignment minimums for “education”; and they can offer “certificates” in a particular specialty. That second item is the key one – the modern US military does count “education” at the time of promotions, billetings,and so on. A servicemember motivated to self-improvement will score points above an equally-performing one who is yet content to stay at the HS-diploma plateau.
Candidacy, BTW, is no guarantee of Accreditation, and it usually involves tightening up curricular requirements and increasing rigor in the classroom, as well as ratcheting up the academic level of the faculty. You can stay a “candidate” a long time. In brief, right now in the eyes of Establishment Academia this is a very fancy trade school, and if it flies straight they may allow it to have its own ivory tower some time in the next couple of years.
Seeing how there are regularly-accredited state and private schools that have agreements with DANTES, the CCAF, and the other distance-continuing-education programs within the Armed Forces (and regularly-accredited schools such as NY’s Excelsior College, Conecticut’s Charter Oak State C., and NJ’s Thomas Edison State C., that offer similar programs to civilians), what are the main “advantages” of APUS types of programs?
(a) Lower or no out-of-pocket expenditure; (b) they may be more generous in granting degree credit based on your technical specialty training and even your military-specific training; © related to b, you may finish faster; (d) related to b and c, many servicemembers need to check off an “education” requirement in order to move on with their careers, and they may have no intention/expectation to proceed to a civilian position in a profession that mandates a fully accredited degree. E.g. if I’m looking to hire someone to manage maintenance for a fleet of trucks, I’ll look very favorably at the just-retired MSgt who just came off of doing the same for the 1st. Cav., regardless of whether he even HAS a BA at all, so I need not care as long as he did work for it and not buy it from an e-mail spam. If Sarge’s smart, however, he will make sure as many of his DETC credits as possible were covered by a coop program with an RA school, or can be made “equivalent” (e.g. thru Excelsior), and make that move ASAP so that he gets the RA stamp of approval on his studies, in case he ever feels like applying to the MBA course at the local State U.
You must have dug a lot harder than I did. My hat’s off to you.
I still smell a rat, however.
Oh, yeah, and about those education requirements for advancement within the military:
For almost all career paths in the US military (with exceptions IIRC of some tracks in the Navy/CG) these days you have to have a properly accredited degree under your belt (Academy, USUHS, ROTC, or on your own) before you become a Commissioned Officer.