Making The Grades
May 27, 2016 8:27 AM Subscribe
How one California university faked students’ scores, skated by immigration authorities — and made a fortune in the process. Buzzfeed News covers allegations of grade faking (and more) at Northwestern Polytechnic University.
Hmmmm. In this case, "non-profit" would seem to be, like "inflammable," something that means the opposite of what a rational person would think.
Who accredits the accredditors, one might ask.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:51 AM on May 27, 2016 [2 favorites]
Who accredits the accredditors, one might ask.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:51 AM on May 27, 2016 [2 favorites]
Oh man, of course ACICS is their accreditor.
posted by Think_Long at 8:53 AM on May 27, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Think_Long at 8:53 AM on May 27, 2016 [2 favorites]
Accreditation is a fake in our country. Who accredits? Well we have regional accrediting groups, and they are overseen by the national accrediting group: the Dept of Education, and that group acts like the regionals: if we remove accreditation we might be sued for being subjective so never remove accreditation unless there is a financial issue that is causing a school to go bankrupt. The Dept of Ed, overseeing regionals, is left with this: if we don't accredit a group who will do the accrediting for that region? Within disciplines, more controls, so Business, Law schools etc have stricter accrediting but also make sure salaries and work conditions "professional." Regional accrediting groups send members from various schools to visit other schools, and one hand washes the other, ie, you be nice to my school because I will be visiting yours soon.
Fearing lawsuits, use the ultimate if meaningless weapon: We put you on probation till we visit you again to check to see if changes made. Not made? We keep you on probation till next visit.
posted by Postroad at 9:54 AM on May 27, 2016 [4 favorites]
Fearing lawsuits, use the ultimate if meaningless weapon: We put you on probation till we visit you again to check to see if changes made. Not made? We keep you on probation till next visit.
posted by Postroad at 9:54 AM on May 27, 2016 [4 favorites]
Any idea what the tuition was and if the visa the student has would be on a path to residency? Morals aside, if you have decent dev skills and a job lined up in the valley, does this workout worthwhile? Cheaper than H1B and without being tied to employer?
posted by Damienmce at 12:02 PM on May 27, 2016
posted by Damienmce at 12:02 PM on May 27, 2016
Munesh Khatri, a recent graduate, got his second American master’s degree from NPU, after graduating from Wichita State with a master’s in economics. He’s now studying at Silicon Valley University, another Bay Area school with 90% foreign students, working toward what will be his fourth master’s degree — he got his first in Pakistan.
I don't understand what's going on here.
posted by bq at 12:25 PM on May 27, 2016
I don't understand what's going on here.
posted by bq at 12:25 PM on May 27, 2016
The article says that tuition is about 12k for a year (so extremely inexpensive for an international student), plus they get a credit for recruiting other students. The student visa (F-1) is not a path to residency, USCIS explicitly says "You must maintain a residence abroad which you have no intention of giving up". My understanding is these students are generally using the F-1 to get a foot in the US to pursue job leads until they can interview and secure an H1B. Hence the four master's degrees.
posted by Think_Long at 12:34 PM on May 27, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Think_Long at 12:34 PM on May 27, 2016 [3 favorites]
I don't understand what's going on here.
Munesh Khatari is hungry to learn and interested in many things. At least, that's why I've been to grad school four times.
posted by not that girl at 1:55 PM on May 27, 2016
Munesh Khatari is hungry to learn and interested in many things. At least, that's why I've been to grad school four times.
posted by not that girl at 1:55 PM on May 27, 2016
Oh man, I went searching LinkedIn for the university. NPU's Dean of Engineering popped up, and the guy must have nothing worth doing right now, because I just got a fairly personalized connection invite just from browsing his page.
posted by pwnguin at 2:24 PM on May 27, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by pwnguin at 2:24 PM on May 27, 2016 [1 favorite]
I have seen a lot of fun things today regarding academic integrity (i.e. not having any) and foreign students cheating to get into college. WHEE! But seriously, this was the worst of the bunch. Just wow. If I forwarded this to the person ranting to me about academic integrity today I think she'd start choking.
Foreign students are just treated as amazing cash cows these days. Who cares if they can speak English or not? Who cares if they can comprehend anything said to them in class or out of it so they can actually not flunk classes? Who cares about actually educating them? Just give us the damn money, honey! But this school is literally The Worst. Definitely the most blatant about it, anyway. They put on an entire fake village worth of school to get accreditation? WOW.
I would love to rant on this topic so bad, but I can't risk it.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:24 PM on May 27, 2016 [1 favorite]
Foreign students are just treated as amazing cash cows these days. Who cares if they can speak English or not? Who cares if they can comprehend anything said to them in class or out of it so they can actually not flunk classes? Who cares about actually educating them? Just give us the damn money, honey! But this school is literally The Worst. Definitely the most blatant about it, anyway. They put on an entire fake village worth of school to get accreditation? WOW.
I would love to rant on this topic so bad, but I can't risk it.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:24 PM on May 27, 2016 [1 favorite]
Ohhhh my, I checked more articles that one of the writers has written:
Senator Demands “Immediate Action” On “No-Good” College Accreditors Already!
University Of California Lowered Standards To Admit Out-Of-State Students
The Government Set Up A Fake University To Catch Visa Fraudsters
Students At Fake University Say They Are “Victims” Of Government Sting
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:43 PM on May 27, 2016 [1 favorite]
Senator Demands “Immediate Action” On “No-Good” College Accreditors Already!
University Of California Lowered Standards To Admit Out-Of-State Students
The Government Set Up A Fake University To Catch Visa Fraudsters
Students At Fake University Say They Are “Victims” Of Government Sting
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:43 PM on May 27, 2016 [1 favorite]
Stories like this always make me sad, just like the "If I Only Had a Brain" University of Phoenix ads. There are excellent, low cost public colleges and universities with great remedial and non-native speaker programs that could be helping these students who legitimately want an education but can't get into or afford bigger name schools. But because these schools you've never heard of spend their money on education, not recruiters or advertising, students never even know that real, quality options exist.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:18 AM on May 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 4:18 AM on May 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
As an international student twice over, this upsets me, mostly because instead of using this as an opportunity to examine immigration systems and see how international students are exploited in their efforts to lead a better life, these students get punished (see the stings) AND local students resent them for "buying their way in" and "not being legitimate".
It's hard enough being accepted as an international student the legit way, both in enrollment and when you're at school proper, and there is nothing you can do to advocate for your rights because it could mean the end of your visa. (My grad school nearly screwed me over because they were slow in fixing a registration error and I was not allowed to have a part-time schedule. Once it got fixed the school admin scolded ME for being slow, even though the delay was entirely because of my faculty head.)
We're cash cows indeed, and we're maligned as sellouts for not doing enough to buck the system. Even though bucking the system results in major negative consequences without any positive change and none of the people telling us to act different will actually help us.
posted by divabat at 11:38 PM on May 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
It's hard enough being accepted as an international student the legit way, both in enrollment and when you're at school proper, and there is nothing you can do to advocate for your rights because it could mean the end of your visa. (My grad school nearly screwed me over because they were slow in fixing a registration error and I was not allowed to have a part-time schedule. Once it got fixed the school admin scolded ME for being slow, even though the delay was entirely because of my faculty head.)
We're cash cows indeed, and we're maligned as sellouts for not doing enough to buck the system. Even though bucking the system results in major negative consequences without any positive change and none of the people telling us to act different will actually help us.
posted by divabat at 11:38 PM on May 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
Ok, are the Hsiehs really Chinese, or are they Taiwanese? Because "Hsieh" tends to be a Taiwanese last name, not a Chinese last name. Buzzfeed claims they're Chinese - how do they know? Or is Buzzfeed conflating the two?
posted by aielen at 1:44 AM on May 29, 2016
posted by aielen at 1:44 AM on May 29, 2016
It kind of bothers me that in an article that claims to be some truthful expose of a university's misdeeds, they can't even get the nationality/ethnicity of the university president right. Almost as if they're just too eager to start tapping in to all kinds of stereotypes revolving around certain races/ethnic groups in relation to being "cash cow" students or "lying, cheating educators" etc.
posted by aielen at 1:48 AM on May 29, 2016
posted by aielen at 1:48 AM on May 29, 2016
aielen: Taiwanese Chinese? I know of other non-Taiwanese Chinese with that last name (I think it's fairly common in Singapore) and they probably mean Chinese in ethnicity not nationality.
posted by divabat at 1:51 AM on May 29, 2016
posted by divabat at 1:51 AM on May 29, 2016
Uh. No, Hsieh isn't fairly common in Singapore; if it's spelt that way it usually has Taiwanese roots. (See this link for the longer explanation.)
And there is (at least to Taiwanese people in general...) a significant difference between calling someone Taiwanese and calling someone Chinese. In many cases it's considered kinda disrespectful to call a Taiwanese, a Chinese. Regardless of what they meant, it dismisses and ignores the difference between Taiwanese and Chinese people, and this is a pretty sensitive issue for both sides, actually. (In this sense - doesn't matter if the reference was to "ethnicity" or "nationality".)
It's similar to calling a Singaporean a Malaysian since we all came from the same country before 1965, amirite.
(I also googled the Hsiehs in this case - they are indeed a Taiwanese family. Not Chinese. (Although I suppose some Chinese politicians would be very happy for others to consider Taiwanese as Chinese... lol.))
posted by aielen at 6:20 AM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]
And there is (at least to Taiwanese people in general...) a significant difference between calling someone Taiwanese and calling someone Chinese. In many cases it's considered kinda disrespectful to call a Taiwanese, a Chinese. Regardless of what they meant, it dismisses and ignores the difference between Taiwanese and Chinese people, and this is a pretty sensitive issue for both sides, actually. (In this sense - doesn't matter if the reference was to "ethnicity" or "nationality".)
It's similar to calling a Singaporean a Malaysian since we all came from the same country before 1965, amirite.
(I also googled the Hsiehs in this case - they are indeed a Taiwanese family. Not Chinese. (Although I suppose some Chinese politicians would be very happy for others to consider Taiwanese as Chinese... lol.))
posted by aielen at 6:20 AM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]
US Dept. of Education panel recommends dropping its recognition of ACICS, the accreditor for Northwestern Polytechnic.
posted by Johnny Assay at 5:22 AM on June 16, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Johnny Assay at 5:22 AM on June 16, 2016 [2 favorites]
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posted by mistersquid at 8:48 AM on May 27, 2016 [1 favorite]