Michael & Debi Pearl's "College" Closed

[NoneandDoneinCali]

Okay, I can't let this go LOL

So he bills himself as "Dr. Michael K. Clifford," but according to Wikipedia (I know, don't shoot me), "[t]hough Clifford never attended college, he is the recipient of several honorary doctorates." I think it's considered bad form, outside of the Colbert Report, to refer to yourself as "Doctor" when that doctorate is honorary. At least Dr. Bill Gothard has a doctorate from a diploma mill. Come on, Michael, step it up, man.

I had to jump ahead and quote you! I noticed that too! I'll be damned if I call someone with only honorary "degrees" Doctor. And college is SUPPOSED TO BE EXCLUSIVE. Every single person on this planet is NOT CAPABLE OF OR QUALIFIED FOR COLLEGE. That's not a dig at people that don't go, I am highly educated but a SHITTY bartender ( I have worked as one for 2 restaurants, and my shifts eventually dwindled to nothing at both places. I'm clumsy and scatterbrained). Not everyone is cut out to tend bar or wait tables. Sorry (not sorry), but a degree should mean something. Maybe not that you're smarter (although it doesn't hurt), but that you were also more motivated, determined, and worked harder at it. I have a master's degree from a small, state program, and I sacrificed two years of my LIFE to get it. I don't want to share that with someone who's never seen the inside of a classroom, or with someone who went to an institution with a 100% acceptance rate. THIS is part of what's wrong with the American higher education system - thinking every single person is entitled to a 4 year degree! Everyone deserves an opportunity to get into college. Not everyone will make the cut. Not every dedicated football player makes the NFL either.

Thank you for indulging me!

/rant over

[hoipolloi]

Dr. Clifford is to education what Jonathan Niednagel is to neurology & psychology.

One of the reasons Congress finally cracked down on these scum is because they especially preyed on veterans with the GI Bill benefits. There are some sad & outrageous stories about these scam artists.

[DGayle]

As someone who works in higher education finance policy, I have to warn you this would indeed be a rabbit hole :D

Essentially, Congress has cracked down on for-profit higher ed, which includes companies institutions like ITT, University of Phoenix, DeVry, and the recently deceased Everest University (part of the larger company Corinthian Colleges). I do not paint the industry with a broad brush, but there is a history of shady practices that are slowly going away due to a tighter regulatory environment. Of course, if you're Significant Ventures, this has happened because you're Christian and Obama wants to persecute you.

I'm glad to hear this. I know a lot of people who took out tons of loans to go to those "schools" and came out with useless degrees that didn't prepare the as well as they thought. The schools get the money, and the government's stuck with defaulted loans with higher interest rates being passed on to the students who manage to make their payments.

[DGayle]

Glad they're cracking down. My late sister used to counsel students away from those "colleges." She told me about nursing schools where students never saw a patient, and truck-driving schools where students never saw a truck. I'm pretty sure the Constitution doesn't specifically back that.

Students end up unable to get state licensure in whatever they'd studied. So they'd be just as unemployed as ever, but with a humongous student loan to pay off.

One of them, I think Phoenix, is being sued by some nursing students who found out after graduation that their hands-on experience being in a day care didn't count, and so they lacked the experience necessary to get nursing licenses.

Everest is getting an earful from the feds right now.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mollyhensleycla ... go#3gy1xqj

Read the comments and prepare to feel a desire to cry for those people.

[DGayle]

This was before my time in the industry, so I can't claim first-hand knowledge, but...apparently there used to be for-profit vocational schools in my state that offered truck driving programs to students who were visually impaired to the extent that they could not drive. THAT is why we need regulation.

Apparently Everest enrolls prison inmates into medical assisting programs when criminal records bar those people from working in the field when they get out of jail.

[DGayle]

I had to jump ahead and quote you! I noticed that too! I'll be damned if I call someone with only honorary "degrees" Doctor. And college is SUPPOSED TO BE EXCLUSIVE. Every single person on this planet is NOT CAPABLE OF OR QUALIFIED FOR COLLEGE. That's not a dig at people that don't go, I am highly educated but a SHITTY bartender ( I have worked as one for 2 restaurants, and my shifts eventually dwindled to nothing at both places. I'm clumsy and scatterbrained). Not everyone is cut out to tend bar or wait tables. Sorry (not sorry), but a degree should mean something. Maybe not that you're smarter (although it doesn't hurt), but that you were also more motivated, determined, and worked harder at it. I have a master's degree from a small, state program, and I sacrificed two years of my LIFE to get it. I don't want to share that with someone who's never seen the inside of a classroom, or with someone who went to an institution with a 100% acceptance rate. THIS is part of what's wrong with the American higher education system - thinking every single person is entitled to a 4 year degree! Everyone deserves an opportunity to get into college. Not everyone will make the cut. Not every dedicated football player makes the NFL either.

Thank you for indulging me!

/rant over

I agree, not so much with how it's supposed to be exclusive, but about how not everyone is cut out for it and we shouldn't make it sound like everyone must get and is entitled to a degree. This isn't a jab at those without degrees (I'm one of them), but there are trade schools, apprenticeships, and other paths to perfectly legit, honest careers, and some of they pay a hell of a lot more money than many people with degrees will ever make. There are many paths, and we need to encourage people to find their right path instead of trying to force everyone down the college-shute.

[Curious]

As someone who works in higher education finance policy, I have to warn you this would indeed be a rabbit hole :D

Essentially, Congress has cracked down on for-profit higher ed, which includes companies institutions like ITT, University of Phoenix, DeVry, and the recently deceased Everest University (part of the larger company Corinthian Colleges). I do not paint the industry with a broad brush, but there is a history of shady practices that are slowly going away due to a tighter regulatory environment. Of course, if you're Significant Ventures, this has happened because you're Christian and Obama wants to persecute you.

drat! That DeVry commercial was really starting to make me think about taking some classes toward my degree in...uh....something

[Haligh the Liar]

Michael Clifford is a smarmy bullshit artist of the highest degree. I show this Frontline documentary in class every year- it's called College, Inc, and if the video doesn't load you can look it up and watch it at pbs.org

[bBvideo 560,340:93twqpfj]http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/[/bBvideo]

He is a shill, a scam, and an overall disgusting person who is completely oblivious to his own faults. The 'colleges' he sets up are less than diploma mills, and serve only to bilk unaware and needy students out of money via federal loans. His "I found Jesus then it led me to conclude I know something about higher education and I decided to serve the lord by screwing others" schtick is so amazing to me, I can't imagine how he can say such things with a straight face.

As for his 'honorary doctorates', fuck that noise. That is all.

Edited to sign as Haligh the Liar, PhD, whose degree took six years and neither Jesus nor screwing others over was involved.