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Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin

(108,092 posts) Sat Feb 15, 2020, 02:49 PM Feb 2020

College was accredited by a DeVos-sanctioned group. We couldn't find evidence of students or faculty

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Reagan National University was supposed to be a place of higher learning in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. But it was unclear how it awarded degrees. By all appearances, at present it has no students, no faculty and no classrooms.

An agency meant to serve as a gatekeeper for federal money gave the university approval to operate anyway.

That accrediting agency, financially troubled and losing members fast, exists mainly because it was saved by the Education Department in 2018.

Accreditation might be the driest part of higher education, but these independent groups have huge importance: If they approve a college, the government agrees to give federal grants and loans to the students there.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/this-college-was-accredited-by-a-devos-sanctioned-group-we-couldnt-find-evidence-of-students-or-faculty/ar-BB101E6U?li=BBnbcA1

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College was accredited by a DeVos-sanctioned group. We couldn't find evidence of students or faculty (Original Post) Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin Feb 2020 OP

GOP survives on ignorance, grift, and hateful propaganda Hermit-The-Prog Feb 2020 #1

It is a visa mill. dalton99a Feb 2020 #2

Reagan National University struggle4progress Feb 2020 #3

Reagan National University, Inc. struggle4progress Feb 2020 #4

Si Tanka University struggle4progress Feb 2020 #5

Tribe to consider fate of failed Si Tanka University struggle4progress Feb 2020 #6

In the Matter of Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools struggle4progress Feb 2020 #7

Administration recommends restoring controversial accreditor of many for-profits struggle4progress Feb 2020 #8

DeVos reinstates controversial gatekeeper of for-profit colleges struggle4progress Feb 2020 #9

Former for-profit college students sue DeVos, claiming she cost them time and money struggle4progress Feb 2020 #10

Trump wants to end student loan forgiveness struggle4progress Feb 2020 #11

Hermit-The-Prog

(33,379 posts)

1. GOP survives on ignorance, grift, and hateful propaganda

Reply to Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin (Original post)

Sat Feb 15, 2020, 02:55 PM

Feb 2020

dalton99a

(81,534 posts)

2. It is a visa mill.

Reply to Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin (Original post)

Sat Feb 15, 2020, 02:56 PM

Feb 2020

Reagan National has connections to a different kind of troubled institution, via its ties to the University of Northern Virginia.

In 2011, federal immigration officials raided UNVA, threatening to suspend the college’s ability to accept foreign students. The suspicion: that Northern Virginia was a so-called “visa mill,” a college accused of peddling a chance to live in the U.S. rather than offering a meaningful education.

The Virginia government closed Northern Virginia in 2013 because it wasn’t accredited. It resurfaced the same year with a South Dakota address — the same one Reagan National used on business filings, plus the same agent, Xianhua Fan, spelled slightly differently from the name listed for Reagan National's president.

struggle4progress

(118,316 posts)

3. Reagan National University

Reply to Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin (Original post)

Sat Feb 15, 2020, 02:59 PM

Feb 2020

This site is down for maintenance.
Please check back again soon.
https://rnu.edu/index.php

Academics - Reagan National University
http://rnu.edu/index.php/academics

struggle4progress

(118,316 posts)

4. Reagan National University, Inc.

Reply to Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin (Original post)

Sat Feb 15, 2020, 03:07 PM

Feb 2020

Latest Events

2010-03-25 - 2016-11-07
Addition of officer XIANHUA FAN, agent

2010-03-25 - 2016-11-07
Addition of officer XULONG, DAI, president

2016-11-07 - 2019-07-26
Change of name from 'SI TANKA UNIVERSITY INC.' to 'Reagan National University, Inc.'

https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_sd/DB055240

struggle4progress

(118,316 posts)

5. Si Tanka University

Reply to Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin (Original post)

Sat Feb 15, 2020, 03:08 PM

Feb 2020

Chartered by Sioux Tribe in 1973, Si Tanka University started as the Cheyenne River Community College. The college then changed its name in July 1999 to honor one of its leaders, Si Tanka (Bigfoot). In May 2001, the small tribal college bought Huron University, a private, accredited four-year university established in 1883. Si Tanka/Huron University was notified in February 2002 that its accreditation had been approved by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.

Due to financial difficulties, Si Tanka University was closed in 2006. The accreditation was subsequently withdrawn effective August 6, 2006.[1] In 2010, a group of Si Tanka alumni reopened Si Tanka University as an unaccredited online university.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_Tanka_University

struggle4progress

(118,316 posts)

6. Tribe to consider fate of failed Si Tanka University

Reply to Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin (Original post)

Sat Feb 15, 2020, 03:10 PM

Feb 2020

Tuesday, April 5, 2005

... The campus in Huron was shut down .. amid financial woes the tribe inherited with the tribal college's purchase of the former Huron University. The problems put the on-reservation campus in Eagle Butte in jeopardy because Si Tanka lost federal funds meant for Native students ...

https://www.indianz.com/News/2005/007419.asp

struggle4progress

(118,316 posts)

7. In the Matter of Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools

Reply to Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin (Original post)

Sat Feb 15, 2020, 03:16 PM

Feb 2020

Docket No.: 16-44-0 ...

From: Steve Gunderson
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2018 4:50 PM
To: Michelle Edwards; Michael Dakduk; Nicholas Kent
Cc: Karly Zeigler
Subject: RE: Obtaining .EDU Desination

... Mike is working on similar challenges with Veterans Department restoring recognition . But Mike is out this week on vacation . I'm copying Nicholas Kent, our Sr. VP for Policy and Research in hopes that he can use his connections at the Department of Education to help get a message from the Department of Education to the Department of Commerce! ...

From: Harold Harris [mailto (b)(B)
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, ..,.,.,.,n,--,..,.....--n-,n1
To: Karly Zeigler (b)(6) acics.or >
Cc: Adam Yang (b)(6) rea anu.us>; Harold Harris ~(b)(B) ~ reaganu.us>
Subject: Obtaining .EDU Desinat ion .__ ___ _.
April 25, 2018

Dear Ms. Zeigler ,

This morning I spoke with JP at Educause , which is the organization that controls the issuing of .edu, and told him Reagan National University was accredited by ACICS in December 2017 and we would like to obtain permission to use .edu. I also mentioned the order that was issued by the Secretary of Education on April 3, 2018 stating that ACICS status as a federally recognized accrediting agency
has been restored. He told me they are aware of this Order but "until the Department of Commerce gives us clearance we cannot approve .edu to ACICS institutions ." Educause takes their orders from the Department of Commerce.

The .edu designation is important to us as it shows the world we are an accredited institution approved by the Department of Education. The approval by the Department of Education is mandatory for us to apply and be approved by SEVP to issue l-20's
which are used by international students to apply for student visas to enter the US. We would greatly appreciate ACICS contacting the
Commerce Department to get the issue cleared up so we and other ACICS institutions can apply for .edu and renew their .edu designation.

Thank you for your understanding of this critical issue.

https://www2.ed.gov/documents/acics/exhibit-b-o-24.pdf

struggle4progress

(118,316 posts)

8. Administration recommends restoring controversial accreditor of many for-profits

Reply to Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin (Original post)

Sat Feb 15, 2020, 03:21 PM

Feb 2020

By Paul Fain
October 1, 2018

The Trump administration has revived a troubled accrediting agency, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools ...

U.S. Department of Education two years ago derecognized ACICS, a national accreditor which was the gatekeeper to $4.76 billion in 2015 federal aid payments to more than 245 career-oriented colleges, most of them for-profit ...

... the Obama administration pointed to ACICS’s “pervasive compliance problems” ... Ted Mitchell, then under secretary of education, cited “such wide and deep failure that they simply cannot be entrusted with making the determinations we, you and the public count on.”

... a Danish newspaper last month reported that a business school of questionable academic quality was using its accreditation from ACICS to "circumvent" the laws of that country ...

DeVos in April tentatively restored ACICS ...

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/10/01/trump-administration-recommends-restoration-acics-accreditor-remains-controversial

struggle4progress

(118,316 posts)

9. DeVos reinstates controversial gatekeeper of for-profit colleges

Reply to Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin (Original post)

Sat Feb 15, 2020, 03:24 PM

Feb 2020

Laura Meckler
November 21, 2018 at 3:15 p.m. EST

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Wednesday restored federal recognition to a controversial agency that accredits for-profit colleges ...

... Critics ... noted that ACICS remains out of compliance with two standards — one deals with whether the agency employs qualified and competent people; the second regards controls against conflicts of interest ...

“Betsy DeVos has ignored her career staff’s 57 findings of ACICS’s noncompliance and her Thanksgiving gift to American taxpayers is to rubber stamp an accreditor that has been the gatekeeper of billions of federal dollars to predatory colleges without meaningful oversight,” said Aaron Ament, a former Obama administration official who is president of the National Student Legal Defense Network, which has filed lawsuits regarding the ACICS decision.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/betsy-devos-reinstates-controversial-gatekeeper-of-for-profit-colleges/2018/11/20/1c84faf6-ed18-11e8-96d4-0d23f2aaad09_story.html

struggle4progress

(118,316 posts)

10. Former for-profit college students sue DeVos, claiming she cost them time and money

Reply to Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin (Original post)

Sat Feb 15, 2020, 03:26 PM

Feb 2020

Published: June 4, 2019 12:58 p.m. ET

Thousands of students who were enrolled at a for-profit college in the months leading up to its collapse would have never spent their time and money there if not for an illegal decision by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, a new lawsuit claims.

The case, which is seeking class-action status, was filed by two of these students Monday in U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C. The plaintiffs are seeking to have their federal student loans from that period wiped away.

They claim that DeVos’s decision to allow the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools — which oversees for-profit colleges — to continue to operate amid allegations the organization wasn’t an effective monitor and put them in harm’s way. ACICS provided accreditation, which is necessary for a college to operate, for the students’ school, Virginia College, despite questions about whether it was effectively serving students.

In December, Education Corporation of America, Virginia College’s parent company, collapsed following months of financial turmoil ...

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/former-for-profit-college-students-sue-betsy-devos-claiming-she-cost-them-time-and-money-2019-06-04

struggle4progress

(118,316 posts)

11. Trump wants to end student loan forgiveness

Reply to Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin (Original post)

Sat Feb 15, 2020, 03:27 PM

Feb 2020

By Vanessa Taylor
Feb 12, 2020

... With his 2020 budget proposal, which applies to the 2021 fiscal year that starts this October, President Trump wants to eliminate the student loan forgiveness program ...

https://www.mic.com/p/trump-wants-to-end-the-student-loan-forgiveness-program-21797125

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