From the the Kansas City Star
Written by Steve Rock
Unaccredited school in Grandview offers degrees of uncertainty
From a nondescript office in Grandview, Stephen Barnhart grants college degrees in subjects as varied as computer technology and philosophy.
Though he never earned a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college, Barnhart serves as chancellor of the International University of Ministry and Education. He founded the online school in 1994 and said he had issued about 200 degrees, mostly to students in foreign countries.
His university is not accredited by any agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education or the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. It’s not certified by the state of Missouri because the state has deemed its application deficient.
Higher education experts marvel that schools such as Barnhart’s, which has wrestled with state officials for years over whether it meets certification criteria, are allowed to continue operation. They said Missouri’s paper-thin regulatory staff and lax laws made the state an inviting home for such unaccredited schools.
In addition to Barnhart’s, nine other Missouri schools appear on a list of unaccredited degree suppliers compiled by Alan Contreras of the Oregon Office of Degree Authorization.
"The whole idea that a place can operate when they haven’t met the standards is a bad, bad policy," Contreras said. "What you need is the state government to take these entities seriously. There are lots and lots of bogus (online) operations out there issuing degrees out of somebody’s basement."
Barnhart said most of his coursework was at least as rigorous as any traditional college’s. He offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in various programs, with the average student earning a bachelor’s degree in about a year for roughly $2,500.
The school’s lack of certification, he said, reflects a "personal vendetta" against him by Leroy Wade, who heads the proprietary schools certification program for the Missouri Department of Higher Education.
Wade countered that Barnhart’s application was inadequate because of questionable course content and faculty qualifications, among other things.
Asked why Barnhart should be allowed to issue degrees for years despite an inadequate application, Wade said his office attempted to work cooperatively with schools toward certification rather than adopt an "adversarial" stance.
Every year, Wade’s staff receives about 35 applications for schools seeking certification or a religious exemption from state oversight. With the equivalent of only two full-time employees in the office, the review process can sometimes stretch out for years.
"Missouri has problems it needs to solve," said Contreras, who once worked for Missouri’s higher education department. "When I lived there, I called it the ‘wake me state.’ "
Regulators’ questions
Barnhart’s program split in the mid-1990s from the International University in Independence, an unaccredited school that has a religious exemption from state certification. Barnhart operated the Grandview school initially under the same religious exemption granted to the Independence campus.
In 2003, Barnhart said, he notified state officials that he wanted formal certification instead of the religious exemption. Four years later, the matter hasn’t been resolved.
Barnhart said his students did coursework independently or at the school’s Bangladesh campus in a classroom setting. State regulators, however, have questioned whether his students get a college-caliber education.
In November 2003, Wade wrote Barnhart, outlining 18 areas in which the school hadn’t met minimum certification requirements. For example, Wade wrote, "It appears course lessons are composed of an unsupervised reading of each chapter of a book followed by the submission of a written report. ... The practice of granting credit to students for reading a book and writing a report is not considered sufficiently rigorous."
Wade also questioned the staff’s educational credentials.
Two people identified as faculty members in documents sent to Wade’s office — Andrew Flaxman of Massachusetts and Waylon Stepp of Iowa — told The Kansas City Star that they had conversations with Barnhart but never taught for him. Barnhart said that he terminated his relationship with Stepp and that Flaxman agreed in principle to teach Barnhart’s students.
A list of faculty members was removed from the school’s Web site after inquiries from The Star.
In May, Missouri’s commissioner of higher education set Jan. 1, 2008, as the deadline for Barnhart to formally address those 18 deficient areas. At that time, the certification staff will formally accept or reject Barnhart’s application.
If a rejected applicant continues issuing degrees, Wade said, his office could turn the information over to the state attorney general’s office and seek an injunction.
For now, Barnhart said the school had about 100 active students, including about 20 in the U.S. Most of the rest are in Bangladesh, where Barnhart plans to visit this summer and correct problems that made headlines in The New Nation of Bangladesh. The news outlet reported that the country’s University Grants Commission said the university was operating illegally.
Education officials in Bangladesh couldn’t be reached for comment.
Barnhart’s background
Barnhart’s school has been housed in the same building as his security business, Barnhart Security & Alarm Services Inc. His background includes stints in law enforcement and locksmithing and a failed bid for the Edwardsville City Council.
He earned his doctorate in higher education administration, he said, after six years of study at the International University in Independence. He earned an associate degree from Kansas City Kansas Community College and has earned college credits from Rockhurst University and the Kansas City, Kan., Area Technical School, according to those institutions.
George Gollin, on the board of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, said legitimate distance-learning, online programs were nearly always accredited by an organization recognized by his organization or the U.S. Department of Education. The International University in Independence is not.
"Mr. Barnhart’s degree could not be used legally as a professional credential in a number of states," Gollin said.
Federal court records show Barnhart filed for personal bankruptcy in 2004, claiming less than $47,000 in total assets, but $217,605 in total liabilities.
Barnhart said he was in the process of moving to bigger quarters in Grandview. Neither location looks like the picture that once adorned the school’s Web site, which showed students with backpacks walking in a campus-like setting near an enormous building.
"Our Web designer put that in there," Barnhart said of the photo, which was removed after questions from The Star.
To learn about accreditation and it's importance in higher education, go to:
http://www.elearners.com/resources/accreditation.asp
Or go to the website for the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, where you can check for any school's accreditation at:
http://chea.org/default.asp
Read the entire news article at:
http://www.kansascity.com/115/story/190385.html