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Comment by mikeryan | Hacker News Reader

Dunno this seems like a bit of a strange one and I'm sure others have popped up. This is a faith based, trade school where everyone graduates with a "Catholic Studies Degree"

It's barely a college, its not accredited AFAICT and seems more like a trade school - outside of the "Catholic Studies Degree" which maybe counts for a "real" BA?

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To my knowledge, accreditation takes a few years and requires demonstrating adherence to the accreditation standards over a similar period of years.

I don't know if, for a new school, accreditation groups retroactively "credit" any degrees that the school has granted since opening.

Non-accredited schools that are seeking accreditation always highlight this fact and what it means for students who start before accreditation is award. This school does not, so it almost certainly is not seeking accreditation, and since it's degree program is pretty overtly not a traditional academic degree program (not even in theology), but a religio-political indoctrination program designed to create warriors for a particular political viewpoint on behalf of a theocratic faction within Catholicism, I doubt it would have much chance at accreditation if it sought it.

> its degree program is pretty overtly not a traditional academic degree program (not even in theology), but a religio-political indoctrination program designed to create warriors for a particular political viewpoint on behalf of a theocratic faction within Catholicism

Do these bits:

  The college aims at a revived citizen class of educated workers who can hold the powerful forces of our society to account"

and

  The American separation of religion from public life [...] is an error[...]. This error must be overcome

form the basis of your conclusion?

No, those excepts alone are not the whole basis. Why?

For what it's worth, I recoiled from the sentiment 'dragonwriter expressed, but I did some digging and I think they're more right than wrong about this. It's unfortunate, because creative alternative credentials and trade-focused education are interesting and valuable discussions to have. But I don't think this particular organization is likely to be operating in good faith.

Arguably a lot of pre-existing, accredited institutions are now pretty overtly not a traditional degree program (not even in say, English, or History) but a religio-political indoctrination program designed to create warriors for a particular political viewpoint of a theocratic faction…

In the US, institutional accreditation is almost never retroactive.

Sounds more like a slightly upmarket version of a southern “Bible college”

> its not accredited AFAICT and seems more like a trade school

AFAICT, trade schools also need to be accredited, if they're graduates are able to get into the trades that they are trained in.

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