NO, IT IS NOT A RECOGNIZED ACCREDITING BODY. WAVE’s Commission on Higher Education (CHE) is not recognized by the U.S. Department of Education nor has it ever applied for recognition. We encourage you to contact us to learn why.
The prevailing belief regarding accreditation of institutions of higher learning, as it is carried out today, is that it was created and implemented for the following reasons:
It grants accountable standing to all schools, colleges and universities through the implementation of an established and accepted process that is regularly administered to ensure rigid compliance to the accrediting body’s standards.
To assure students, applying student and/or those paying for higher education programs that adopted and enforced standards ensure high quality, practical, and relevant programs.
Accreditation as we know it today began with the founding of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges in 1885. Over the next 75 years the growth and acceptance of accreditation, as a useful process, would be unremarkable at best.
It would eventually gain some traction and a degree of credibility when Harvard – pursued by the NEASC to become accredited - finally accepted full accreditation as World War II was drawing to a close around 1944-45. To absorb returning veterans into the work force, the decision was made, by the federal government, to legislate the GI Bill, allowing veterans to apply for benefits that would help defray the cost of a higher education.
With the rising cost of education, it was eventually decided to legislate and offer federally insured education based loans to graduating secondary school students considering higher education. Passage of this legislation prompted government took an increased interest and role in the accreditation process.
The federal government required the inclusion of certain rules and regulations in the accreditation process to create a degree of assurance that it could reasonably expect repayment of loans by those students to whom financial assistance was granted. The various regional and national commissions readily adopted and included them in the overall process because it was required for recognition by the department of education – the oversight organization.
The point is, government oversight of accreditation commissions has absolutely nothing to do with program quality, institutional viability or the transfer of earned credits between institutions. It is all about controlling the financial resources spent on higher education.
It comes down to this - accreditation, as we know it today, was developed to allow students to apply for federally insured education loans, making it easier for them to bear the cost of the continually rising expense of a higher education. It has gained acceptance largely because few – if any – people understand why the process was taken up, monitored and sanctioned by federal/national governments around the world.
There is a popular aphorism that goes something like … “IF YOU WANT TO TRULY UNDERSTAND WHAT IS GOING ON AND WHY ... FOLLOW THE MONEY!”
As far as accreditation and inter-institution credit transfer is concerned, this may help you understand the whole accreditation issue a little better. Under the current educational system, every college has the right to set standards and refuse to accept transfer credits. If, however, a student has gone to a school that is only nationally accredited and not regionally accredited, it may be particularly difficult to transfer credits - or even credit for a degree earned - if he or she then applies to a regionally accredited college. Sound a little confusing? Welcome to the club!
The sole purpose of accreditation is to reduce and nullify potential competitors. If there is one thing that our conventional institutions do not want, it is additional competition. Accreditation, as we practice it today, is bound to assure one major feature – CONFORMITY!
So, if we were to accept the accreditation of a regional or specialized accrediting commission recognized by the United States Department of Education, we would be forced to become just another of the thousands of schools, colleges and universities that dot the landscape of the country in which the IUE was founded and exists today. The world does not need another “cookie-cutter” organization. On the contrary, what it so badly needs is the kind of institution that we are and have always been - and hundreds if not thousands many more like it.
With DOE sanctioned accreditation we could no longer go above and beyond the rote teaching method in teaching you the real, practical, hands-on skills and understanding that you need to excel in your field of interest. In fact, if we were to accept accreditation, you would be bound intellectually into the same watered-down version of entrepreneurship taught to the mainstream public. You would not be introduced to the hard-core facts, and thought-provoking knowledge adopted, advocated and, in some instances, taught by some of the world’s most sought after entreprenologists. We refuse to water-down the principles and actions that are absolutely proven—and if you look around at the “theoretical” fashion and diluted course work offered at other universities, you’ll quickly understand why.
No one else in the world offers our advanced courses, because they are taught to help you put both intrinsic and real-world effective skills into action and get results. This isn’t theory. This is real-life. This is a combination of art and science hat you can touch and feel and experience, and you can only find it here at IUE.
You may already know that many governments – no matter how unintentional the act – tend to suppress creativity at a very early age. Sir Ken Robinson - a noted education expert and world-renowned speaker on the subject – found, through his research, that fully 95% to 98% of all young children entering the formal education environment, are highly creative.
His thought processes led him to learn what the percentages were as they moved through the system. His initial expectation was that they would have increased. What he discovered was that, without exception, the creativity level in children somewhere in their fifth or sixth year was down dramatically. He also learned that as they continued through the mandatory education programs established by various governments, creativity was literally educated out of them.
Accreditation is the instrument that is used to drive and maintain conformity. Creativity and innovative predispositions are deemed, for the most part, disruptive and not to be encouraged in the formal education system, with particularly regard for higher education.
If we were to accept the accreditation we have sought in the past, we would be forced to comply with mainstream beliefs and processes. Considering the fact that most government oversight committees discourage creative approaches to problems and issues, ignore the practical application of proven entrepreneurial and entreprenological procedures and methods, reject, out-of-hand, the evidence that entrepreneurs possess certain intrinsic skills not evident in everybody, and promote the concept that traditional institutions of higher learning can educate successful entrepreneurs when in fact they know that such institutions base their entire curricula upon the fallacious practice of determining learning retention on a “there in only one right answer” teaching/learning process. Because they choose not to align with the truth demonstrated by our world renowned entreprenologists, we would not be allowed to teach the classes you need most—classes you can’t find anywhere else.
Have you ever found yourself asking the question, “Why is a college education so expensive these days?The obvious answers to that question are:
• The cost of maintaining a campus.
• The cost of maintaining, updating and expanding facilities.
• The cost of hiring, paying and providing benefits for a full-time and/or tenured faculty.
Education, in and of itself, is not or should not be as expensive as it is. Obviously, the items above cost a great deal of money. Having a full-time, tenured faculty also is a major cost. The fact of the matter is, none of those things have much relevance when it comes to someone learning. The tuition that you pay must help to cover all of the above expenditures and one other than the school will never tell you about – the cost of accreditation.Accreditation literally dictates:
• What you learn?
• How it must be taught?
• How you – as a student – are to be tested and how often?
• How long it must take for you to learn what you want to know?
Beyond all of that, accreditation costs money … a lot of money.
Your tuition at IUE would go through the roof overnight, and the dedicated and experienced professionals who diligently teach you everything you need to know in your field of passion would not only fail to benefit from such an increase, in most instances, they would not be allowed to teach you what they know.
The instructors teaching at IUE learned and teach from a practical, hands-on, experiential perspective. Where the average professor at a conventional university is steeped in theory, our adjunct faculty has learned from doing what they teach. The result of accreditation for IUE would mean that you would have to pay more and get less. We don’t know about you, but the only person that seems fair to is the accrediting agency; no one else truly benefits.
Ask yourself this, “Would I rather graduate from the best entrepreneurial and entreprenological University in the world debt free, or be forced to take out student loans large enough to buy a house?” The more you think about it, the more you’ll realize that government loans amount to little more than creating a relatively large liability for the graduate. You cannot escape your indebtedness. You can never declare bankruptcy and free yourself from the obligation. The truth is IUE has created a system that means you don’t need student loans! In fact, in most instances, you can get your entire degree for what you could pay for ONE master’s level course at a mainstream university. While we know that accepting accreditation means you could get student loans, we’d rather allow you a broader bridge to financial freedom.
After surveying students from many other mainstream, accredited, cookie-cutter institutions, we validated one tragic fact — getting a degree from an accredited traditional or conventional institution of higher learning will not guarantee you a job. In fact, most students were graduating with a lot of debt, a piece of paper that says, “I have a degree”, with little or no opportunity for a brighter future on the horizon.
We looked at the most successful mainstream universities in the world and realized that their students, if they are successful at all, are successful because they were able to afford to attend one of the more prestigious and/or world-renowned schools. They literally paid a great deal more because such schools, colleges and universities are highly recruited.
Instead of wasting both your and our money getting accredited we thought, “Why not empower you to become your own boss?”, “Choose your own curriculum…”, “Choose your own hours …” and live your dreams. The truth is that you need to learn the art of doing business and combine that with the science of certain selected skills. The result is a potent combination of what and who you are combined with learned skills.
We constantly look for men and women who have “been there and done that.” Our adjunct faculty is comprised of some of the most successful “practitioners” out there, rather than recruiting those men and women who have spent their life in academe.
If you truly want to turn your dream into reality and follow your passion as far as it will take you, your choices of an institution of higher learning able to help you are limited. While others are worrying about finding a job once they have put in the 4 to 6 years to get their degree, you learn what it is like to be an employer rather than an employee. The world is replete with success stories of men and women just like you who found and developed their passion and changed the world we know into one that included their dream.
So, here’s the truth … accreditation indicates that only one governing body is right. So right, in fact, that they have the power to limit what you and learn and how you learn it.
Instead of compromising what we know to be true about entrepreneurship and entreprenology by allowing accrediting commissions to alter, amend, adjust, modify and/or change what we know to be true of these disciplines, we worked to create and develop the only commission with the expertise and mission to accredit IUE – the Commission on Higher Education of WAVE. It is the only commission comprised entirely of practitioners rather than theorists.
The IUE will work with you to develop new ideas and thought processes; to help you discover and enhance your innate creative and innovative abilities. You’ll go on to explore the height, breadth and depth of entrepreneurship, growing and moving up to entreprenology; developing new perceptions while developing ways to better fulfil your own needs and those of the community at large.
We are no just another cookie-cutter institution, telling you what to think and what you need to do. We encourage you decide for yourself what is true … what is theory and what is practical … and perhaps how you can move effortlessly with change, thereby minimizing its impact upon you and others.
A FINAL NOTE: EARNING CREDITS OR A DEGREE FROM A SCHOOL, COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OR OTHER INSTITUTION OF HIGHER LEARNING THAT IS ACCREDITED BY AN ACCREDITING BODY RECOGNIZED BY THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, DOES NOT CARRY WITH IT THE ASSURANCE THAT SIMILARLY ACCREDITED SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, UNIVERSITIES AND INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING - EVEN THOSE ACCREDITED BY THE SAME ACCREDITING BODY -WILL ACCEPT EARNED CREDIT HOURS AS TRANSFER CREDITS, COURSES AND/OR DEGREES. THE DECISION TO ACCEPT OR REJECT TRANSFER CREDITS, COURSES AND/OR DEGREES IS SOLELY AT THE DISCRETION OF THE INSTITUTION TO WHICH APPLICATION FOR TRANSFER OR CONTINUATION OF EDUCATION IS MADE.
SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, UNIVERSITIES AND INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEANRING MUST BE ACCREDITED BY AN ACCREDITING BODY RECOGNIZED BY THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION IF AND ONLY IF THE INSTITUTION PARTICIPATES IN PROGRAMS OFFERING FEDERALLY GUARANTEED EDUCATION BASED GRANTS, LOANS AND /OR FUNDING. NEITHER FEDERAL GRANTS NOR FEDERALLY INSURED STUDENT FUNDING OF ANY KIND IS AVAILABLE TO STUDENTS WHO ARE FOREIGN NATIONALS AT THE TIME OF REGISTRATION.
ACCREDITATION BY A RECOGNIZED ACCREDITING BODY IS NOT AND CANNOT BE CONSTRUED AS CERTIFICATION, ENDORSEMENT OR VALIDATION OF INSTITUTIONAL OR PROGRAM QUALITY BY THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION.