Will airline travel soon be extinct?

This week’s announcement that United and U.S. Airways will now be charging for checked bags was not a welcome one, especially as their competitors made the same announcement weeks ago.

As a passenger that always tries to check in everything possible, this is very irritating. Not only do I have to shell out more money for something that should be included in the ticket price, but now I must contend with all the frugal individuals that will try and pass everything as “carry on.” (Anyone who has ever flown knows how irritating this is.)

And it’s not just charging for checking in your bag: word is that airlines will soon start charging for seating preference and plain ol’ soft drinks for us coach chumps. This on top of the exorbitant prices charged for rubbery sandwiches and mediocre-at-best hot “food.”

So what’s going on with domestic airlines? Their justification is, understandably, based on the skyrocketing cost of fuel. But how useful is all this nickel-and-diming its passengers?

The charges aren’t a guaranteed source of income, just a potential. If people are flying coach, my guess is that they would rather put up with knees up to their chin for a couple of hours rather than pay a fee for “extra leg room.” (I’m tall, and I have already done this.) Pricey sky-high food can be avoided, and it’s always possible to simply carry on what’s needed for a trip.

So why aren’t carriers simply raising their prices so the revenue is consistent? Are they afraid of losing customers to competitors? But if everyone has the same extra fees, what difference does it make?

It doesn’t seem as if there are any easy solutions and that this problem will only get worse. But what happens then? Will airline travel become grounded or accessible to only the fabulously wealthy? If tickets become impossible to purchase, will airline travel simply become extinct?

I don’t foresee our government actually stepping in and correcting the problem, but perhaps something along those lines will be in order. Many industries will suffer if nothing is done to correct the situation, never mind the impact this will have on the average American citizen reliant upon such travel to visit family.

FREE Personality Test: Determine Your Myers-Briggs Personality Type Online In Less Than Five Minutes

At some point, nearly everyone asks themselves: “What is my personality type?” followed by questions such as “What career path should I choose?” and/or “What college or degree would best match my personality type?”

While some mysteries of humanity may never be answered, modern psychology has made great strides in understanding the various human personality types that exist. While you may never know how much of your personality is nature (“God-given”) vs. nurture (influenced by your environment), you can better understand what drives your personal habits and thought processes by taking our scientific personality test, below, and thus better contemplate your life decisions going forward.

Below is a FREE personality test based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which was developed in the 1960s by Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, during World War II for American women entering the workforce. It is based on the research of Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, and remains the most popular personality indicator in the world. At the bottom of this page, you will be able to explore careers, degrees, and colleges related to your personality type.

Interview: Jeme Deviny, Former Neumont University Director Of Financial Services, Spills The Beans

Below is an exclusive CollegeTimes interview with L. J. Deviny, the former Financial Services Director at Neumont University, a for-profit technical institute based in Utah. Followers of CollegeTimes know that we’ve had several run-ins with Neumont over the past few years after we refused to remove negative student reviews posted on the school’s profile. After we refused to accept his bribes, Neumont’s CEO Edward “Ned” Levine threatened me and stalked my family members in California, before suing my web design company in federal court. I promised him that I would continue to expose his misdeeds for many years to come. Yesterday, a Neumont employee, Kristi Robertson, tragically died after recently losing her husband to cancer, and Deviny claims that Levine was responsible for pushing her beyond her limits. Despite being forced to sign a “stack of legal papers when they terminated me that I would not disclose what I knew”, Deviny decided to come forward to offer disturbing insight into the illegal business practices and bullying conducted by Mr. Levine. According to Deviny, he was fired on his 55th birthday because he “no longer possessed the ‘youthful vibrant image’ Neumont wished to portray to their students. I had hired Kristi so after they terminated me, there was no one to protect Kristi from Ned’s bullying and abuse.”

Update 9/12/2014: Less than 24 hours after this whistleblower interview was published, Neumont University CEO Ned Levine went into bully-mode and served Deviny with a lawsuit (that is, on Thursday evening, September 11, 2014). Developing…

How did you first come to work at Neumont University, how long did you stay, and what was the hiring process like? Are you a native of Utah, or a transplant, and briefly, what is your career background?

I was hired by the original CFO, Maurine Findley. Maurine and I had worked together previously. Northface hired a Director of Finance, Lisa Oakes-Gale, originally in 2004 when they began enrolling students. Lisa was not qualified for this position and within one year, they were in serious problems with late refunds and federal audits. Maurine contacted me January 2005 to come clean up the mess and get things back on track. I’m originally from Spokane, WA and moved to Utah for my career in 1990.

From my understanding, Neumont has shifted business strategies several times, including failed campus locations in Virginia, Rhode Island, and even Massachusetts. Who is behind all of these sporadic decisions?

The original President, Graham Doxey, wanted to start the campus in Virginia. Zoning problems led to the cancelled start but all of those students received 100% scholarships to the Utah campus. I thought that was extremely generous of the management at that time. The Doxey’s are outstanding people who treated others with respect and dignity. They took the expenses for their poor judgment in trying to have a location in Virginia and the students received a FREE education. But then Graham had to go and Ned was put in his place by the investors (Great Hills).

Ned wanted the campuses in Rhode Island and Massachusetts as this is where he is from. He spends most of his time in Rhode Island and not in Utah.

It sounds like the investors at Great Hill Partners were not amused by Doxey’s generosity. Do you know how or why they decided to hire Levine to run Neumont’s computer science programs, despite his only having a bachelor’s degree from an art school in Rhode Island?

I do not have knowledge on how Great Hill Partners came to hire Levine.

What was working at Neumont like with Ned Levine as President? A former student, Jason Aquino, claimed that Levine harassed him and other students at the school. Another student, Ryan Elkins, was “banned” from campus after starting a blog talking about some of his experiences at Neumont. The CollegeTimes team was also bribed and then threatened by Levine as well. Does Mr. Levine maintain a carrot/stick attitude with his employees? What did you witness happen to Kristi Robertson in particular?

Ned is an arrogant a*****e and bully. The only way I was able to function was by the protection of the 2nd CFO, Thomas Bickart. Tom and I had an agreement that Tom would keep me safe from Ned. I don’t know how Tom did it, but Ned was not allowed to talk to me nor my staff, Alice Crutchley and Kristi Robertson. Alice was the Financial Aid Officer responsible for the incoming freshmen. Kristi was responsible for the continuing students. Ned hated me, Alice, and Kristi because we were hired by the Doxeys. Ned systemically eliminated all employees who were hired prior to his coming to Neumont. We did not have any pay raises for seven years although other employees (those Ned hired) regularly received increases. In the fall of 2012, Tom told me Ned was going to let Alice go (for no cause – her performance was outstanding for her entire length of employment). Alice was able to secure a financial aid officer position at ITT Tech in SLC and is still there.

Thomas Bickart resigned from Neumont in February 2013. At that time, I was told my employment was also terminated. I lost my protection from Ned. They paid Kristi Robertson a $5,000 bribe to stay at Neumont. Ned brought Nate Blanchart from the Admission department to the financial aid department. They demoted Kristi to a financial aid clerk. Nate only has a high school diploma and no financial aid background. Kristi had a Bachelor Degree and a decade in processing Title IV Federal Student Financial Aid. Still, Kristi, stuck it out in hopes to prove to Ned she was a valuable employee. In July 2014, Kristi’s fiancee’, Ron Capson, died while undergoing a bone marrow transplant to combat his reoccurring cancer. Neumont seemed to work with Kristi during this difficult time but two weeks ago, Kristi was notified they were terminating her employment. A new financial aid person began last week. Kristi was crushed to the core. She felt Neumont was kicking her while she was already down. Over this past weekend, Kristi went into a diabetic coma and now has no brain activity. Her family has decided to not prolong the pain and will take Kristi off of life support today.

In your opinion, was Ned Levine responsible for Kristi’s death, by firing her just weeks after her husband died from cancer and not giving her the respect and loyalty that perhaps she had given Neumont University?

Yes, most definitely.

You mentioned earlier being forced to sign several non-disclosure documents at the time of your termination. As Financial Services Director at Neumont, did you witness any blatantly illegal or immoral practices as far as recruiting, financial aid, under-qualified faculty, etc? Are Neumont’s claims of 100% employment and $60,000 average salary for graduates accurate?

Not under MY watch – another reason I had to go. I would NOT allow any illegal or unethical practices in financial aid. I also was responsible for signing off on the placement statistics. If you look very closely at all the *asterisks and small print, Neumont was sure to CYA. Obviously Jason Aquino didn’t get a job so that’s not 100%. The starting salary included travel, education benefits, and other costs. Many students that did not find employment with an employer where reported as self-employed – and of course those students would inflate their potential earnings. But as a whole – the great majority of students found fabulous employment at terrific wages. Ned would not accept any thing less than 100% from Career Services. Shawn Louenstock refused to falsify the reports, so of course, Shawn had to go, too.

Originally, Northface had a very prestigious well-qualified faculty. The current faculty mostly consists of Neumont graduates and minimally qualified staff.

As a “university” focused on “computer science” that lacks ABET and regional accreditation, it seems like Neumont has refined their target enrollment to go after “loner” types of high school students who love video games, which the L.A. Times referred to as a sort of “Geek Heaven”. Do you have any comments on that approach, or insight into Neumont’s acceptance rate?

I’m very surprised they have been allowed to retain the University distinction. Their Master’s program has been dark for about four years and they have no research being conducted at all. But accreditation with ACICS is pretty much a joke anyway when comparing Neumont to regionally accredited institutions. But I also have to state, the curriculum is EXTREMELY difficult and students without a solid math background and excellent time management skills are not able to keep up with the fast pace and withdraw. The acceptance criteria is more than a community college but substantially less than most four year State Institutions. The acceptance criteria changed each year much to the distress of the acceptance committee and the faculty.

Living and working in Utah, where the majority of residents are Mormon, would seem to be a unique experience. While Neumont has no official ties to the LDS church, our team has found it interesting that their founders, investors, board of directors, many faculty, and even their attorney, are Mormon. Did you witness anything to suggest a close connection between Neumont and well-connected members of the LDS community? Or, are the lines perhaps quite blurred in Utah because of LDS saturation?

It’s just Utah and LDS saturation. The Doxeys are active LDS but they NEVER brought their religion to the workplace. Unless you want to say being ethical, moral, honest, above reproach, treating others with dignity, respect, and kindness is a Mormon only thing :-)

Ned’s a Jew. And that’s not saying very much about the Jewish faith – IMHO.

From talking with you, clearly there ARE people in the for-profit industry who believe in honesty and do not support fraud (but they may not last long at some institutions). You have worked at multiple for-profit colleges, including ITT Tech. Looking back, has your opinion about for-profit higher education changed over the years? Currently, what do you believe?

Since May 2014, I now work for the Biomedical Informatics Department at the University of Utah. I am SO GLAD to be out of the rat race that is for-profit proprietary education. It’s a dog eat dog field with no winners. Not the students. Not the staff. And certainly no longer the share holders.

I’m sad to see the Gainful Employment Regulations defeated and not implemented. That would have put all the frauds out of business for good. Most of the fraudsters are now just switching to being a non-profit in order to side step the regulations.

I’ve enjoyed sharing my insights with you very much. It is helping me deal with Kristi’s abuse. I didn’t state this before but Kristi was a very large person, Alice needed major dental work, and I have strabismus (crossed eyes). These physical limitations did not impact our ability to do an outstanding job year after year. Ned has wrongfully terminated so many employees that refused to bend the rules or were old or not physically perfect. Jason Aquino was a very special student to me. I sent him job leads in CA. I really want Jason to be happy and successful. Please send him my regards if you speak to him, again.

Thank you for your time and best wishes to you always.

Institutions: University vs. College vs. Institute vs. Academy vs. School: What’s The Actual Difference?

Searching for the right college is difficult enough; unfortunately, its even more difficult these days thanks to an increasing number of campuses purposefully misusing titles and labels in order to “boost” their reputation, in an effort to recruit more students. Of course, this mess is driven assumedly by a greedy thirst for money, now that so many schools prioritize profits over quality academic discourse.

• See also: How To Spot A Scam School – A.K.A. Diploma Mill – Here Are Some Of The Most Common Warning Signs

In older times, the Holy Roman Emperor and other power holders were in charge of establishing regulations for higher education of the era. But these days, with the American government unwilling to or uninterested in regulating the higher education system, the “free market” and academic circles are left trying to make sense of it all. (Contrast this chaos with Australia, for example, whose government strictly prohibits any usage of the term “university” by non-approved educational institutions.)

Brief History: ‘Universitas’ Vs. ‘Akademia’

Admittedly, there is quite a bit of confusion regarding the history of such words as “university” or “college” or “institution” – and so forth. Take for example the etymology of the word “university” which is rooted in Latin universitas, meaning “the whole, total; the universe, the world” – or more literally, “all turned into one.”

According to Steve Hedley, an academic lawyer at the National University of Ireland, the term universitas was actually more of a casual term referring to the guild of masters/professors and scholars/students within a Studium generale – the official name for European universities found in government documents and papal decrees.

Hedley goes on to explain why academy – and its Platonic + Greek origins – perhaps would have been a more appropriate word when referring to what are now called universities; however, that term has now largely lost much of its prestige:

“University” appears to have its origins in Latin. This is odd, however, because while the Romans knew of teachers, students, scholarship, and libraries, they had nothing that could be regarded as a university in the modern sense (at least not before the Pandidakterion at Constantinople, founded in 425 AD). Quite common would have been the “academiae” – specialist schools or institutes, the word and the concept being borrowed from the Greeks (or more specifically, the Athenians of the 4th century BC – the original “Akademia” was the site where Plato taught). While this has given us the word “academic”, nonetheless “academy” has retained its Greek and Latin connotations of compactness and specialism. No modern institution that could claim the title “university” would ever describe itself as an “academy”.

‘University’ – Just Another Trendy Word?

Hedley’s general premise is that A) modern universities quite misunderstand the original “guild” meaning of universitas, and that B) even in their attempt to glorify a broader understanding of the word universitas, they get it largely wrong these days. Instead, Hedley argues that its Greek cousin, akademia, which refers directly to specialized schools/communities, is perhaps more accurate. He concludes:

“University” therefore hints at a very different world from that which universities now inhabit, both externally and internally. An important feature of any modern university would be a claim to a broad or “universal” knowledge, but this seems to be a linguistic accident. If the word were still being used in its original sense, it would more properly be applied to an academic trade union, staff association or student union. Internally and structurally, modern universities bear little resemblance to the mediaeval “universitates”, which often ran themselves in a very democratic spirit. We can say (with a negative spin) that internal university “democracy”, while not quite dead, is in very poor shape; or (with a positive spin) that a democratic freedom to raise awkward intellectual questions is now better established throughout the whole of society, and so the universities no longer stand out to the extent that they once did. The older universities still occasionally refer to themselves in the old spirit; so for example the charter of University College Cork (1908) refers to the college as a “Body Corporate”, and lists its membership, including staff students and graduates. However, while the corporate status of universities is of continuing importance, their membership for legal purposes is of little modern significance.

It is hard to argue with Hedley’s point. Declaring you are something doesn’t make it so – and modern-day universities claiming to encompass all aspects of traditional and progressive studies in a democratic, philosophical, or determinedly-scientific light does not make it true. More to the point: when for-profit “companies” like the University of Phoenix are calling themselves a university, despite lacking core Studium generale elements like “Masters” professors to teach all courses, it certainly begs some questions.

But perhaps Hedley’s conclusion is overly (purposefully?) broad. Certainly if the historical meaning of akademia is a “specialized school”, then it might apply to a contemporary nursing school, for example, or even an online course in web design. And if that is true, would throwing Cambridge University into the same bucket really make sense?

Ultimately, not much is known about the original Akademia school founded by Plato in Greece, besides its affinity for dialectic models of debate. And, on that note, it is hard to find passionate “debate” in ANY type of higher education facility these days – whether they be “academies” or “universities” or any other. In other words, it would seem that universitas AND akademia have both lost quite a bit of their relevance.

For this reason, all we can really do is reaffirm what is commonly believed in modern academic circles regarding the difference between “universities” or “colleges” and so forth, rather than lingering on murky historical context; language is constantly evolving.

Types Of Institutions: Commonly Held Notions

Below, you will find a detailed list of commonly recognized types of higher education facilities. Keep in mind this is biased toward the English language, so it mostly applies to the USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India, and other countries influenced by the American or British systems of higher education.

• See also: Is Academic Discourse Dead? How Atheism, Global Warming, & Profit Motives Took Over American Colleges

University – A title widely considered to be reserved for the largest and most established of institutions, universities often encompass multiple “colleges” underneath them (or “faculties” in countries more influenced by non-American grammar).

Latin universitas – “the whole, entire, corporation, society”

• maintain undergraduate and (post) graduate programs
• often focus on progressive “research” – especially scientific research
• often receive government grants in order to perform commissioned research work
• in Europe, many universities sign and support the Magna Charta Universitatum
• focus heavily on “academic” disciplines rather than vocational subjects
• considered to be the successors of Studium generale and Medieval universities
• full-time lecturers/professors usually required to have a PhD degree
• often maintain sizable endowment funds (esp. in North America)
• usually maintain various “colleges” or “faculties” focused on distinct fields
• campuses often expected to have sizable library archives, among other facilities

Editor’s Note: for CollegeTimes purposes, we aim to standardize the term “university” by using the criteria above in our student reviews database.

College – A title often used in casual reference to ANY higher education institution, regardless of its reputation or subject matter. In Commonwealth countries, “colleges” are often high schools or secondary schools, whereas in the United States, the official term is usually referring to a constituent part of a greater university (for example, a collegiate university). Oxford and Cambridge popularized the term in the 1560s.

Latin collegium – “community, society, guild”

• in casual use, often refers to ANY type of post-secondary undergraduate program
• in official use, usually refers to a constituent part of a greater university (these constituent parts are also often called “schools” i.e. College/School Of Humanities)
• for “4-year” colleges, i.e. Occidental College, usually represents an independent institution focused primarily on undergraduate studies with a strong focus on liberal arts (award Bachelor degrees to their successful program graduates)
• there are also “2-year colleges” a.k.a. community colleges or junior colleges that usually award Associate degrees, certificates, or diplomas to their graduates (outside of the United States, comparable institutions are often called “technical” colleges – in any case, most “2-year colleges” around the world focus on vocational/trade skills)
• “university colleges” are more rare, usually a satellite or remote “college” campus from a parent university, or a campus specializing in non-traditional learning techniques
• some local governments restrict usage of terms like “university” or “college”

Editor’s Note: for CollegeTimes purposes, we aim to standardize the term “college” by using it exclusively in reference to 4-year institutions with a broad learning base, usually including liberal arts studies. Alternatively, we may use the term “college” for campuses that are underneath a parent university. At no time will our database use the term “college” to refer to a vocationally focused or less than 4 year institution; the only exception being “community colleges” in the United States, because of their increasingly broad focus on various non-vocational fields in service to their local “community.”

Institute – A title that refers to a narrowly focused community or society, usually sharing a common goal or focus in regard to science, education, or social matters. The term’s level of prestige varies greatly between countries; in the United Kingdom for example, it is protected and reserved for organizations that perform the highest level of research. However, in America, the term is regularly used by some of the least reputable schools.

Latin institutum – “something setup, designed, standing”

• usually focus on a specific field of study, i.e. Fashion Institute or Psychology Institute
• often provide vocational training for less than 4 years, i.e. ITT Technical Institute (esp. in the United States; other countries usually have “technical colleges”)
• in rarer cases, esp. in the United Kingdom, represent high level research i.e. MIT
• in Spain, refers to secondary schools; in Korea/Japan used by many private schools

Editor’s Note: for CollegeTimes purposes, we aim to standardize the term “institute” by using it exclusively in reference to field-focused institutions, especially in regard to vocational training or specific niches, i.e. health, nursing, or technology. Because of our bias toward American trends, we will not use “institute” in reference to any well-established university. Unfortunately, this term has started to degrade in prestige in recent years, and our database aims to reflect that trend.

Academy – A title similar to “institute” in that it often refers to a narrowly focused school or organization, or in many cases, a primary or secondary school that is more prestigious than other local schools due to private funding or government sponsorship.

Greek akademia – location in Greece where Plato taught philosophy

• academia still often refers to the greater higher education community, but “academy” has lost much of its prestige in part because of its association with specialized primary or secondary schools (esp. in the United States, United Kingdom, etc)
• has lost additional association with education due to being used for societies or clubs of distinguished scholars, artists, scientists, etc. that aim to promote and maintain standards in a particular field i.e. the Hollywood Oscars
• also used heavily in association with military/police oriented training institutions

Editor’s Note: for CollegeTimes purposes, we aim to use the term “academy” sparingly, usually in reference to military/police/maritime training schools.

School – A title that is arguably the broadest term available when referring to ANY educational facility – whether primary, secondary, post-secondary, or niche oriented. Based on the Greek/Roman belief that any free time should be used for discussion in order to further learning, which later referenced places of lecture.

Greek skhole – “leisure, idleness, discussion”

• most commonly refers to any primary (elementary) level of institution
• also can be used interchangeably with “college” to refer to a constituent part of a parent university, i.e. School of Law or School of Psychology (esp. in the United States)
• “school” seems to hold more prestige than “college” in many higher education circles, especially in reference to faculties of Law, Medicine, or Business

Editor’s Note: for CollegeTimes purposes, we aim to standardize the term “school” by using it exclusively in reference to primary (elementary) schools or secondary schools (a.k.a. middle schools, junior high schools, or high schools). Especially in the United States, “school” is a popular term in reference to colleges of Law, Medicine, or Business. We feel this is rather inaccurate – that “college” is more appropriate; however, the terminology is so widespread that we may use titles like “Law School” interchangeably with “Law College” or “College of Law” in our database.

Accreditation: When Talking About Higher Education, Nothing Could Be More Relevant – Or Controversial

Accreditation. It’s a word that most college students have heard at some point, but that (unfortunately) very few actually comprehend on a meaningful level.

And that is NOT a good thing. With greedy investors and corrupt congressmen aggressively turning college into a for-profit industry devoid of traditional academic discourse and teeming with unqualified faculty, dishonest recruiting practices, and fly-by-night campuses, more and more students are being scammed into attending schools that are a complete waste of time and money. Sadly, in many cases these students could have avoided a huge financial and emotional crisis by simply researching the world of ‘accreditation’ more carefully – (if only they knew how!).

Brief History of College Accreditation

The concept of accreditation is simple: Anytime a government, or 3rd-party organization (usually a non-profit organization) offers certification of competency, authority, or credibility, it can be considered a form of accreditation. In other words, such certification tells the public ‘we’ve approved these members as providing quality products or services’ especially in the industries of education, healthcare, and so forth.

Accreditation is further defined by the U.S. Department of Education:

What is accreditation? Accreditation is the recognition that an institution maintains standards requisite for its graduates to gain admission to other reputable institutions of higher learning or to achieve credentials for professional practice. The goal of accreditation is to ensure that education provided by institutions of higher education meets acceptable levels of quality.

Of course, by this definition, hundreds of low quality colleges across America should be immediately considered un-accredited – but we will get to that later. This accreditation process is carried out (in the United States) by special non-profit agencies:

What are accrediting agencies? Accrediting agencies are organizations (or bodies) that establish operating standards for educational or professional institutions and programs, determine the extent to which the standards are met, and publicly announce their findings.

Unlike most countries, the United States government is not directly responsibly for accrediting colleges and universities. Instead, under the terms of the Higher Education Act of 1965, the U.S. Secretary of Education is required by law to publish a list of recognized accrediting agencies for higher education institutions. And, because the United States has drastically more colleges than the rest of the world, its methods and standards of accreditation are of concern not only to American citizens, but also to foreign governments and entities, and to foreign citizens seeking to study in America.

Higher Education Accreditation in America

There are literally dozens of accrediting agencies “recognized” by the U.S. Department of Education (see below). From pharmacy studies, to nursing schools – and even funeral service programs – there are recognized accreditation agencies for nearly any type of higher education you are interested in pursuing. Now, it is VERY important to note that recognition is NOT endorsement and does not imply/guarantee any level of quality. Instead, recognition can be summarized as the government saying, “Regardless of this agency’s quality standards, they are at least sufficiently consistent in the types of schools to which they offer their accreditation membership.”

Ultimately, the ‘gold standard’ of all higher education accreditation standards is called REGIONAL accreditation. This is the mandatory accreditation required by most reputable employers, companies, graduate schools, transfer institutions, and beyond. Without a regionally-accredited college degree, your diploma is virtually worthless and will not be respected or accepted as a legitimate achievement in higher education by the American academic community.

Now, here is where the confusion often begins. There is, in fact, no single agency called ‘Regional Accreditation Council’ or similar. Instead, regional accreditation is actually offered by 6 distinct agencies that are ‘regionally’ located around the US, loosely organized under what is known as the Council For Higher Education Accreditation. For example, there is the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools for institutions in most central states, and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools for institutions in most southern states (among 4 other regional agencies).

Regardless of the lies told by hundreds of for-profit scam schools (and their recruiters) every single year, the truth remains that regional accreditation is the only legitimate form of accreditation for colleges and universities. Most for-profit schools are what is called nationally accredited – which is truly a severe and unfortunate misnomer – by a group called the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS) or the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC), among others. At first glance, ‘national’ accreditation sounds a bit nicer than ‘regional’ accreditation – and recruiters who work for for-profit scam schools are well aware of this. Jason Aquino, a student from California who was recruited by Neumont University – a for-profit institution without regional accreditation – was specifically told by his recruiter, Karick Heaton, that “national accreditation was the better one to have.”

Nothing could be farther from the truth. The only reason that ACICS accreditation is called ‘national’ accreditation is because their organization is based in Washington D.C. and does not maintain any ‘regional’ agency partners. (The ACICS and other ‘national’ agencies like the ACCSC are exclusively focused on career training programs that target low-income, blue-collar Americans who are often less aware of for-profit scam schools. These agencies are infamous for having extremely low accreditation standards and are NOT respected by the vast majority of reputable universities or employers.)

Never-Ending Agency Drama & Politics

In other cases, some schools ARE indeed ‘properly’ accredited by reputable regional agencies (i.e. HULT International Business School) when in fact they really shouldn’t be, yet have somehow managed to squeeze through the cracks for the time being (i.e. when a corporation ‘buys out’ a bankrupt non-profit college).

In short, the truth is that modern accreditation of any given industry has always been, and will always be, a very political and sensitive issue ripe with corruption, bribes, favors, partisanship, cronyism, in-fighting, hypocrisy, and all other sorts of drama.

Here’s a perfect example: even the very well-respected Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities – the regional accreditor for northwestern states in the U.S. – recently cut off their partnership with the CHEA back in 2011 for unknown reasons. Technically speaking, this means that the NCCU is not currently “recognized” by the CHEA as a legitimate regional accreditor. But because regional accreditors function rather autonomously to begin with, and because the NCCU maintains such a high level of respect, this disassociation did not really harm their legitimacy among academics.

Another example: in 2013, The University of Northern Virginia – a for-profit school focused on scamming foreign students – had its accreditation revoked by the ACICS. Shortly thereafter, its campus was raided by agents working for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (ICE), followed by multiple lawsuits involving the owners and investors behind the institution. By some measure of insanity (and/or slow legal proceedings), the school was allowed to keep its .EDU domain, and tried to secretly open a new campus in South Dakota.

• See Also: How To Spot A Scam School – A.K.A. Diploma Mill – Here Are Some Of The Most Common Warning Signs

More information regarding the shady tactics that for-profit scam schools use to remain in business: How For-Profit Colleges Stay In Business Despite Terrible Track Record

Complete List Of Recognized Accreditors

So then, is regional accreditation the only standard to look out for? Definitely not! Depending on your field of study, there are multiple accreditations that you should check for before enrolling in a college – or even a specialized program or course.

For example, ABET is the recognized accreditation authority for programs in applied science, computing, engineering, and engineering technology. Therefore, even if a given university is well-known, well-respected, and regionally-accredited, but their computer science department is not accredited by ABET, most academics and employers would strongly advise you to avoid that institution. From the DOE:

Are there different types of accreditation? There are two basic types of educational accreditation, one identified as “institutional” and one referred to as “specialized” or “programmatic.” Institutional accreditation normally applies to an entire institution, indicating that each of an institution’s parts is contributing to the achievement of the institution’s objectives, although not necessarily all at the same level of quality. Specialized accreditation normally applies to the evaluation of programs , departments, or schools which usually are parts of a total collegiate or other postsecondary institution. The unit accredited may be as large as a college or school within a university or as small as a curriculum within a discipline.

The following is a complete index of all accreditation agencies currently recognized by the U.S. Department of Education (this list may change regularly):

Institutional Accrediting Agencies

Specialized or Programmatic Accrediting Agencies

Future Concerns Regarding Accreditation

In conclusion, let’s follow this path of logic for just a moment:

• The US is the world’s largest economy (China soon to surpass)
• English is the world’s most popular language
• The US is home to more college and universities than anywhere else in the world
• The US government allows indirect accreditation of its colleges and universities

The controversies surrounding higher education accreditation are far from over. In fact, with the higher education industry growing faster than nearly any other industry in the world, we can probably expect its corruption and cronyism to grow just as fast.

“As I am fond of saying, the United States exports some of the world’s best and worst higher education. The term ‘officially accredited’ covers a broad spectrum of institutions in terms of quality encompassing the good, the bad and the ugly.” — Mark Ashwill

The above quote is from Mark Ashwill, a former lecturer and Fulbright program adviser at the State University of New York at Buffalo who now lives in Vietnam. Ashwill’s impressive list of accomplishments now sees him as head of Capstone Vietnam, a human resources and educational training company based in Hanoi and Ho Chi Min City.

Ashwill goes on to express concern over why the American government so readily provides free advertising to for-profit scam schools to the millions of foreigners who consider studying in the United States every year:

It’s always been a mystery to me why EducationUSA (i.e., the US State Department – on behalf of the US Government – on behalf of the American taxpayer) represents all “officially accredited” institutions of higher education in its 400+ advising centers around the world. After all, there is absolutely no comparison between regionally accredited (RA) and nationally accredited (NA) schools, in terms of quality.

And here is exactly where we can expect the issue of accreditation to go in the future: ABROAD. The United States has a modest population of around 300 million people. Unfortunately for scam schools, American citizens have certain rights and privileges, including the ability to file lawsuits once fraud has been uncovered. This fact has rapidly turned attention toward the 7-8 billion other humans living in the world who are unaware of such higher education scandals now plaguing the US, and who, conveniently, also have an ever-growing amount of disposable middle-class income to spend.

Take, for example, University of Canada West, who for years now has been paying massive commissions to recruiters based in countries such as India who successfully convince students to enroll in their horribly reputed programs. As one CollegeTimes visitor reported, “Wow, this school is now trying to recruit students in China, Korea, Indonesia and Thailand. Watch out everyone, they’re now targetting other places where they are unknown. It is a shame the gov’t does nothing to protect these international students.”

This game plays both ways across the ocean. Not only are North American colleges (both for-profit AND non-profit AND public) actively seeking out more foreign students to come study at their American-based campuses, but they are also establishing a significant amount of satellite campuses and programs in other countries. In many of these countries, officials and governments are even easier to corrupt than in the United States (if a well-funded institution so desired – thankfully, most satellite campuses and expansion programs are still relatively legitimate). However, Ashwill has witnessed first-hand as Western for-profit companies aggressively expand their reach into Vietnam, looking to make a quick buck off unsuspecting Vietnamese families.

For now, the best bet for most college students of the world is still to study in America at a regionally-accredited, well-established institution with positive consumer reviews. But who knows – perhaps in the future, the American higher education system will have become so corrupted, and the lines so blurred between for-profit and non-profit schools, that other markets and opportunities (including the internet) will prove to be a better investment of not only time – but money as well. And, probably, far less of it.

The Neumont ‘University’ Scam: A Mormon, For-Profit, Career School Commits Fraud, Threatens Students

Is Neumont University a scam? That is the question asked online by a growing number of prospective students each year as they react to junk mail they’ve received from Utah-based Neumont University, a career institute focused on computer programming and video games, despite a lack of internationally-recognized ABET accreditation.

• See also: Interview: Jeme Deviny, Former Neumont University Director Of Financial Services, Spills The Beans

Unfortunately for many of them, Neumont seems to maintain a small army of spammers that troll the internet, posting “fake” student reviews on websites such as CollegeTimes, along with dozens of dubious comments on Yahoo Answers and other web forums. Below, we take a serious look into the foul practices of this fraudulent institution.

Fraud, Bullying, And Disinformation

Neumont University is not regionally accredited. Perhaps the biggest concern regarding Neumont University is that the school is not regionally accredited. Interestingly, at least one former student has alleged on CollegeTimes that Neumont University representatives have lied about this in order to convince prospective students to apply, but the truth remains that Neumont University is most definitely not regionally accredited in the United States. According to The New York Times’ About.com section, students should attend a regionally accredited college whenever possible, to assure their degree will be recognized by other universities as well as future employers.

“If you earn a degree from a school that is accredited by one of these [regional] associations, you can be assured that it will be valid … most employers and other universities will automatically accept your degree.” In contrast, the article continues, “many regionally accredited schools will not accept course credits” from schools that lack regional accreditation – plus, “some employers may be leery” of degrees issued by institutions (such as Neumont) that lack the respect and recognition that comes with being regionally-accredited. “Ultimately, regional accreditation remains the most widely accepted form of accreditation for degrees.”

The only positive media attention that Neumont University receives is from Mormon- saturated companies located in Utah. Searching Google News for “neumont university” presents extremely limited results – but the news articles that do appear (9/27/2012) are from just two newspapers: the Salt Lake Tribune, and Deseret News, both of which are Utah newspapers founded by Mormons (who, interestingly, also work together as part of their joint-operating agreement. It is illustrative to note that Google recently demoted the Salt Lake Tribune’s PageRank authority score to a measly level 3, one of the lowest scores among all newspapers currently operating in the United States.) Besides these two Mormon-centered publications, there does not seem to be any other national newspapers in the entire country that have written an in-depth article about anything going on at Neumont – unless of course we are counting this intern at Fox News who blogged about them once (unknown if she was paid), or this blogger at the LA Times who got accused of cruelty for posting legitimate photos of nerdy-looking Neumont students within his story, one of whom he quotes below:

“I don’t think anybody has enough fun at Neumont — it’s a bunch of people addicted to sitting in their mom’s basement playing World of Warcraft and drinking Dr Peppers,” said [Cameron] Murray, who himself was drinking a can of Dr Pepper at 8 a.m. on a Friday.”

Moving on to YouTube, searching for Neumont University displays nearly 300 results of self-promotional Neumont videos, nearly all of them uploaded admittedly by the institution’s own staff and administrators (albeit using many different usernames and accounts). Spam like this could perhaps be overlooked if not accompanied by blatant claims of endorsement by Fortune 500 companies and national news outlets. Not so long ago, Neumont displayed the logos of organizations such as Forbes Magazine, MSNBC, and InformationWeek on their homepage, claiming special recognition by these parties. After being outed by InsideHigherEd’s unforgiving exposé, it seems they eventually removed the graphics and instead began making subtle reference to some of these companies within a different page dedicated to informing the parents of prospective students.

Neumont University threatens and harasses their perceived critics. Among the many nasty tricks employed by for-profit scam schools in America, rarely do you see college administrators stoop to the unbelievably low level of Neumont University. Most recently, President and CEO (?) of Neumont, Edward Levine, sent his own private detective after the family members of Jesse Nickles, the founder of CollegeTimes’ former web hosting provider, Little Bizzy, with the apparent purpose of scaring the hosting company into deleting the CollegeTimes website from its servers. According to witnesses, Levine’s detective snuck up to his targets from behind, shouted at them, stalked them for 2 days using his car, repeatedly approached a residential private property without permission, and refused multiple times to leave when asked. Soon after, when bribing the CollegeTimes team with cash didn’t work, Levine filed a lawsuit in federal court against the web hosting company, attempting to shut down the CollegeTimes website with accusations of business disparagement.

• See also: Interview: Jason Aquino, Former Neumont University Student, Reveals Rampant Fraud, Lies, Harassment

Among other shameful instances, former Neumont student Ryan Elkins commented to the Salt Lake Tribune that Levine had also harassed him on multiple occasions. “My blog was all about Neumont. I would write about the things they did well or things I thought they did poorly – just about anything that was going on. At some point Mr. Levine decided that my blog was too negative and made moves to pressure me to shut it down or sell to Neumont. I refused to as I didn’t want to go down the path of censoring people. I received some vague threats about legal action but held my ground. The administration then resorted to making personal attacks against me through my blog’s comments by posing as students who allegedly knew me.” Along with dozens of other comments left on the Tribune website that questioned the morality of Neumont’s business practices, Elkins’ comment was promptly deleted.

On top of all this, Neumont University maintains and advertises multiple “fake” student review websites:

• www.neumont.edu/neumontreviews
• neumontuniversitystudentreviews.blogspot.com
• www.neumontreviews.com

They also convinced the Salt Lake Tribune to write an article condemning CollegeTimes, while pushing readers to alternative websites. (Interestingly, the Tribune recommended the same exact websites that Neumont recommends at the above URLs.)

Neumont University’s “president” is also their “CEO” … not to mention a key investor. Anytime a higher education institution has a CEO, it should raise immediate red flags. But when that CEO is also the campus president, not to mentioned a main financier for Delaware-formed Neumont University LLC and Neumont Holdings LLC, well, it should pretty much make prospective students run as fast as they can in the opposite direction. Listen to these words from Neumont’s RipOffReport.com profile: “The [former] dean, Sam Puich, is business-minded; which means he does not care about your education or your satisfaction therewith. His sole concern is the success of Neumont as a business. The new president, Ned (Edward) Levine, was an investor who likely has no clue about how to run a school. If you are a prospective student, do not attend. Unless you have $100K+ to shell out for the bill, you’ll get stuck with a load of high-interest private loans. Additionally, the degree only means something to their partner companies (the vast majority of which are Utah-based start-ups destined to fail). Otherwise, you’ll have to spend 10 minutes of every job interview explaining why you decided to screw yourself by going to this expensive, unknown school. Yes, they are affiliated with IBM, but only on an investment level. IBM wouldn’t dare consider hiring an NU grad for a serious position.”

Even more revealing: one of the Mormon investors that initially launched Northface Learning (Neumont’s predecessor) was Gary D. Kennedy, a businessman from Salt Lake City, Utah, who has been sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission multiple times for accounting fraud and cooking the books at many different US companies. In fact, his reputation got so bad that Neumont was unable to acquire financial insurance until they fired him from their board of directors.

Over 95% of the extremely homogenous student body is white, male students. This statistic may interest any females or minorities considering Neumont University. According to quite recent US government data, Neumont University’s student body is made up of over 95% male students, and over 95% white students – one of the most non-diverse student bodies in the entire United States. Neumont, founded by a group of Mormon businessmen in the middle of Utah, has also been accused of purposefully making anyone who is not Mormon feel unwelcome at the campus. Said one Neumont graduate on CollegeTimes, “The staff is mostly Mormon and if your not a Mormon you get judged and look down upon. And it is true about the teacher laughing about the students they fail. The administration don’t give a s**t about any of the student they just want the most money they can get.” Although, on the surface, Neumont attempts to market themselves as a purely secular institution, it is perhaps tell-tale that they are listed as an official donor to Mitt Romney For President, Inc, a political action committee (PAC), which appears to be their first and only political contribution to date.

None of the faculty members or administrators at Neumont University hold a PhD (doctoral degree). When a college or university recruits its faculty members by posting classified ads on Craigslist, it sounds like something out of a Hollywood comedy. Believe it or not, however, this is how Neumont University does things, according to reviews left on CollegeTimes. But the sad state of Neumont faculty doesn’t stop there. According to their very own online faculty database, not one of the administrators or faculty members at Neumont University holds a PhD of any sort, from any academic field whatsoever. In fact, it appears from their directory that:

• Their current President and CEO, Edward Levine, has only attended art school
• Their current Director of Admissions, Karick Heaton, has never attended college
• Their current Vice President of Academic Operations, Aaron Reed, has never attended college
• Other faculty members appear to merely hold degrees from the University of Phoenix, or from Neumont University itself
• Nearly all remaining faculty degrees come from Brigham Young University, the largest Mormon institution in the world

Neumont University will accept just about anyone. Strangely, not very many stick around. Going back to Department of Education statistics once more, it turns out that upwards of 85% of applicants to Neumont are accepted to attend, with constantly rolling admissions. Year after year, however, Neumont administrators seemingly refuse to report the average SAT scores of incoming students for unknown reasons. In fact, the school does not even appear to require any minimum testing scores for new applicants (they also accept GED certificates). According to a former student on RipOffReport.com, “This school will recruit anyone. Their minuscule 15% rejection rate is based solely on finance-based rejections, your academic record will remain safely unchecked.”

This same student explained further, “The advertised $60,000 a year salary is a blatant lie. Average starting income for a programmer at a respectable firm is around $20,000 per year and dropping. Their lesson plans consist of basics mixed with drawn-out gibberish which barely passes as an education. You’ll learn the same stuff you can find online for free, all these guys did was just repeat said material and fill it with a lot of hot air and pretty graphics. After you’ve absorbed almost nothing, you’ll be thrown into a group of other likewise educated individuals and charged with the task of making yet another website-application-database engine that you’ll be making for the rest of your blue-collar life (yes, this kind of programming is blue-collar compared to what real engineers do. Compare an auto mechanic with an automotive engineer — you’ll graduate from NU as the programming world’s equivalent of a grease monkey).”

Is it any wonder their Freshmen retention rate hovers around 80%, with only 68% graduating (if we are to trust Neumont’s numbers) not including advanced/transfer student figures? (compare with UCLA retention of 97%).

Neumont University charges an outrageous amount of money for credits that will not transfer. Crunching raw numbers, Neumont turns out to be 100.9% more expensive than average for all colleges and universities in the state of Utah (at minimum, when based on $21,600 yearly tuition – the latest figure released by Neumont). Re-visiting their RipOffReport.com profile, a student reacts to Neumont’s seemingly ever-changing cost of tuition, saying, “It costs over $1k per week to attend the school, NOT INCLUDING HOUSING! The financial aid office lies about housing costs, saying they would be incorporated into the tuition of $9k per quarter, only to append an additional $500 per month on the top of that for living expenses, later explaining the lie as your confusion should you inquire.” Indeed, yearly tuition costs for Neumont in the Deparment of Education database, called IPEDS, seem to radically change from year to year since the school’s inception in 2003. According to some sources such as collegestats.org, tuition at Neumont costs upwards of $38,000 per year, not including housing, books, supplies, a quarterly “activities” fee of $500, or the $2,000-3,000 laptop (price varies according to Neumont) that NU forces all students to purchase.

Neumont University offers one program, and one program only: computer science. While Neumont attempts to market their campus programs as having distinct focuses such as video games or leadership skills, it doesn’t change the fact that the US government considers Neumont to only offer one recognized discipline, being computer and information science. This means that if a student enrolled at Neumont and later decided on a different career path or major, he would have absolutely zero options. Not only could he not switch majors (i.e. biology, or even another IT-related major such as electronic engineering), but he also could not switch colleges, because no regionally-accredited schools in the United States recognize the credits that Neumont University distributes. Therefore, any student at Neumont that seeks a new direction in life is forced to drop out after accumulating tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

Neumont University’s insinuated claim of endorsement by the US Department of Education is bogus. During mid-2006, the US Department of Education was wrapping up a report dubbed the Spellings Commission, initiated by former president George W. Bush. Margaret Spellings was then Secretary of Education, but the chairman of the commission was one Charles Miller, a curious fellow from Texas who paid his way through college by gambling and later financed George W. Bush’s bid for the presidency. On the surface, the purpose of the commission was to bring together experts in the field of higher education in America to come up with ideas that would address ongoing challenges in the US college system. In reality, however, the commission was wrought with controversy, in-fighting, and large amounts of criticism from public university officials, who accused Miller in part of pursuing a biased agenda aimed at pushing private investment and for-profit campuses in the higher education sector. Miller, who openly despises the regional accreditation bodies that Neumont has thus-far been banned from joining, is quoted by InsideHigherEd.com as saying, “Neumont University was one of the best and most interesting models I had ever seen … It had been recognized by MSNBC, Forbes and CNN, after having been brought to our attention by Nick Donofrio” when asked why he decided to recommended Neumont (“Salt Lake City-based Neumont University is educating the most sought-after software developers in the world”) while citing them as the #1 example in the United States of “innovation in curriculum development and program delivery.” Quite strangely, these comments were part of a last minute draft edit to the commission report, according to InsideHigherEd.com, long after field work was completed and various members of the commission had already quit from the team in frustration. Neumont has not explained what prompted such a personal relationship with Charles Miller during the commission, but still to this day claim special recognition from the US government on their website:

“Neumont has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Education report on Neumont’s unique approach and the Chronicle of Higher Education reviews Neumont as an exceptional model for Innovation in Program Delivery, with exceptional attention to graduate employability.” (Note: Neumont’s homepage now references “innovation” 138 times according to Google.)

In regard to their claim of being positively reviewed by the The Chronicle of Higher Education, the famous Washington D.C. based magazine, they fail to state that the article in question was in fact merely a contributed piece from Albert C. Gray, who is none other than the president of Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools – the low-level, controversial “accrediting” corporation of which Neumont University is a current member (along with many other controversial, for-profit schools).

How To Put It In Perspective

My name is Noah.  You can call me whatever you like.  I reside quietly in my New Jersey home, which is far too encrusted with my own filth to lend itself to entertaining guests.  It is my own private prison cell, and it makes me feel safe.

Smoking marijuana is an insuperable part of my daily routine.  As is tobacco, to which weed is a gateway drug.  I don’t ask for much out of life these days except for a flow of ganja, water, cigarettes, coffee, and some good solitary confinement.

I am the most wanted person in the world.  Not that no one knows where to find me.  Those who recognize my name and my voice will also know who I am, what I will be saying next, and even what thoughts I am thinking now.  I am under the most intimate and mostly invisible sort of 24 hour surveillance.  And if I were the one saddled with doing the surveilling, sure, I’d probably feel compelled to do the same.

I don’t know exactly what I am, though I have a few guesses.  In any case, I have no desire to be dangerous, and certainly not as dangerous as I am sometimes made to feel that I am.  What I really would like is to be left in peace.  And here’s the unavoidable truth:  I don’t get peace until the world gets peace.  Much as I would like to crawl back under a stone, that option is long gone.

That means I have to talk to you.  It means I have to talk with everyone.  That is so contrary to my nature, that it’s practically the funniest joke in the world, that this task should fall to me.  And why not?  Life without comedy is just a dull trudge through the mud to nowhere.  I can understand that.

Comedy, I think, is really only possible if you believe that behind the whole cosmic tapestry there is some sort of ultimate benevolence.  I do believe that.  As grumpy as I am, that thought resonates with me as something true.  So my first advice to you, to me, to anyone, is:  relax.  Whatever troubles are on your mind.  Whatever it is that grieves you.  Relax.  These things have a way of turning out well.

That’s not to say there’s not work to do.  And amends to be made.  But that’s just the hard part.  After that, I believe, things are going to get much easier.

I must remind myself continually to perform these exercises:

I admit to myself that I do wrong.  That my happiness, or my avoidance of sadness, comes at someone else’s expense.

I admit this:  I do not do everything I would like to do.  Whether for fear of what others will think, or for lack of an anchoring principle that describes, for me personally and no other, what forms of pleasure I am free to seek.

If these sound like difficult things to admit, perhaps you’ll understand why I find it time-consuming.  It helps explain why I sequester myself in my shoddy apartment, where I never have to speak with anyone.  There are endless truths about me that I simply do not want to face.  So if that sounds at all familiar, I’m right there with you.

We have too many rules masquerading as laws.  These are not laws.  There are only two laws.  Don’t hurt or interfere with others, and otherwise do whatever it is you want to do.  Those are the only laws we need.

For example.  I love to get high.  Indeed, it’s the only state of mind wherein I can see things clearly.  Oh, I could do without some aspects of it; the paranoia, the grogginess, the sheer scarcity of it.  But some clever person hid a walloping serving of truth in every delicious bite.  That says to me that weed is a sacrament, plain and simple.  And any government on earth that stands in the way of my getting high, is a government whose legitimacy I do not recognize.

I enjoy orgasms as well.  Mind you, I do not have the benefit of a partner, and this is precisely how I wish it to be.  For me personally, the world is already complicated enough.  But were I feeling any more sexually adventurous, I would be chafing under the sheer number of restraints that our society, the world over, places on sexual encounters, sexual proclivities, desires, wants, needs.  The gay versus straight debate is this simplistic argument that distracts us, apparently successfully, from the whole catalog of sexual activity that one is seemingly forbidden to be too open about.

We live in a world where there is such a concept as an impermissible thought.  This idea has been so well-ingrained in me that, when I finally sat and listened to the thoughts passing through my head, as though others could hear them distinctly, I was mortified.  If the laws we’ve lived by were applied to the thoughts in my head, I would be guilty of murder, rape, treason, and generally of being a truly bizarre individual who, just on principle, should not be allowed to walk free.  All of which are shadows compared to the sheer volume of just plain rude and insulting thoughts my head churns out, apropos of nothing.  These are thoughts I would be just as happy to be able to ignore completely.

We cannot exist as fully realized human beings unless we give our thoughts the complete run of our heads.  Thoughts must not have consequences.  To believe otherwise is to invite fear.  And fear wants nothing of me, or of anyone surely, so much as paralysis.

What I think cannot possibly define what I am.  Were I to believe otherwise, I would surely destroy myself, simply for my own good.  I believe instead, I must believe, that it is only when you combine thought with free will, and thereby inform your actions, that you come to know what you are.  Your thoughts are there because they are there.  Surely a thought cannot hurt another; only action can.  This notion keeps me sane.

I have made my peace with this, only partially perhaps, but sufficiently that it is time for me to come forward.  I have no idea how to get everyone’s attention, nor at what short-term cost to me, in privacy, in peace of mind, in mental health.  But the toll it takes on me not to speak out is too prohibitive.  I know the answers now, or I have a good idea how to find them.  Someone needs to speak out in the name of common sense.  Whatever my trivial misgivings, that speaker certainly has to be me.  Which means I have to be comfortable, finally, just being me.

And so I need your help, whoever you are.  You must drag me out into the sunlight.  Deprive me of that one luxury I always held most dear, the illusion of privacy and solitude.  I have borrowed myself from the public, and now I need to give it back.  I need to write, or speak, or do something.  This little essay represents my first volley.  There must be many more such.

Best College Bars near The University of Michigan

Image by: N0Nick (Flickr)

If you are a new student at The University of Michigan, you will fall in love with Ann Arbor. As a college town, Ann Arbor has many charming local dives and funky places to discover. The area surrounding the campus of The University of Michigan is alive with local bars favored by U-M Students. Whether you are in the mood for trivia, karaoke or a cheap beer after a week of classes, here are the most popular bars where you will find your fellow U-M classmates.

Brown Jug Restaurant
1204 S. University Ave.
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(734) 761-3355

This campus favorite is a versatile place where you can take a date, take your parents out when they come in town or just wind down and have a beer.  The Brown Jug Restaurant is easy on your wallet too, as many college students agree that prices are reasonable, even downright cheap. If you are going to experience their libations, try one of the 10 different Long Island iced teas. (Tip: The green dinosaur is the most popular.) If you are looking for something good to eat, the veggie pizza is highly recommended along with the Feisty Feta & Greek pita bread.

Good Time Charley’s
1140 S. University Ave.
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(734) 668-8411

Described as the epitome of an Ann Arbor college bar, Good Time Charley’s is the bar of choice for many students at the University of Michigan. If you are going for heavily loaded drinks, you will appreciate that the Long Island iced teas are served in a pickle jar. This bar also has just about every flavor of shots imaginable. Good Time Charley’s gets packed on the weekend, so if you are looking for a place to meet other students, you will have no problem finding them here. Conveniently positioned on the corner of South University Avenue and Church Street, Good Time Charley’s is within walking distance to the University’s dorms –which is a good thing if you’ve had one of the Long Island iced teas.

Rick’s American Cafe
611 Church St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(734) 996-2747

Offering a typical American varsity vibe, Rick’s American Café is everything you may imagine a college bar to be. With their tag line “The Most Fun You Can Have with Your Clothes On,” Rick’s promises the flirtatious, sexy college party experience with flowing alcohol and live entertainment every night of the week. Honored by Playboy as “College Bar of the Month” and named “Best Campus Bar in Ann Arbor” by the “Michigan Daily,” Rick’s American Cafe is one of the busiest bars on the University of Michigan’s campus since it opened in 1979.

Blue Leprechaun
1220 S. University Ave. #109
Ann Arbor, MI 48113
(734) 665-7777

The Blue Leprechaun is one step up from a college dive bar. It is a bit classier than the typical college bar in Ann Arbor and is often frequented by more a more distinguished college crowd, including grad students and professors. Overzealous fraternity boys and sorority girls are generally not found drinking here. The fireplace in the front room gives this bar a cozy, pub feel. The Blue Leprechaun has live music, karaoke and a hip lounge downstairs that has a more laid-back atmosphere than the bar upstairs. If you are looking for a drink and dinner deal, Tuesday nights are “Everything is Half Off for Grad Students Nights,” which may explain why so many grad students like to hang out here.  If you are tired of pizza and hamburgers, this is a great place to go for some Irish comfort food, such as fish and chips or Sheppard’s pie.

Grizzly Peak Brewing
120 West Washington St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(734) 741-7325

This is another brew pub that is popular among a college crowd with a more distinct palate. For those who enjoy the taste of beer and are not just looking for a cheap buzz, this pub will blow you away with its list of fine imports and locally brewed beer. They offer a great list of rotating and seasonal brew. Patrons enjoy a bustling bar with good spirits, food and a dim, warm environment. As a local favorite, this pub draws a diverse, lively crowd. While it may not be located on campus, many college students go here to treat themselves. If your parents are in town and offer to take you to dinner, take advantage of their offer and order something nice for yourself, such as the spicy, beer-steamed mussels or the pretzel-encrusted salmon with a Black & Tan brownie beer.

April Lentini writes for Apartment Guide in Detroit.

10 Surprising Statistics on Women in the Workplace

While there is no doubt that women have come a long way from the discrimination and struggles they faced in the previous century when it came to getting an education and finding a job, the sad reality is that when you look at the hard facts, there is still a fair amount of inequality when it comes to women’s role in the working world. Whether you’re a working woman yourself or just want to help support the rights of women, these facts are a surefire wake-up call that women still don’t always get a fair shake when it comes to getting paid, attaining promotions, or entering certain fields. Take a moment to read through these ten eye-opening stats to see where women really are in the working world and get some inspiration to see where changes need to be made and where advancements can be lauded for this generation and the next.

1. Women comprise 46% of the total U.S. labor force. With almost half of the workforce being women, female employees aren’t exactly a rarity. For most women today, getting a job is an expected part of life. This is a big change from past decades. In 1900, fewer than 20% of women participated in the labor market while today the number is around 75% and growing.

2. Women make only 77.5 cents for every dollar that men earn. This figure comes from data on the 2003 census. Despite this gap, many economists feel that the gap between pay for men and women is due to different personal choices men and women make about personal fulfillment, child rearing and hours at work. Whichever you choose to believe, the reality is that the gap is slowly but surely closing as women become increasingly educated and dual income families become the norm, but this isn’t much consolation to those who feel discriminated against today.

3. The more education a woman has, the greater the disparity in her wages. This certainly doesn’t mean women should shy away from professional positions, but they should be aware that they may have to battle harder for equal pay. Women in professional specialty occupations were found to earn just 72.7% of what men in the same position earned, and women in upper level executive, administrative and managerial occupations earned even less at 72.3%. If you compare this against the average of 77.5%, the numbers speak for themselves, and this graphic from the New York Times makes it even easier to see.

4. Women may work longer to receive the promotions that provide access to higher pay. One example provided by the National Center for Education Statistics shows that women often have to work three years longer in a teaching position to be promoted to a principal than their male counterparts. Some studies suggest that this is because women and men adapt different strategies when it comes to management and pursuing promotions, yet other studies connect it less to work and more to gender-based biases.

5. Women business owners employ 35% more people than all the Fortune 500 companies combined. If you’re like most people, you don’t picture a woman when you think about a business owner. Yet there are about 9.1 million women-owned businesses in the U.S., a number that comprises nearly 40% of all businesses. The idea that women don’t make good managers just doesn’t hold up when you look at these kinds of numbers, with women managing a large number of employees and making healthy profits while doing so.

6. Women account for 46% of the labor force, but 59% of workers making less than $8 an hour. What does it mean? It means that many women are taking on jobs that pay well under a living wage. With nearly 16% of U.S. households having women who are divorced, widowed or never married as the sole providers, this leaves many women at a distinct disadvantage and struggling to make ends meet as they dominate jobs in low paying fields.

7. Only 53% of employers provide at least some replacement pay during periods of maternity leave. Despite the fact that the arrival of a child means extra bills and expenses, many employers don’t provide women with any benefits if they to leave work temporarily to have a child. While there is no law requiring companies to offer paid maternity leave, considering it is an issue that primarily affects women, it’s certainly a blow to their income potential and ability to care for their families and themselves.

8. Four in ten businesses worldwide have no women in senior management. This shouldn’t be a surprise given the way many countries feel about women in the workplace. Here in the United States, however, women still feel the stress of trying to break into upper management, with 93% of the 439 senior women executives surveyed by Korn/Ferry International in 1992 feeling that a glass ceiling for women still existed. Yet new studies report that women outnumber men as managers in fields like human resources, health administration and education–perhaps stemming from reports that many businesses have seen a direct financial impact from hiring women.

9. Women earned less than men in 99% of all occupations. In virtually every field that women choose to enter, they can expect to earn less over their lifetime than their male counterparts. This means that over 47 years of full-time work, this gap amounts to an estimated loss in wages for women of $700,000 for high school graduates, $1.2 million for college grads, and $2 million for professional school grads–a staggering amount.

10. Minority women fare the worst when it comes to equal pay. African-American women earn 64 cents to every dollar earned by white men and Hispanic women just 52 cents per dollar. Whether it’s attitudes about race or gender that are at play, it’s clear that something needs to be done to level the playing field.

US Foreign Policy Makes America Less Safe in the War on Terrorism

“And we fight today because terrorists want to attack our country and kill our citizens, and Iraq is where they are making their stand. So we’ll fight them there, we’ll fight them across the world, and we will stay in the fight until the fight is won.” (Applause.) — President George W. Bush

Despite plenty of muscular rhetoric, President Bush’s strategy in the War on Terrorism demonstrates a dangerous ignorance of the unique military, tactical, and political aspects of the terrorist threat, and breeds a dangerous and chaotic foreign policy which has only served to put our nation in greater danger.

Back in the 6th century BC, in his classic, The Art of War, Sun Tsu observed, “Know your enemy, and in a thousand battles you will not be defeated.” Sadly, our current Commander-in-Chief ignores the Chinese grand master’s lesson, and actively eschews the acquisition of useful knowledge about our terrorist enemy. After the 9/11 Commission found that the CIA and FBI could have prevented the attacks of September 11th, had they only more effectively shared and communicated their intelligence to the White House, the Bush Administration could have ensured a dynamic and efficient system of American intelligence simply by reforming and/or streamlining the two agencies. Instead, the Administration did nothing to improve either agency, instead creating an entirely new government agency, the Department of Homeland Security, whose most obvious contribution to homeland security to date is a puerile, and now universally-ignored, color-coded Alert Level system.

Not surprisingly, the enhanced state of perpetual ignorance within America’s intelligence community quickly took its toll, proceeding to deliver terribly flawed pre-war intelligence to the White House, which then spawned an utterly disastrous occupation of Iraq. All of this, of course, was in addition to our continued inability to capture, or even locate, America’s Public Enemy 1, Osama bin Laden. Sun Tsu is rolling in his grave.

The atrocious ignorance continues with the Administration’s inability to grasp the fundamental distinction between fighting terrorists and fighting enemy nation-states. In the wars of yesteryear, an enemy nation had a standing army, a native population, static boundaries, and permanent institutions, all of which helped to create an enemy who could be effectively destroyed with a sustained military campaign. But the problem with terrorists, unlike nationals of a belligerent foreign nation, is that they are not a permanent, distinct class. Terrorists are recruited, shaped, molded and trained by underground organizations, usually working without state sanction, and thus there is no fixed stock of “enemy combatants” capable of comprehensive military liquidation. As William F. Buckley, Jr. brilliantly observed, “Individual terrorists were, only yesterday, engaged in ordinary occupations, shocking friends and family when they struck as terrorists.” Victory, then, will be achieved not with a specific death toll or geographic occupation, but by ensuring that Islamofascism remains a detested minority in every country in which it hopes to gain support. Victory is depriving the Islamofascists the ideological fuel with which they recruit the ordinary citizens to join the ranks of the jihad.

Terrorism itself is only a tactic of violence; it finds its roots in an ideology and thus cannot be defeated by military might alone. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelan, founded in 1975 in Sri Lanka as the first terrorist organization to make widespread use of suicide bombing, are amazingly still blowing themselves up as part of their independence movement there (talk about dedication!), simply because they are still not independent from Sri Lanka, and thus can still recruit their martyrs with an effective narrative of foreign oppression and victimization. The near-infinite willingness of a people to willingly slaughter themselves in an ideological protest against foreign occupation has been confirmed over and over, from the Algerian resistance to French occupation, to America’s own experience in Vietnam.

Unfortunately, most of the fuel for the global jihad is supplied by current American foreign policy in the Middle East. It is true, as some allege, that Islamists hate nearly every feature of Western society, from our politics to our culture, and as a result, it is easy to say that Islamic terrorism against America is a fait accompli stemming from a fanatical worldview that hates everything we stand for. But while Islamists indeed harbor grand visions of world empire under Allah, their delusions of global theocracy have been swirling around the Middle East ever since Muhammad began claiming his divinity; only recently did Islamic terrorism emerge as a dangerous threat to America. As late as the 1950s, Arab nations still sought out American mediation in their international disputes, respecting our independence and fairness, despite presumably still harboring atavistic religious hatred toward Our American Freedoms. Seven decades later, Uncle Sam is reviled like no one else in the world.

Libertarians, like Ron Paul, rightly point out that the difference between the good ol’ days of respect for America and the current days of Death to America is a U.S. foreign policy of interference in the Middle East. Rudy Giuliani and his supporters would like to believe otherwise. But nothing is more devastating in the obliteration of Rudy G’s arguments than the facts.

Back in 1998, Cato Institute scholar Ivan Eland had already been looking at the facts, and as a result, he had already begun to note the growing trend of America’s terrorist threat, corresponding directly and invariably with American intervention into the Middle East. Unlike both Bush and Clinton, Eland was already keenly aware of al-Qaida, Hezbollah, and their growing threat to American interests. (If only Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney read the Cato Institute.) Here are some partial excerpts of his prescient work, from his 1998 paper Does U.S. Intervention Overseas Breed Terrorism? The Historical Record:

July 2, 1915: The Senate reception room in the U.S. Capitol was damaged by a homemade bomb built by Erich Muenter, a former Harvard professor who was upset by sales of U.S. munitions to the Allies in World War I.

June 5, 1968: Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, former attorney general and senior policy adviser to President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan, who had grown up on the West Bank and regarded Kennedy as a collaborator with Israel.

March 1971: A bomb exploded in a U.S. Senate restroom, causing extensive damage. The bombing came at a time of rising opposition to U.S. policies in Vietnam.

November 4, 1979: Supporters of the Ayatollah Khomeini seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran, capturing hostages that were not freed until January 1981. The embassy was captured as a protest against long-time U.S. support for the unpopular shah of Iran.

July 22, 1980: Ali Akbar Tabatabai, a former press counselor at the Iranian embassy in the United States during the shah’s reign, was assassinated by the Islamic Guerrillas of America (IGA) after he had supplied U.S. officials with a manifesto of the IGA that advocated strategically planned terrorism on U.S. soil and assassinations of U.S. officials, stating, Any American can be targeted… no American is innocent… as long as U.S. foreign policies are to the detriment of the Islamic community.

April 8 and October 23, 1983: Islamic militants, funded by Iran and supported by Syria, suicide bombed the U.S. embassy and U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 290 people and wounding 200 more. The attack remains the deadliest post-World War II attack on Americans overseas. The Americans were supporting the Christian government in Lebanon against the Muslim militias by training and arming the Lebanese National Army. The U.S. Marines were later withdrawn from Beirut, prompting a Hezbollah spokesman to brag that the $martyrs! had finally forced the Marines out of Lebanon.

April 5, 1986: Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi sponsored the bombing of the La Belle nightclub in West Berlin, which was frequented by U.S. servicemen. The United States retaliated for the La Belle bombing with air strikes against Tripoli and Benghazi, Libya. In retaliation for the U.S. air strikes on Libya, an American hostage in Lebanon was sold to Libya and executed; Libyans attempted to blow up the U.S. embassy in Lomé, Togo; a Libyan agent, Abu Nidal, hijacked Pan Am Flight 73 in Karachi, Pakistan, killing several Americans; The Japanese Red Army, under contract from Abu Nidal, planted a bomb at the USO military club in Naples, Italy, on the two-year anniversary of the air strikes, killing five; and two Libyan agents bombed Pan Am Flight 103, killing 270 people, 200 of whom were Americans.

March 10, 1989: A pipe bomb exploded beneath a van owned by the commander of the U.S.S. Vincennes, who had shot down an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf (killing 290 civilians) during U.S. participation in the $tanker war! against Iran. March 12, 1991: During the Gulf War, a U.S. Air Force sergeant was blown up by a remotecontrolled bomb placed at the entrance of his residence in Athens, Greece. $November 17!, the deadliest terrorist group in Greece, November 17, which attacks U.S. targets because of American imperialism-nationalism!, claimed responsibility for the attack.

February 26, 1993: A group of Islamic terrorists detonated a massive van bomb in the garage of the World Trade Center in New York City. The Egyptian perpetrators were trying to kill 250,000 people by collapsing the towers. Ramzi Yousef, the leader of the terrorists, said the intent was to inflict Hiroshima-like casualties to punish the United States for its foreign policy toward the Middle East. The perpetrators considered augmenting the explosion with radiological or chemical agents that would have increased the casualties.

April 15, 1993: Seventeen Iraqis were arrested as part of government plot to assassinate former president George Bush on a visit to Kuwait, in retaliation for the Gulf War against Iraq.

June 1993: Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman–a militant Egyptian cleric–and other radical Muslims conspired to destroy several New York landmarks on the same day. Funding for the operation apparently came from Iran and was funneled through Sudan, attempting to punish the United States for its policies toward the Middle East.

October 3, 1993: Osama bin Laden’s operatives trained Somali tribesmen who conducted ambushes of U.S. peacekeeping forces in Somalia in support of clan leader Mohamed Farah Aideed, causing the death of 18 American Army Rangers, and the dragging of dead American soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu. An indictment of his followers alleged the United States–an $infidel nation!–had a nefarious plot to occupy Islamic countries, as demonstrated by its involvement in the peacekeeping operation in Somalia and the Persian Gulf War. The incident led to the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Somalia, which bin Laden called his group’s greatest triumph.

November 13, 1995: A car bombing of a military complex in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia–which housed a U.S. military advisory group–killed 7 people (including 5 Americans) and wounded 42 others. Muslim militants seeking to topple the Saudi monarchy and push the infidel United States out of Saudi Arabia carried out the bombings. Three groups, including the Islamic Movement for Change, claimed responsibility. U.S. officials suspect that Osama bin Laden was involved….

We can fill in the rest. Years later, 9/11 ushered in the modern War on Terrorism, and Mr. Bush, with characteristic ignorance of the documented connection between American aggression in the Middle East and Islamic terrorism against America, only further augmented interventionist U.S. foreign policy. That the Bush Doctrine’s geopolitical social engineering, especially in Iraq, has been such an unqualified failure is not a surprise to anyone who has read this article thus far.

Another obvious problem with the Bush Doctrine and its exportation of Democracy is that nearly every Arab Muslim lives in a Non- Democracy, and thus America’s grand experiment looks, from the perspective of the common man, to simply be imperialist meddling with his local government. The Bush Doctrine, even if it somehow succeeded (i.e. when the “fight is won,” perhaps), would only guarantee a Pyrrhic victory at best. With every terrorist mastermind captured in Iraq, dozens of martyrs sign up to avenge his death and battle the American Empire. Iraq itself wasn’t even a haven for al-Qaida operatives until after America invaded it. While bin Laden, confirmed murderer of American civilians, roams the globe free, Mr. Bush is pleased that we’ve killed terrorist al- Zarqawi, whose horrific and disgusting attacks were all against America’s presence in Iraq, never threatening continental America itself. The Bush Administration, it seems, is really only successful at capturing terrorists of its own creation. Sadly, U.S. interventionism Iraq itself wasn’t even a haven for al-Qaida operatives until after America invaded it. The Bush Administration, it seems, is really only successful at capturing terrorists of its own creation.

Sadly, U.S. interventionism (Operation Terrorist Creation) is not limited to the occupation of Iraq. The CIA and NSA continue to interfere in the political affairs of various nations the world over, funding, training and assisting various anti-Islamic movements and governments, from the Caspian Sea to the Horn of Africa.

While such action may excite the intellectual tribalists in the neoconservative movement, the problem with such meddling is that the CIA-backed alternatives to Islamism, just like the CIAbacked alternatives to Communism, tend to usually be brutal nationalist dictators or military juntas, and are just as bad, or worse, than Islamism for the people we are supposedly “liberating.” As a result, our intervention only enhances political oppression, civil unrest and poverty, which, studies show, then only serves as a breeding ground for Islamic extremism. The whole nasty process only further convinces the Islamic diaspora that America is waging a war on Islam. This is not how to win the hearts and minds of the world’s people.

Our current policy, in its blind aggression and geopolitical ignorance, purports to fight terrorists “where they are making their stand,” but it only serves to make them more effective and numerous. Thanks to the Bush Doctrine, radical clerics, government bankrollers, and their potential recruits can now all observe a visible military and political occupation to justify their ongoing resistance against the Great Satan. In these backward societies deprived of freedom of information and thought, radical Islamofascist rhetoric, combined with clear evidence of American global occupation, is sadly enough for terrorists to gain alarming popular traction, financial support, and willing martyrs. This mobilization of terrorists, potentially creating hundreds of thousands of jihadists, if America’s belligerent foreign policy continues apace, is becoming the greatest threat the United States of America faces.

In intelligent recognition of this reality, America should immediately repudiate the Bush Doctrine and pursue a policy of intelligent disengagement. First, those terrorists and organizations which have committed or planned acts of aggression against the United States, such as al-Qaida, should be pursued with vigor; this is our most important mission and should be treated as such. Second, America must cease all nation-building, internal interference, and general military interventionism in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, in order to deprive terrorists of their fuel for jihad. Regimes, organizations and groups who do not threaten direct harm to the United States should not be the target of any U.S. military campaign. As we’ve repeatedly argued, the occupation of Iraq should immediately end.

As Americans, we all desire to win the war and to enjoy permanent security. But like Vietnam, Quebec, and Somalia, not all battles our government chooses to fight are winning ones; and like My Lai, Manzanar, and the Bay of Pigs, not all tactics our military prefers are desirable. An extension of that nugget of common sense dictates that as long as U.S. foreign policy glorifies the imperialist fallacies of neoconservatism, we libertarians will continue to rightly inveigh against it.

The Bush Administration’s blind allegiance to aggression over knowledge perverts not only the lessons of Sun Tsu, but also the American Founders’ original vision of a nation seeking only peaceful trading ties, the avoidance of entangling political alliances, and a national defense to respond powerfully only when directly provoked. The authentic patriot believes in these true American principles of intelligent self-defense, and knows that they alone can safely guide our nation through these troubled and dangerous times.

The author of The American Evolution, Matt Harrison is the founder and executive director of The Prometheus Institute, Los Angeles, CA, a nonprofit public policy institute. He has authored more than 200 articles and has been a guest on several talk radio shows and a guest blogger for CNN.

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