Truth in advertising:  A fairly legal definition is advertisements that do not make misleading, false, or deceptive claims.  So let’s say Wonderful Educational Consulting  Company is organizing a US higher education fair series and they state in their publicity that only regionally accredited (RA) colleges and universities are permitted to join.  Wouldn’t you logically expect to see only RA institutions represented?

In fact, there are some companies and organizations that make this claim and then do the old bait-and-switch by including nationally accredited (NA) schools.  Why?  In the case of the latter because someone most likely dropped the ball and in the case of the former because money trumps quality.  They say it because it sounds good and they think it’s what US colleagues want to hear but the bottom line is, quite literally, profit.

NA schools are what I like to refer to as the distant cousins of their RA counterparts.  There is no comparison in terms of quality and recognition of credits and degrees.  In fact, most RA schools will not accept transfer credit or degrees from NA schools.  That decision pretty much says it all.

The company I work for, Capstone Vietnam, is probably the only educational consulting company in Vietnam that works exclusively with RA schools in the US.  (If you know of another, dear reader, let me know and I’ll post the comment and proof here.)  Why?  It’s simple – quality matters.

So does truth in advertising.  Bait-and-switch is yet another example of fraud perpetrated on attendees and other institutions.

MAA