International Higher Education, Summer 2004

Ross University: Cash Cow or Pig in a Poke?

Alan L. Contreras
Alan L. Contreras is the administrator of the Oregon Office of Degree Authorization, 1500 Valley River Drive No. 100, Eugene OR 97401. The views expressed in this article are his own. E-mail: alan.L.contreras@state.or.us.

DeVry University, a reputable regionally accredited U.S. college that provides a variety of mainly technical programs, announced in spring 2003 that its corporate parent, DeVry Inc., was buying Ross University’s medical and veterinary schools in the Caribbean in order to improve and expand DeVry’s offerings. It is not unheard of for such international acquisitions to take place, but this one was special: the Ross veterinary school is on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts.

The St. Kitts Situation
Ross has no authorization to issue degrees anywhere in the United States; its office in New Jersey is expressly limited by that state’s laws to noninstructional administrative functions. Therefore, under U.S. law it is a foreign institution, and its degrees must be evaluated as foreign degrees.

Meaningful academic oversight on St. Kitts is doubtful at best. This is the country that once authorized a person in Texas to issue degrees as Eastern Caribbean University. It also hosts Berne University, which recently lost its Title IV approval because of findings by the General Accounting Office (the investigatory office of the U.S. Congress) and the U.S. Department of Education that its programs are not equivalent to a U.S. university, its award of credit is inappropriate and excessive, and its finances are questionable.

Multinational Suppliers
What exactly is the Ross veterinary school? It is not listed by UNESCO (not that this means much for good or ill anymore, since UNESCO has no screening). It does not appear on international lists of universities. The American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) international evaluation office (relied upon by many U.S. colleges for international evaluations) has never seen its degrees. The respected Florida evaluation firm Silny and Associates, which has seen its degrees, considers it only equivalent to an unaccredited U.S. college. It apparently has only a business license from the government of St. Kitts, the college oversight standards of which are, shall we say, opaque.

Has DeVry purchased an overstuffed pig in a foreign poke? Can this reputable U.S. chain school convert this expensive offshore porker that falls well below the normal accreditation radar horizon into a cash cow? Some observers speculate that DeVry assumed that its institutional accreditation from the U.S. North Central Association would automatically extend to cover Ross. Not so, according to the accreditor. Ross is not a unit of DeVry University but a freestanding unit of DeVry, Inc., a parent corporation. Fair enough. Ross must therefore undergo its own evaluation. But by whom and as what?

Nonexistent Oversight
DeVry has no apparent plans to make Ross a U.S. accredited school. According to the U.S. Department of Education, DeVry Inc. intends to keep Ross a foreign school for purposes of maintaining eligibility for U.S. financial aid, a much easier approval standard at the federal level in the United States since it requires no proof of academic oversight or quality, just fiscal management and a foreign business license. It appears that neither DeVry nor the Department of Education cares that the Ross veterinary school has its “approval” from a nation whose approvals are widely considered substandard.

Ross will therefore become an academic version of Dr. Doolittle’s Pushmepullyou, a llama-like creature aimed in two directions at once, but worse: it will be of two species, lurching about to provide a chosen face depending on who is looking. No U.S. college or accreditor could possibly treat a school authorized by St. Kitts as having equivalent foreign approval to issue degrees--yet DeVry clearly considers this irrelevant.

The U.S. Department of Education piously cites its own rules, which say that foreign schools don’t need the equivalent of U.S. accreditation to be eligible for U.S. financial aid money. They just need whatever the local business license is, and if it is labeled “accreditation,” well, that is good enough for the U.S. government. So DeVry has bought a U.S.-certified foreign college that never requires external oversight by a legitimate national college oversight body in the United States or in its home country. Forever.

The fact that degrees issued on St. Kitts are illegal for use in places like Oregon is perhaps too minor a consideration to affect DeVry’s corporate strategy. We are sure that a large, lawyer-filled educational provider like DeVry has already figured out that buying a school located on an island with low oversight standards is a pretty good deal. Like everyone who observes the relationships between U.S. and foreign colleges, legitimate and bogus providers, we watch in anticipation, since the future of the Ross colleges is likely to be both entertaining and creative.

College Ownership
This picture--a reputable U.S. school purchasing a doubtful offshore degree supplier--may seem strange today but will be seen more often in the future. Unfortunately, the common pattern is not likely to be productive mergers between reputable providers in multiple countries, but the St. Kitts pattern: wealthy U.S. proprietary schools absorbing “approved” schools in small foreign countries, whether or not that approval means anything, and using them as one-way drainage tubes through which money can flow.

There will be no meaningful screening from the U.S. Department of Education, which lacks the structure, staff, funding, inclination, and political support to undertake such unpopular enforcement activity. Only a few states and evaluation firms, with limited ability to sail upwind in an expensive political and legal environment, are pointing out that certain colleges have no clothes. We hope that U.S. colleges and accreditors have the vertebrae to maintain standards in the face of such economic and political pressures.