Was Columbia State University in Louisiana, an accredited
correspondence University in 1996 and 1997?

Hello Captaindick,  

According to the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs witness
testimony of Laurie Gerald,   Columbia State University was never
accredited.  Columbia State University was a diploma mill, before it
was shut down by the authorities in 1998. Together with Ronald Pellar,
she was charged with executing a scheme to defraud individuals through
the operation of a "diploma mill."

?The term ?diploma mill? to mean "a business that pretends to be a
university or other educational institution with qualified faculty,
curriculum, classes, educational facilities, academic accreditation,
and that solicits money from various individuals in the form of
enrollment and tuition fees in return for the issuance of degrees with
purported career advancement value, but which, in truth hires no
qualified faculty, has no established curriculum, classes, campus, or
educational facilities, and has no legitimate academic accreditation,
and merely distributes purported ?degrees? that do not have legitimate
career advancement value."


According to this definition, Columbia State University was a diploma
mill, before it was shut down by the authorities in 1998.

She declared:

?Columbia State University had no faculty, qualified or otherwise, no
curriculum, no classes, no courses, no tests, no one to grade tests,
no educational facilities, no library, and no academic accreditation.
In short, Columbia State University was a business, conceived and set
up by Ron Pellar not to educate students, but to make money. And it
made plenty.?

?Columbia State University, for its part, offered bachelors, masters,
and doctorate programs in a variety of fields, all requiring little
work ? but a lot of money ? to complete.?
?In 1996, Ron moved offices and charted a new course for Columbia
State University; a course that caused the school to take off
financially. Ron hit upon a formula that worked; a formula that was
deceptively simple, and remarkably effective. It was basically a
marketing strategy that targeted people who never finished college or
graduate school but who could be led to believe that, through their
life, work, and academic experience, they had more or less earned a
bachelor?s, or master?s, or doctorate degree. All they had to do was
complete a minimal amount of work, pay the tuition, and Columbia State
University would award them the degree that they deserved.?

?The cornerstone of the new marketing effort was the promise that a
student could obtain a degree in just 27 days. Ron called this
"Columbia State University?s short cut, internationally known and
respected Adult Degree Program." He claimed that the school had "the
same government approval" as Harvard, Yale, the University of
Illinois, and other accredited, respected schools. I?m not certain
what he meant by that, but I recall Ron telling me that, at one time,
he managed to license Columbia State University as a corporation with
the State of Louisiana and it may have been granted tax exempt status
by the IRS.?

?Columbia State was never actually accredited, though Ron falsely
claimed that it was. This board shows a page from the Columbia State
University?s catalog. It depicts a bogus accreditation certificate
that Ron simply made up. Ron often disparaged accreditation in
general, but he was smart enough to know that tricking people into
thinking that Columbia State University was properly accredited would
be a great help to business. Ron took a number of other steps to make
it seem like Columbia State University was a legitimate school. For
example, he made up the school logo and letterhead, which falsely
stated that the school had been around since 1953. The board shows a
blown up version of a form acceptance letter Ron put together. As you
can see, the stationery shows a ten member Board of Advisors all with
advanced degrees. In fact there was no Board of Advisors ? Ron Pellar
was Columbia State University ? he simply made up the names and titles
for the so-called "board." The stationery also lists honorary Ph.D.
recipients. You will note that the man who discovered the polio
vaccine, Jonas Salk, is listed among them. When Dr. Salk discovered
that his name was being used on Columbia State University letterhead,
he wrote to Ron demanding that he remove it, which Ron did.?

Source:
Statement of Laurie Gerald  
Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs 
"Bogus Degrees and Unmet Expectations: Are Taxpayer Dollars
Subsidizing Diploma Mills?"
May, 11 2004
http://www.senate.gov/~govt-aff/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings.Testimony&HearingID=175&WitnessID=630
 

Search terms used: 
Columbia State University 


I hope the information provided is helpful!


Best regards,
Bobbie7

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Request for Answer Clarification by captaindick-ga on 13 Jun 2006 20:24 PDT

I was told it was accreddited by the ACPCU, American Council of
Private Colleges and Universities. Is there such a thing, and what
good is it? Maybe they just took my money.

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Clarification of Answer by bobbie7-ga on 13 Jun 2006 20:36 PDT

The ACPCU does exist.

"The American Council of Private Colleges and Universities is a
private accrediting association founded to serve small to medium size
nonprofit institutions of higher learning. The mission of the
association is to establish and enforce strict academic, ethical,
financial and evaluative standards for member schools. Charter members
provide directors, staff and other services for the association while
Primary association members do not. The council does not provide
resource information to the public nor does it supply lists of
applicants or member schools."

http://www.acpcu.org/

The ACPCU was "founded to serve small to medium size nonprofit
institutions of higher learning."

Columbia State University was not a non profit institution, therefore it was 
not accreddited by the ACPCU.

I'm sorry if this isn't the information you wanted or expected, but 
as I mentioned previously, Columbia State University was a diploma mill.

Please clarify the bit about the ACPCU accreditation as mentioned in
the "answer clarrification" section.