Years ago I was at an IBM meeting in an IBM building that had the "look and feel" of a university. It struck me that someday they would be awarding their own degrees.
Now with academia and business joined in so many ways, it seems logical that business should be awarding degrees, just as academia is in the consulting business to make money. Wonder where this is all going. arthur -----Original Message----- From: Brian McAndrews [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 1:54 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Futurework] FWD: Multinationals to apply for university status Just imagine graduating from Enron U. Maybe you could get a job Harry!! Brian McAndrews http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,9830,902686,00.html Multinationals to apply for university status Donald MacLeod Tuesday February 25 2003 The Guardian Two multinational companies are seeking to set up as universities in the UK with powers to award their own degrees, according to the academic head of an American university in London. They join seven higher education colleges in England that are seeking university status in the biggest expansion of the university sector for more than a decade, as the government pushes for half of young people to enter higher education. Professor Geoffrey Alderman, vice-president of academic affairs at the American InterContinental University in London, said the companies - which he declined to name - were interested in recruiting thousands of employee/students to study for degrees. The higher education watchdog, the quality assurance agency, which advises ministers on granting degree-awarding powers and university status, said it had not received formal expressions of interest, although one company approached it informally more than a year ago. Normally an institution would engage in fairly lengthy discussions with agency officials before making a formal application to the Department for Education and Skills. The agency would then report on whether an institution meets its standards for awarding degrees - typically over the course of an academic year - and advise ministers accordingly. University status is granted by the privy council. Universities in the UK and the rest of Europe have traditionally been defined as having powers to award their own research degrees, but last month's white paper proposes to relax that condition and allow institutions that award their own taught degrees - bachelors and masters - to become universities. This has speeded up the rush by a number of higher education colleges to seek university status and would open the door to multinational companies and American for-profit institutions to enter the British market. Next week, the London Institute, which comprises five art and design colleges, will launch an application for university status in an attempt to become an "Imperial for the arts". But Bolton Institute, turned down on QAA advice at a time when it was taking a hard line on university status under its previous chief executive John Randall, is first in the queue with a second application under consideration. Five others, Bath Spa University College, Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, Canterbury Christ Church University College, University College Northampton and University College Worcester already have taught degree awarding powers and are all poised to apply. All say that becoming universities would help to attract student applications and forge links with business. Professor Alderman, formerly head of quality assurance at Middlesex University, said the advantage for a company in being able to award its own degrees was that it would get better quality students earlier. For students there would be the attraction of getting paid while they were trained on the job. They would also do residential courses and get a degree related to their career. He added: "These two private corporations have very extensive in-house training programmes, which in one case at the moment are delivered in collaboration with a variety of British and overseas universities. The multinational concerned is saying to itself 'why can't we deliver this ourselves and get degree awarding powers?'" AIU London, part of a profit-making company with campuses in the US, London and Dubai, awards both American and British (Open University) degrees. It has volunteered to be audited by the QAA. In the US there is a thriving for-profit higher education sector, although to be accredited such universities must have boards of governors independent of the corporation that owns them. Peter Williams, chief executive of the QAA, said the white paper made it clear the government intended to make it possible for organisations that were not traditional campus-based or publicly-funded institutions to gain degree-awarding powers. "The white paper wants to look at ways in which the market might be opened up for degree awarding powers," he said. With proper safeguards, companies could be considered as degree-awarding bodies if they applied to the DfES, he said. The agency would then investigate whether their in-house programmes were equivalent to a UK degree. "There are a large number of companies in the IT industry which are offering the industry standard credentials to a very high standard indeed. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they were to come along and say 'we are offering these high level credentials - are they equivalent to a degree?'" However IT companies would be too narrowly focused to qualify for university status, added Mr Williams. 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