Southeastern University Loses Accreditation, Closing

SEU-seal

DC’s Southeastern University has lost its accreditation, canceled its fall term, and is seeking to merge with another school.

The institution’s accreditation from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education lapsed Aug. 31. A report from the commission found that the small private college lacked rigor and was losing faculty, enrollment and financial stability. Southeastern has operated since 1879 and has long served a population of lower-income and international students.

Of the 645 students enrolled at the Southwest Washington campus last fall, more than 300 graduated in a poignant ceremony in late June. Many of the rest transferred to the University of the District of Columbia, Trinity Washington University or Washington Adventist University, said Elaine Ryan, Southeastern’s interim president. Nineteen of Southeastern’s 60 faculty and staff members remain.

[…]

There remains the possibility of a merger with GS Graduate School, an institution that provides continuing education for 150,000 students a year, most of them government workers. Officials with the two institutions, which are a few blocks apart, had spoken of creating a combined school with a wider range of degrees and a focus on public service and federal job training.

Given how ridiculously lax the accreditation process is, Southeastern had to be really, really awful to be stripped completely. That it is seeking to merge with a degree mill established to provide “degrees” to employees of the Department of Agriculture so they will have the necessary “education” for promotion reinforces my suspicions in that regard.

One wonders how long it’ll take Google to update their listing:

southeastern google

via Inside Higher Ed

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. DL says:

    Judging by the character of a couple of prominant key professors and passed professors, is Harvard next?

  2. odograph says:

    I don’t know if I dropped a link here, but I really liked this “transforming education” piece:

    http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/138/who-needs-harvard.html