Short-Cut Graduate Degrees Shortchange Everybody

Some schools don’t claim to be much of anything, some claim to be what they are not, and some are gamely trying to become something.

In large numbers, ministers are returning to school for graduate degrees. They want to “keep up” in their field, and achieve the recognition an advanced degree offers in this accomplishment-conscious society. The Association of Theological Schools reports that 11 years ago there were 201 students enrolled in doctor of ministry (D.Min.) programs; today there are 5,551. In that same period, the number of Ph.D. students rose 54 percent, despite the well-known shortage of teaching positions for which such degrees are usually obtained.

But a minister who believes he cannot afford to go back to school in an accredited program is not barred from getting a certificate for his wall. The reason is that a thicket of unrecognized theology schools has sprung up to meet the demand—nearly all of them with standards below those of the accredited schools. These unaccredited institutions generally offer correspondence courses for master’s and doctoral degrees, even though recognized accrediting agencies do not believe home study should qualify for graduate credit.

Unfortunately, some of the schools make misleading statements about their accreditation, and their students mistakenly believe the schools are fully recognized. The students who attend usually have no basis on which to judge the education they receive, allowing even poor schools to produce satisfied students.

Unaccredited graduate schools of theology generally fall into three categories: schools that don’t claim to be much of anything; schools that claim to be what they are not; and schools which, despite the clamor of critics from established academia, are gamely trying to become something.

If all a person wants is a degree for the wall, the first group is his ticket. He sends in his money and gets a degree—either by doing nothing, or by completing a few correspondence courses, or by writing a paper or two. For $1,000, the California Christian University in Adelanto, California, will award an honorary doctorate. For $45, Western Cascade University in San Francisco offers a doctorate in any subject the student chooses. For another $50, Western Cascade will throw in a transcript of credits drawn to anyone’s specifications. A doctorate may be obtained from the International Bible Institute and Seminary in Orlando, Florida, for writing a 60,000-word paper, or three 20,000-word papers. But that’s no piece of cake: there must be at least seven books listed on the bibliography. The cost is $550, with a 10 percent discount for cash payment.

These kinds of places seem to flourish in California, probably because that state has a law allowing practically anyone with at least $50,000 in property or equipment not only to set up shop, but to advertise that they are “authorized” by the state to award degrees. (They must also file annual affidavits with the state fully disclosing pertinent facts about themselves.) Some states have tougher laws; others don’t. Still others, despite their best efforts, have been unable to police the landscape as well as they would like. For example, to weed out diploma mills, Florida passed a law requiring all colleges to have state licenses, but certain religious groups objected on First Amendment grounds. They were excluded, and now the only substandard schools in Florida are religious schools (all religious schools in Florida are not substandard, of course).

The schools in the next category, those claiming to be more than they actually are, cause special concern, because students can more easily be misled by them. These usually offer graduate degrees by correspondence, but the courses require genuine effort and the cost is considerable. They definitely are not diploma mills, and a student can finish a degree at one of these schools, learn a lot, and feel proud of his accomplishment. The only real problem is that the people who run them usually have insufficient credentials for teaching graduate-level courses, and the courses themselves fall far short of generally accepted standards for graduate education.

Because of these factors, a student could run into trouble if he tries to get into a ministry that requires accredited training—a military chaplaincy or a pastorate in some denominations, for example—or if he tries to transfer his credits to a recognized college.

Many of these unrecognized schools sport credentials from impressive-sounding accrediting agencies, but usually these are worthless. The only generally recognized accrediting agency for theological graduate schools is the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) in Vandalia, Ohio. It is one of about 80 specialized accrediting bodies in the country that scrutinize individual programs of colleges and graduate schools in particular fields of endeavor. In addition, there are six regional accrediting agencies (the North Central Association, the Southern Association, etc.). Each has authority to accredit entire colleges and universities within its region. Sometimes small theology schools, usually fundamentalist, will publicly refuse to seek accreditation from any of these, under the mistaken notion that the groups are connected with the government. They are not; they are all private. (This excuse is sometimes convenient when a school cannot possibly meet the standards.)

Although several bogus accrediting agencies exist, only those agencies that have passed the scrutiny of the Council on Post-Secondary Education (COPA) or the U.S. Department of Education are generally recognized as legitimate. So it is not enough to know that a school is accredited. The all-important question is: Accredited by whom? (These accrediting agencies are not supposed to question the doctrine of the schools they scrutinize, only the teaching standards.)

One school that advertises frequently and presents itself to the unknowing student as being more than it actually is, is Toledo Bible College and Seminary in Tennyson, Indiana. The school offers 15 academic programs, including four master’s degrees and four doctoral degrees, all available for home study on cassette tapes. It has about a thousand students, nearly all of them in the correspondence courses, making it one of the larger schools of its kind. Three men do most of the teaching.

Because the Toledo school illustrates a number of problems students should be aware of when contemplating an unaccredited school, a close look at its credentials to see what it claims to be, and what it actually is, is of value.

The founder of Toledo Bible College and Seminary is John D. Brooke. He lists himself in the course catalogue as a graduate of Detroit Bible College, and as having a B.A. from Great Lakes College (not to be confused with Great Lakes Bible College), a Ph.B.D. degree from Pioneer Theological Seminary, and a Th.D. from Toledo.

Actually, Brooke received a three-year diploma from the Detroit institution in 1949 when it was a three-year Bible institute. Pioneer Theological Seminary was named on a list of diploma mills issued by the federal government in 1961, and it closed shortly afterwards. For all practical purposes, Brooke awarded himself the Th.D. from Toledo, since he received it not long after he started the school. Brooke did receive a B.A. from Great Lakes College in 1957. That school later merged into Michigan Lutheran, which merged into Shaw College of Detroit, which still exists.

The second teacher is William Franklin Milton, Sr., who received three degrees in three years from Toledo: a Th.B., Th.M., and Th.D. He has no other degrees, according to the catalogue.

The third teacher is Thomas Rodgers, the vice-president and director of the off-campus division. He has a recognized degree from the University of Detroit in business administration, and is probably the most respected teacher at Toledo. He has a genuine ability to motivate students say some who have taken his classes on campus. Rodgers also has four theology degrees, all from unrecognized schools, including two from Toledo. One degree, a Ph.D., is from California Christian University—a dubious place where, as noted earlier, an honorary doctorate may be bought for $1,000 (Rodgers said he took correspondence courses for his Ph.D.).

The fact that Rogers would even list that degree in the catalogue says something about Toledo. According to a book entitled The Alternative Guide to College Degrees and Non-Traditional Education, by John Bear, the founder and president of California Christian is Walter Rummerfield, who, according to Bear, lists his pedigree as B.S., Ms.D., Ps.D., GS-9, D.D., Ph.D.M., Ph.D., D.B.A., S.T.D., J.C.D., and J.S.D. Bear asked Rummerfield about those nine doctorates and was told, “Well, I’ve really been around.” Bear says in his book that he has seen California Christian diplomas signed by Ernest Sinclair, whom Bear identifies as “the notorious felon who has spent much time in prison for running degree mills.” Rummerfield denied to Bear that Sinclair was connected with the school. Bear writes, “That this school operates legally says more about California law than about California Christian University.” (More about that California law later.) Asked about his degree from California Christian, Rodgers said he isn’t proud of it and that he will not list it in the next edition of the catalogue.

Brooke started Toledo Bible College and Seminary in Toledo, Ohio, in the late sixties. He operated it there until 1978 when, for all practical purposes, he was forced out of the state by the Ohio Board of Regents for awarding degrees without a state certificate of authorization. (Unlike California, “authorization” is an academic accomplishment in Ohio.) The certificate depended on the school’s passing an academic inspection by the state, an unlikely event, and Brooke was made aware of it. Nonetheless, he had applied; but shortly before the Ohio Board of Regents was to rule, Brooke withdrew the application, packed everything up, and the school was moved suddenly to Indiana, making it almost literally a fly-by-night operation. The shift took place a few weeks before the 1978 fall semester was to open, and a number of students were left high and dry. The students were never given a clear reason for the abrupt relocation of their school.

During its years in Ohio, the school did not distinguish itself academically. Interviews with several former teachers reveal that students were admitted who could barely read. One of the teachers, Larry Evans, was dumbfounded to learn at graduation that some of these students were awarded doctorates.

Richard Hopkins taught at Toledo in the early seventies, but it was not until the preparation of this article that he learned some dismaying news about its accreditation claims. The school’s current catalogue says it is “fully accredited by the International Accrediting Commission of Schools. Colleges and Theological Seminaries, and the American Association of Specialized Colleges.” Since other unrecognized schools carry credentials from these agencies, a closer look at them is worthwhile.

The first agency, the international commission, was known in earlier years as the Accrediting Commission for Specialized Colleges. It exists in the home of George S. Reuter, Jr., of Bellwood, Illinois. (He has a legitimate Ed.D. from the University of Illinois.) Reuter said 50 schools are accredited by his commission; however, at their request, he said, he could give out no names to this reporter. That is highly unusual, since schools are generally proud of their credentials.

According to John Bear’s book, a school can become a “candidate for accreditation” with Reuter’s organization by paying $110. Full accreditation, says the book, is not much more difficult. It goes on to say that Reuter once went to Saint Louis to visit one of his schools, but couldn’t find it: its address was a mail forwarding service.

The commission’s letterhead shows commissioners who appear to have legitimate educational credentials. One of these is Gerald Stover, a curriculum development specialist from Pennsylvania. Stover, however, said that Reuter does not keep the commissioners apprised of what he is doing, and commented, “if a school sells a bill of goods on its worth, he accepts it.” Stover said he has advised Toledo to drop its affiliation with Reuter, which it does not intend to do (at least at press time). The move could be touchy, since both Stover and Reuter are listed in the Toledo catalogue as adjunct faculty members. When Brooke applied for his Ohio certificate of authorization, he filed a lengthy evaluation of his school done by an “educational consultant.” The study said Toledo was strong academically, and it noted the school had the approval of a national accreditating agency. The author of the study was one George S. Reuter, Jr. (Rodgers said Reuter will be dropped from the list of adjunct professors because there could be a conflict of interest.)

The second accreditating agency Toledo lists, the American Association of Specialized Colleges, is even flimsier than the first one. The latter is actually the parent of the former, and its founder, Gordon DaCosta, is one of the more colorful flimflammers in the annals of phony degrees. In the 1960s, DaCosta created a degree mill in Gas City, Indiana, called Northern Indiana University, to supply Ph.D. diplomas to people working in New York City as psychotherapists. DaCosta also created the Accrediting Commission of Specialized Colleges to lend credence to it. DaCosta’s exploits were more fully exposed in a 1973 issue of the National Observer.

Besides the accrediting agencies, Toledo also claims in its catalogue to be “an Indiana State Chartered Degree Granting Institution.” All that means is that Toledo is incorporated as a business and paid a filing fee of $26. It has, therefore, only a business charter, and is “state chartered” just as a pizza parlor or a dry-cleaning store is “state chartered.” It is not “state chartered” in the sense that the state gives it any recognition for the degrees it offers. Because it is a Bible school, it needs no recognition under Indiana law. When it was suggested to Brooke that, just possibly, some prospective students might be misled by this claim, Brooke insisted he had no intention of misleading anyone, but just the same he would remove it in the next edition of the catalogue.

That is not the only change Brooke plans to make. He is changing the name of the school to Trinity Bible College and Trinity Theological Seminary. The change is justified, he said, since there is no longer any connection with Toledo. Ohio.

Despite all its problems, Toledo seems to be making a gradual effort to improve itself. Course requirements are being toughened, and an effort is being made to recruit a teacher or two with recognized graduate degrees. Rodgers himself is completing a D.Min. from Luther Rice Seminary, and is taking M.A. courses in continuing education from a recognized college in Evansville, Indiana. Still, it seems as though it will be some time before Toledo Bible College and Seminary is taken seriously by any legitimate accrediting body.

There is no question that students at schools such as Toledo genuinely benefit from their courses. The point is, schools like these cheapen the system of awarding degrees for academic accomplishments. At Toledo, for example, you could get a master’s and two doctor’s degrees at home in your spare time by taking about the same number of credits that a full-time student at a recognized seminary takes for just his M.Div. degree.

The credentials of Toledo Bible College and Seminary have been microscopically scrutinized because of its large student body, and because the claims it makes for itself appear in the catalogues of other schools as well. The International Bible Institute and Seminary in Orlando, for example, not only lists DaCosta’s organization as one of its accreditors, its catalogue also claims “all degrees are valid and transcripts can be used in future resumés for Christian work applications and degree programs.” Bible students who believe in literal interpretations are likely to be surprised if they really try to put that statement to the test.

The other category of nonaccredited graduate schools are those that are trying hard to make something of themselves while not misleading students about what they represent. Luther Rice College and Seminary in Jacksonville, Florida, is a good example. The great majority of its 4,000 students are enrolled in home study courses leading to M.R.E., M.Div., M.M. (master of ministry), and D.Min. degrees. Its faculty and staff are all Southern Baptists, although the school is unconnected with the convention. It was founded in 1962 to fill the educational void created by the fact that Southern Baptist ministers must satisfy no educational requirements to be ordained. As a result, says outgoing president Robert Witty, of 30,000 Southern Baptist pastors, 16,000 have had no seminary training and 21,000 have had less than two years. The school aims at that clientele and has clung to its mission despite the legitimate question of whether such home study as it offers is valid for graduate academic degrees.

Witty has taken the criticism to heart where he feels he can, and the school dropped the Th.D. and Ed.D. degrees it once offered. Year by year the seminary division is gaining ground academically, and it now has 10 full-time and 5 part-time faculty members, many holding recognized doctoral degrees. The seminary requires its students to attend four three-day meetings with professors, as well as other face-to-face meetings with fellow students, thereby breaking out of the home-study-only mold.

What separates Luther Rice from schools such as Toledo (in addition to the academic standards) is that it does not claim to be more than it is. Information sent to prospective students states frankly that the seminary holds no academic accreditation, but that its goal is to become accredited, and with the recognized agency. It is far from certain, however, that ATS will soon accredit the school, given the agency’s mistrust of correspondence course programs.

Not only does Luther Rice fail to make false claims for itself, it is even more modest than it needs to be. Several well-known people hold its degrees, yet the school does not advertise that fact. Its doctoral graduates include Stephen Olford, the evangelist; Charles Stanley, pastor of Atlanta’s First Baptist Church and a widely known television teacher; and Kenneth Meyer, president of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. All hold D.Min. degrees except Stanley, who has a Th.D.

One characteristic Luther Rice does have in common with other external programs, such as Toledo, is that it has reversed the meaning of a common academic term. The Luther Rice catalogue says candidates for its D.Min. degrees must be in “residence.” By that it does not mean on campus in a classroom: it means at home, on the job in one’s ministry, thereby making a virtue out of a deficiency since students are isolated from their peers and their professors.

There is one unaccredited theology school a continent removed from Luther Rice that defies all conventional classifications and produces sharp disagreements over the value of the education it offers. That school is California Graduate School of Theology, or “Cal Grad School,” as it is known, located in Glendale, California.

It was founded in 1967 by a group of ministers who had made some sweeping generalizations about seminaries. They decided that most seminaries do not provide adequate training in practical skills, that many faculty members are people who “have not experienced great success” in church ministries, and that “common problems,” including church growth, evangelism techniques, and church architecture, are usually overlooked.

The founders finally decided that graduate theology degrees were unfair because it takes longer to get them than it does to get equivalent degrees in secular fields. This means, according to the school catalogue, that “the minister’s professional degree leaves no symbol of educational standing that has social acceptance.”

Other seminaries might debate whether their church education professors are unsuccessful ministers, or whether their graduates find their degrees socially offensive—or even whether church architecture is one of those everyday problems pastors face. The claim that theology degrees are unfair deserves a closer look.

The school’s brochure says that “the average seminary student upon graduation is simply awarded a bachelor’s or at best a master’s degree.” That used to be true, but it became untrue just about the time Cal Grad School was founded. Last year 23,486 students graduated from three-year, preordination seminaries. Only 173 received bachelor’s degrees (B.D. or S.T.B.); most were Roman Catholics in Canadian schools. All the rest received M.Div. degrees (except for 75 who received in-sequence D.Min. degrees).

The rest of the complaint is valid. Medical doctors, lawyers, and dentists normally receive their doctorates before theology students do.

What Cal Grad School did about this was to lower the standards for its master’s and doctoral programs. Presently it offers a D.Min. or Ph.D. after about the same number of credits that traditional seminaries require for M.Div. degrees, the standard degree for professional pastoral training. (Starting next year, Cal Grad School will require another 18 hours for its Ph.D.)

In addition, a credit hour at Cal Grad School is not the same as a credit hour at an accredited school. Normally, a three-hour course meets for three hours a week over a 10-week quarter for a total of 30 hours—not including outside assignments, which usually are expected to take up twice the time spent in class. A Cal Grad School student, however, can take in an entire three-hour course by attending a two-day seminar from 9 A M. to 4 P.M. each day, plus outside assignments. That makes only 14 class hours, not including lunch break. This procedure is, in fact, common at the eight extensions Cal Grad School operates around the country. At the school’s headquarters building in Glendale, the three-credit-hour classes meet for one hour each week instead of three. Classes are held on Mondays and for a half-day on Tuesdays. The schedules are designed to accommodate working students—mostly pastors—as well as the faculty, most of whom are guest lecturers from surrounding churches. Sometimes the guests are nationally known authorities Cal Grad School can get because they do not have to commit themselves to an entire quarter in order to teach a complete class at the school.

For example, Elmer Towns, an authority on church growth, gave a one-day seminar on his subject in January, for which two hours’ credit was offered. While some may question whether a one-day seminar is worth two credits toward a doctoral degree, there is no doubt that the seminar was valuable for the students. A former Cal Grad faculty member said that at traditional schools, “students have faculty members who solve problems by checking 27 books out of the library. At Cal Grad School, the professor is somebody who can tell the students, ‘here is how I solved the problem in my church last week.’ ”

A few of the required doctoral courses at the school are taught by its president, Holland London, who, as far as can be determined, has no earned college degrees, although he has a good reputation as a preacher. (London lists a B.D. and a Litt. D. in the school’s brochure. The latter is an honorary degree awarded by the school. The source of the former is unclear; school officials say they don’t know its source and Holland was unreachable by phone. Newspaper articles have said it came from a now-defunct Nazarene school in Kansas. London spent two years at such a school, Brezee College in Hutchinson, in 1926 and 1927, but according to school records he did not graduate.)

Cal Grad School is unaccredited—sort of. Its brochure says it has been “authorized by the State of California Department of Education to operate under section 94310(c) …” But as previously noted, to say in California that a school is “authorized” is to say practically nothing academically. The brochure goes on to state that two of its three programs, the M.A. and the D.Min., have been “approved” under section 94310(b). That is true, and it does mean something. It means that qualified representatives from the state education department have spent two days on campus, have checked things out, and have found them in good order. That is why the staff at Cal Grad School insist verbally that the school is accredited. The state, however, insists that it is wrong for them to say that because, according to a spokesman, the state does not accredit. In fact, the highest rung on its approval ladder is section 94310(a), which is reserved for schools that have been approved by recognized accrediting agencies. But it does seem that when the state “approves” a school, without accrediting it, the confusion is understandable.

The demand for off-campus graduate training in theology is obvious. If accredited schools don’t figure out a way to enter the market and make the business respectable, then the substandard schools will proliferate. If one were to venture a guess it would be that in coming years, schools such as Luther Rice and Cal Grad School may be looked upon as visionaries of the movement, and may themselves have become respected, but in the process will have raised decisively the quality of their programs.

At the same time, however, most of these schools exhibit a marked preference for the practical aspects of ministerial training at the expense of academic work. This is unsettling, because so many of the tools an accomplished minister needs are academic tools. Slogging through Greek and Hebrew courses is hard work, and it is difficult to see how any but the rare self-starters will learn the languages well enough to be useful by studying on their own at home. Seminary students often survive these courses only because of the daily pressure of quizzes and the daily coaching by professors. If home study becomes the standard, these tools are almost certain to go by the board, and there are no more valuable tools to enrich a preacher’s ministry than the ability to read and understand the Scriptures as they were written.

Finally, it seems that the growth of home study education might become a self-fulfilling prophecy. A student feels called by God into the ministry, yet he wonders how he can possibly afford the time and the money. He sees an advertisement for a correspondence school that tells him students are finding traditional schools too expensive, and that there is an easier alternative. So he takes it.

But there are large numbers of students walking the grounds of traditional seminaries who also know they could not really afford to be there were it not for the miracles of money and part-time work God provides through friends and strangers. The spiritual lives of students such as these grow richer as they learn that if they are in God’s will, he will provide when they are in need. There are enough testimonies like these to fill books. One hopes that before a student enrolls at a short-cut school, he will be sure that he is not shortchanging God in the process.

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