I realize this is an issue our local news media obviously doesn't want to ask of 7th District congressional candidate Andre Carson, but there remains unanswered questions about the college degrees Carson represents he has earned. Carson boasts that he earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice management in 2003 from Concordia University in Mequon, Wisconsin and a master's degree in business administration from Indiana Wesleyan University in 2006. Both degrees were earned while Carson was supposedly employed full-time as a state excise police officer.
According to a record of his transcript from Concordia University, which Carson had placed in his state personnel file, he began his undergraduate studies at Concordia University in the spring of 2001. Carson represented in an interview with the Star's Robert King that he took his undergraduate college courses at a satellite facility for the school in Hamilton County. Remarkably, Carson completed and earned his undergraduate degree in just 2 years and a summer term, finishing his last term in the summer of 2003 with 128 credit hours. His state personnel records indicate he earned an MBA from Indiana Wesleyan University in 2006. In other words, Carson managed to earn both an undergraduate and a master's degree in five years while he was employed full-time by the Indiana State Excise Police.
As someone who legitimately earned an undergraduate and a post-graduate degree, something isn't adding up here. For the record, I earned my undergraduate degree in 3 years and a summer term as a full-time student, and I was really pushing it hard. I earned my law school diploma in 3 years as a full-time student. I sure as hell couldn't have worked a full-time job and pulled that off. Do we have a child prodigy here in Andre Carson who is a quick learner? I doubt it. His personnel records show he finished 88th out of 89 in his class at the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy. As RiShawn Biddle aptly described Andre, we have a guy who is more qualified to be a Democratic precinct captain than a member of the U.S. Congress. The local news media is allowing a snow job to be pulled over on the voters of the 7th District to make us believe Andre Carson is something he is not. Would the local news media start doing their jobs and start asking the questions of this candidate that we the voters deserve to know?
Concordia University-Wisconsin makes the following claims about its adult education program:
ReplyDeleteThree credits in four to six weeks
Earn your degree in as little as two years
here:
http://www.cuw.edu/AdultEd_Graduate/adult_education.html
And Indiana Wesleyan makes this claim:
Complete your online MBA in about 18 to 20 months!*
http://business-degree.iwuonline.com/mba/MBAxpress-program.htm
To be quite honest, you seem out of touch with modern education, especially the proliferation of degree-completion and adult learner programs.
You say that you couldn't have worked a full-time job and earned a law school degree in 3 years, yet plenty of people work jobs that are far more demanding than Mr. Carson's and they earn their law degrees in only one more year than you.
I think anon 10:10 it trying to explain that both are just mail order degrees.
ReplyDeleteYou see, Gary, both programs allow your Grandmother to do your homework and take your tests.
ReplyDeleteThat's "modern education, adult-learner programs."
You're so out of touch to expect one to EARN a degree. Get with it!!
This mail-order, quick-degree situation is well-documented and it will not help Andre.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who talks more than one minute with Andre, knows that any post-graduate degree for this guy is a modern joke.
These degrees are a complete sham. It cheapens the value of the real degrees the rest of us at legitimate institutions of higher learning. If he can pass off these degrees as the equivalent of the two degrees I earned from IU and Butler, then something is wrong with our system of higher education.
ReplyDeleteI review dozens of employment applications daily. I've grown very wise to people presenting phony degrees to qualify for certain job openings at certain pay levels. I always request the transcripts from the respective universities and colleges where degrees are obtained. It is amazing the number of applications I'm tossing because the degree conferred just doesn't add up to the substance of the student's learning at that school. Major educational institutions need to insist on a crack down against these phony degrees. They really are degrading the value of degrees people legitimately earn.
ReplyDeleteFrom the Concordia University-Wisconsin website listing all "other Concordias"
ReplyDelete"CUW students may study for a semester, possibly for one year, at any of our nine sister institutions:
Concordia - Ann Arbor
Concordia - Austin
Concordia - Chicago
Concordia - Irvine
Concordia - New York
Concordia - Portland
Concordia - St. Paul
Concordia - Selma
Concordia - Seward"
I agree that Mr. Carson's degrees may not be equal to a full-time four year program; however, he is not misrepresenting himself or his education. He has stated all his degrees clearly. We must leave it up to the voter to decide if the type of education is a critical matter. Furthermore, earning any type of adult degree should be commended. Not everyone has the luxury of having the flexibility to go to school full time.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious as to how Andre got the approx. $ 65,000 for tuition
ReplyDeleteat both schools for his degrees, condensed into only about 5 years. Student loans? Has he missed any
student loan re-payments since 2007
when re-payment on the loans would have started?