Legislation: Truth in Educational Advertising Act

It irks me to no end that “for-profit”, supposed, educational intuitions are allowed to utilize a “dot edu” domain name. It is my personal belief that this is in violation of the established internet domain name protocols and common decency. I believe it is a violation of good faith and also of the best interests of the student.

“For profit” companies are required to purchase a “dot com” domain name because the “com” stands for commercial, meaning that monetary transactions either take place on the website, through the website, or with the owners of the website. This is exactly what is going on with such intuitions as the University of Phoenix, ITT Technical Institute, and many others. However, because of National Accreditation they are allowed to purchase “dot edu” domain names. Other educational websites selling certificates and training are not allowed to do so, and make no mistake, in all of these instances you are literally buying your training, not paying for, but buying.

National Accreditation is sometimes a misnomer because the standards for such are always consistently lower than Regional Accreditation, which is what you really want to be looking for in a school. These schools that earn Regional Accreditation will actually accept one anthers credits, whereas with these other schools you’ll be lucky if they accept one another’s credits (mostly that answer is “no”). And while this is perfectly legal, it is (in my mind) false advertising to the student who may very well believe all schools are equal.

I am not asking for these schools to be made illegal, just make their purchase of “dot edu” domains illegal, and perhaps require them to notify all prospective students that their credits earned there will not be accepted anywhere else. I believe that not to do so creates a lie of omission and threatens the actual value of educational degrees, hence the mad rush to get degrees our society is currently undergoing and the devaluing of degrees earned in more traditional institutions.