Free Republic

The US Navy had to deliver some bad news last October. Like the other armed service branches, they missed their recruiting goals again. And they missed all of them. By a lot. The enlisted ranks goal for fiscal year 2023 had been 37,700, but they came up more than 7,000 short of that. They missed the enlisted reserve goal by more than 2,000 and fell short by hundreds in the goal for new officers. This forced them to raise the goals for 2024 even higher. But how do they plan on accomplishing that feat?Sadly, they have resorted to the same...

The Army is tossing its mandate for potential recruits to have a high school diploma or GED certificate to enlist in the service, in one of the most dramatic moves yet in the escalating recruiting crisis hitting the entire Defense Department.On Thursday, the service announced that individuals may enlist without those previously required education certifications if they ship to basic training this fiscal year, which ends Oct. 1.Recruits must also be at least 18 years old and otherwise qualify for a job in the active-duty Army. They also must score at least a 50 on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude...

In late January, the Department of Justice (DoJ) announced it had charged 25 individuals allegedly involved in a fraud scheme to issue fake nursing diplomas in Florida, with an estimated 7,600 such qualifications being handed out. At the time, it was unclear how many of the students caught up in the scheme were aware of the fraud or were, as Omar Perez Aybar, a Department of Health and Human Service agent, described "willing but unqualified individuals." Now, two of those "willing but unqualified" nurses have told of the adversity they have faced, losing jobs and livelihoods, and the legal challenge...

A massive, coordinated scheme to sell false and fraudulent nursing degree credentials has been brought down by a joint federal law enforcement operation, Justice Department officials said Wednesday. As first reported by ABC News, officials said the scheme involved peddling more than $100 million worth of bogus nursing diplomas and transcripts over the course of several years -- fake credentials that were sold to help "thousands of people" take "shortcuts" toward becoming licensed, practicing nurses. Officials said the forged diplomas and transcripts were sold from what had been accredited schools to aspiring nurses, in order to help candidates bypass the...

An Oregon high school diploma does not guarantee that students who earned it can read, write or do math at a high school level. Governor Kate Brown dropped the requirement that students demonstrate they have achieved those essential skills by signing Senate Bill 744 into law. She declined again Friday to comment on why she supported suspending the proficiency requirements, reported OregonLive. The bill was not entered into the legislative database until July 29, a departure from the standard practice of updating the public database the same day a bill is signed. Charles Boyle, the governor’s deputy communications director, said...

New recruits are no longer required to have a high school diploma or General Educational Development (GED) certificate to join the U.S. Army if they’re willing to enlist before the end of the 2022 fiscal year, the service announced Thursday. Military.com first reported the Army announcement on Friday, which said individuals can enlist in the service without the previously required proof of high-school level education if they’re willing to ship to basic training before the end of the fiscal year on Oct. 1. Prospective recruits must still be at least 18 years, qualify for a job in the active-duty Army...

Ever Lopez of Asheboro, North Carolina, was set to become the first member of his immediate family to graduate from high school, but instead, he said, he was denied his diploma because he wore a Mexican flag over his gown at his graduation ceremony Thursday.

The Virginia Department of Education is taking steps to end advanced diplomas in the name of equity. Leslie Sale, director of the Virginia Education Department's office of policy, on Tuesday announced an exploratory effort to review Virginia's diploma and graduation requirements in a live-streamed meeting with the department's Special Committee to Review the Standards of Accreditation. "These recommendations include developing measurable plans to close the persistence of achievement gaps, close opportunity gaps that disproportionately impact Black students and other students of color, diversify Virginia’s educator force, and support professional development for administrators and educators focused on culturally inclusive and responsive...

For decades now it’s been a sellers’ market for American universities. Conventional wisdom held that the most important way to succeed in life was to get a college diploma, no matter the cost.Perhaps you’ve noticed university tuitions going up and up. And up. Inexorably.And so has the debt incurred by their students and those students’ parents. It now totals about $1.6 trillion.This being another tedious presidential election season, such a massive debt burden has attracted the attention of feeding politicians seeking to reap votes from younger Americans tasked with repaying the loans they signed up for.As we wrote here...

A thing that occurs to you if you attend an elite college or university, as I did, is that most of the professors teaching you are more or less the same beleaguered time-servers who would be teaching you at any other school. I well remember the sad, unshaven schlump in corduroys who taught one of my introductory English courses: He was fine. He knew his stuff. But so did the people who taught me English at my public high school. Sure, at name-brand colleges you can attend huge lectures given by name-brand professors who appear on television and the op-ed...

Turkish writer Ergun Poyraz, who had earlier said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has no actual higher education and as president he recived this education illegally, is found dead. Poyraz organized an investigation that proved that Erdogan's diploma is a fake and he did not study at the university. Poyraz published the original version of Erdogan's diploma, which he allegedly wrote while studying at Marmara University. It turned out that the diploma is dated when the University of Marmara was not existent. It should be noted that the 4-year college education is mandatory for the election of the President...

On January 1, California residents will have to accustom themselves to a number of new laws that will be implemented in the state. These are some the laws that will likely have the most profound effect: SB 172: High school seniors will receive their diploma whether or not they pass or even take an exit exam; the law also applies retroactively to students who have graduated since 2004; ... SB 707: Bans concealed firearms from college campuses and K-12 school grounds

Plenty of state school systems are struggling with ways to not only keep up with national mandates and restrictions, but to boost their graduation rates so they can maintain their funding and reduce criticism from the public. California seems to have come up a rather unique, back door approach to the problem. You could always take tens of thousands of former high school students who flunked out and simply give them a diploma anyway. (Daily Caller) The state of California is poised to award thousands of high school degrees to dropouts by passing a new law retroactively removing the...

One recent college graduate is so frustrated with her lack of job prospects that she's attempting to sell off her college degree - for $50,000. Stephanie Ritter, a 26-year-old Florida State University alum, has listed her diploma on eBay for the staggering sum to cover the 'actual cost' of attending the school. Now $40,000 in debt and living in Southern California, Stephanie is fed up with being unable to find a job in her field, despite having a Bachelor's degree

Graduating students at New York middle school received misspelled diplomas featuring the word 'departmemt' **SNIP** The misspelled word appeared in the phrase 'New York City Department of Education' positioned at the top of the diplomas awarded to the students. The word had an extra 'm' instead of the letter 'n'. 'I'm sure next year they will be pouring over those diplomas to make sure every "i" is dotted and "t" is crossed,' Gardner told Fox 5. Another parent told the station that the Upper East Side school did not mention the mistake or issue an apology during the ceremony.

A World War II veteran walked across the stage at Stanford’s graduation ceremony on Sunday, more than 60 years after receiving his degree. With his granddaughter by his side, Bonnie "Chuck" Gould, recipient of the bronze Medal for Bravery during his WWII service, finally got the sash and the public recognition he earned decades ago. Gould, a retired teacher, coach, principal and superintendent of the Redwood City School District, graduated from Stanford with a master’s in education in 1954. But he didn’t walk in the ceremony. He called it a mistake, but not one made intentionally. “We had six kids...

".......For decades now, America's higher education system has poorly served Americans.If you can weld,you can land a job making six-figures tomorrow.If you recently acquired a B.A. in sociology,well, can you tell me how you do that thing where you make the foam on top a latte look like a heart?There's a reason why the lack of a college degree is practically celebrated in Silicon Valley. Mark Zuckerberg,Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are all college dropouts. Peter Thiel says a college "diploma is a dunce hat in disguise" and wants to blow the higher-ed system up entirely. Sixty-three of the people...

Should Arizona require high school students to pass a civics test to earn a diploma? yes no

In the face of staunchly high unemployment and the prospect of long term job scarcity, one of the most common solutions is to increase your skill set or pick up a new one; to go back to school. Throughout most of the last half of the last century, we've had it hammered into us and into our children that we need to attend higher education in order to achieve more profitable employment. According to the 2000 Census, people with a high school diploma averaged a little less than two thousand dollars a month while people with a bachelor's earned almost...

<p>When seeking mental health care, it’s important to check the background of any one-on-one counselor you are considering. It's not enough to simply eyeball training and degrees, one must always take steps to ensure that the counselor or doctor is, in fact, human.</p>