Each year, hundreds of millions of dollars in Federal and State loans and grants are stolen by hundreds of seemingly established and credentialed private and publicly funded colleges, universities, and schools offering degrees and education in film and television production, sound recording, and video game graphics and animation. Implied and false expectations are promised to students, and slick advertising and false statistics of industry placement of students go virtually unchecked or authenticated. The private colleges universities and school seem to be biggest culprits of this ongoing and unchecked fraudulent scam.
Students spending anywhere from a low of $11,000 to a high of $75,000 for a certificate or degree are being taught by faculty who have NO experience in the real world, professors with tenure who in addition to having NO real world experience or fear of losing their jobs are teaching student courses from the user manuals provided by the software manufacturers or online courses available from the software companies or third party parties such as Lynda.com.
How do I know this? Because I have personal knowledge and experience at two universities as a visiting professor and Artist In Residence over a six year period where I personally witnessed these misleading, unethical, un-noticed and unchecked practices. Who am I you ask? I am an award winning television and film producer, director, writer, and studio owner who has produced hundreds of television shows I guarantee everyone on this site has watched at some point in there life.
It's time that the Federal and State governments STOP extending colleges, universities, and schools an unencumbered license to steal both personal as well as taxpayer's money used to fund these institutions, leaving students with big student loans, misleading expectations, no assistance in job placement, and an education that is not relevant in today's job market.
It's easy to identify the major players who are the biggest ripoffs. Just go to their websites and try to find a list of their faculty members by name. Chances are the list of faculty teaching the courses and their credentials do not exist. And if they do exist pay close attention to the wording such as "spent 20 years in the film industry", which could translate into they own their own camcorder and has made home movies, or "has written numerous screenplays for a major studio ", or "currently in development". These phrases can go on and on. At least the state funded colleges and universities list their faculty, which still contain vague credits and accomplishment in the real-world, but almost always contain their academic credentials from other institutions... Who cares?
At the core of the problem is also the government and state accredidation system that has been established which governs who can teach at these schools, colleges and universities. Fact is, if you want to become a medical doctor you are taught by doctors, a lawyer, you are taugh by lawyers, engineers or scientists, the same. Yet film, television, and related fields are taught by academics with academic credentials... No real-world experience. Are their exceptions to this rule? Of course there are many universities that offer extremely good and relevant up-to-date curriculum taught by experienced instructors, faculty, and professors who have extensive real-world expience, but they are few and far between.
I will post other writings on this website about this subject and will name names, but for now let me leave you with this thought. Under current academic accredidation guidelines set by Federal and State laws, James Cameron could not teach film as a tenured professor at any public or private college or university in the U.S. These laws will probably never change. Why? Because the academic institutions, faculty, and tenured professors would be exposed.
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