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| Motto | To Know God and to Make Him Known |
|---|---|
| Type | Private |
| Established | 1978 |
| President | Markus Steffen [1] |
| Provost | Thomas A Bloomer [2] |
| Location | Global , 600 campuses in 142 countries |
| Affiliations | YWAM |
| Website | www.uofn.edu |
The University of the Nations (U of N) is an unaccredited Christian university. The University of the Nations operates under the umbrella organization of the Youth With A Mission (YWAM) network.
The institution was founded in 1978 as Pacific & Asia Christian University (PACU) by Howard Malmstadt and Loren Cunningham, the founder of Youth with a Mission, in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. [3] As other locations were established around the world, PACU was renamed the University of the Nations in 1989.
University of the Nations is not accredited by any recognized accreditation body. As such, its degrees and credits may not be acceptable to employers or other institutions, and use of degrees from schools without accreditation from a nationally recognized accrediting agency may be illegal in some states unless the school is approved by the state licensing agency. [4]
University of the Nations asserts that other institutions have accepted and continue to accept transfer credits, [5] including Houghton College, [6] and the South African Theological Seminary.[ citation needed ]
Australia's higher education and training system lists University of the Nations' affiliated Institute for the Nations and Youth With A Mission programs in five locations as registered training organisations authorized to provide certificates and diplomas in several specified fields. [7]
In January 2018, Pablo Rivera, the chief financial officer for University of the Nations in Kona, pled guilty to wire fraud. [14] Rivera embezzled nearly 3.1 million dollars, amounting to $50,000 per month. [15] Before the fraud was exposed, the school's financial situation was critical, increased charges were applied to volunteers and students. [16]
In October 2020, University of the Nations in Kona was associated with the largest single day increase of COVID-19 outbreak on the Island of Hawaiʻi up to that date. [17]
Kailua-Kona is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Hawaii County, Hawaii, United States. It's most commonly referred to simply as Kona, but also as Kona Town, and occasionally as Kailua, thus its less frequent use. Kailua-Kona is the second-largest settlement on the island of Hawaii and the largest on the island's west side, where it is the center of commerce and the tourist industry. Kailua-Kona is served by Kona International Airport, just to the north in the adjacent CDP of Kalaoa. The population was 19,713 at the 2020 census, up from 11,975 at the 2010 census.
A diploma mill or degree mill is a business that sells illegitimate diplomas or academic degrees. The term diploma mill is also used pejoratively to describe any educational institution with low standards for admission and graduation, low job placement rate, or low average starting salaries of its graduates.
American World University (AWU) is an unaccredited institution offering post-secondary education programs by distance learning. It has no physical campus. It awards academic degrees. In January 2000 American World University offered "all degrees" for $1,000 as a "New Years Special".
Hamilton University was an unaccredited institution based in Evanston, Wyoming. According to the Oregon Office of Degree Authorization, it was first established in Hawaii as American State University. It has since been closed by court order in Wyoming and has relocated to the Bahamas under the name Richardson University.
Youth With A Mission is an interdenominational Christian mission organization with a focus on missionary work and training for Christian missions.
California Coast University (CCU) is a private for-profit online university based in Santa Ana, California. It is accredited by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission and approved by the State of California. It enrolls approximately 8,000 students.
Loren Duane Cunningham was an American missionary who was the founder of the international Christian missionary organization Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and the University of the Nations. Cunningham founded YWAM in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1960 with his wife, Darlene Cunningham, at the age of 24. They resided in Kona, Hawaii, and were members of the YWAM Global Leadership Team.
David L. Cunningham is an American documentarian and filmmaker. Besides his documentary credits in more than 40 countries, Cunningham has also directed several feature films including To End All Wars (2001) and the TV miniseries The Path to 9/11 (2006). Cunningham is represented by the United Talent Agency.
Pacific Western University (Hawaii) was an unaccredited university that closed in May 2006 following a lawsuit filed by the State of Hawaii a year earlier.
Name It and Frame It? is a 1993 book by Steve Levicoff about unaccredited Christian colleges and universities, exploring the accreditation process and the nature of legitimate and illegitimate unaccredited institutions of higher education. The fourth edition contains updated information and responses from some of the surveyed schools. The Council for Higher Education Accreditation, the National Center for Science Education, the Palm Beach Post, the Seattle Times, and the New York Post have mentioned the book as a resource. Additionally, it has been cited by numerous authors, including Julie Anne Duncan, Douglas Flather, John Bear and Allen Ezell.
Unaccredited institutions of higher education are colleges, trade schools, seminaries, and universities which do not have formal educational accreditation.
Columbia State University was a California-based diploma mill that operated from the mid-1980s until its court-ordered closure in 1998.
Washington International University is an online unaccredited institution of higher education founded in 1994 and currently incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. It describes itself as a "cyberspace university" and a "university without borders", serving clients from around the world online. The university website states that WIU's graduates have come from 112 countries.
Diploma mills in the United States are organizations that award academic degrees and diplomas with substandard or no academic study and without academic approval by officially recognized educational accrediting bodies or qualified government agencies. The purchaser can then claim to hold an academic degree, and the organization is motivated by making a profit. These degrees are often awarded based on vaguely construed life experience. Some organizations claim accreditation by non-recognized/unapproved accrediting bodies set up for the purposes of providing a veneer of authenticity.
Sean Clinch Stephenson was an American therapist, self-help author and motivational speaker. Because he was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, Stephenson stood three feet tall, had fragile bones, and used a wheelchair.
The Management Institute of Canada or Institut Canadien de Management (MIC) is a Canadian professional school based in Montreal, authorized by the government of Quebec. MIC is an unaccredited non-degree business school in Quebec, offering online programs in business administration.
Washington University of Barbados (WUB) is a defunct medical school which opened in 2017 and closed the following year. The for-profit university received a charter from the Barbados Ministry of Education in 2016, but was unaccredited. Allegedly part of an international scam in which 200 students from India were conned out of ₹25 crore, the CEO and director of the school were arrested by the Royal Barbados Police and charged with fraud in 2018.
Atlantic International University, Inc. (AIU) is an unaccredited private for-profit distance learning university based in Honolulu, Hawaii. It offers undergraduate and graduate degrees including doctorates. It is widely described as a degree mill. AIU degrees are unrecognized in Oregon, illegal to use in Texas, and unsatisfactory for fufilling civil service requirements in Michigan as they are considered substandard or fraudulent.
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