Pacific Western University

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Pacific Western University (PWU) is a distance learning university located in San Diego, California. PWU is not accredited^[1]^[2] by any recognised accreditation body. As such, its degrees may not be acceptable to employers or other institutions, and use of degree titles may be restricted or illegal in some jurisdictions.

Pacific Western University was established in February 1977. Currently, it offers Associate, Bachelor, and Master degrees in Business Administration, General Studies, Public Administration, and Leadership Management.

Pacific Western University operated in the Brentwood, California suburb of Los Angeles for its first twenty years, and then moved to Westwood, California where it remained until relocating to San Diego, California in January 2006.

According to Inside Higher Education, the school is considering changing its name to distance itself from past controversies^[3].

Investigative reporters from television station KVOA of Tucson, Arizona described the Los Angeles campus:We don't find students, classrooms or professors. Only a small office with two receptionists and a man who introduces himself as the dean. [1]

John Bear, an expert on nontraditional education stated that,

...[a degree from PWU] holds no merit in the academic world....[PWU] is a school that in the academic world has no respect. Less than 1 percent of college administration offices and registrars would consider accepting that degree. In the academic world it's just about as useless as it can be. [2]

Indeed, a statement from the Oregon Office of Degree Authorization reads,

ODA has no evidence that this is a legitimate provider of postsecondary education meeting Oregon standards. Unclear whether the entities using the name are all one, but none should be considered legitimate educational institutions.

In May, 2004, the US General Accounting Office presented the results of an eight month examination of diploma mills and federal employees holding their degrees to the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs [3]. Pacific Western University in Los Angeles was one of the six schools on which the investigation focused.

Internationally, Pacific Western University has a similar reputation — the Government of Sweden's National Agency For Higher Education (Högskoleverket) listed PWU in a report entitled, Fake Universities and Bogus Degrees [4].

As was revealed in the Irish Independent on 9th October 2005, high-profile individuals, including the government of Ireland's Chief Science Advisor Barry McSweeney, have been revealed to have advanced their careers using suspect degrees obtained from Pacific Western University [5][6]. In Australia, the Brisbane Courier Mail reported on a 6 January 2004 that a lecturer at the University of Southern Queensland was banned from using the title of "Doctor" after it was discovered that his Ph.D. had, in fact, been purchased from Pacific Western University.

Pacific Western University in Hawaii

The present Pacific Western University in California "should not be confused with"^[4], the similarly-named and now defunct Pacific Western University in Hawaii, which was shut down following an action by the Hawaii state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs (DCCA)^[5], although Bears' Guide asserts "Same Ownership as Pacific Western University (Hawaii), which is run by the same people from the same building."^[6]. This is supported by Inside Higher Education^[3].

In 1997 Pacific Western University was sued by the state of Hawaii for violating state consumer protection laws [7]. The result of this lawsuit was that,

...[PWU] is permanently enjoined from making any representations to the effect that it is registered with or authorized by the State of Hawaii to confer bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees, and or award academic degrees.

PWU attempted to do business in Hawaii as American Pacwest International University [8] using a website registered in Samoa. As of 15 September 2005, American Pacwest became the focus of a new allegation of wrongdoing by the Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs. On May 9, 2006, the court entered final judgments against American Pacwest on numerous counts, ordering them to pay a $500,000 fine, pay restitution to their students, and effectively ordering them to cease operations.[9]