Associate's Degree Rewards
Few things are as exciting and satisfying as earning your first college degree. An associate's degree proves that you've got what higher education requires. For many graduates, an associate's degree is all they need and want for a rewarding job and career. They just need the associate's degree to get started in the workplace, to meet their ambitions to improve their prospects and lives. For others, the associate's degree is just the first step on a higher ladder to a bachelor's degree and perhaps beyond. In any case, your associate's degree can rightly feel like your gold ticket to a bright future.
The Associate's Degree Revocation Shock
Until you received your school's notice of disciplinary charges, you likely never thought you could lose your associate's degree once you'd earned it. That associate's degree was yours, no matter what challenges the future held. But then you got word or wind of the possibility that your school might revoke your associate's degree. That realization probably hit you hard. How could your school possibly take away from you a credential you'd earned for life on which you planned to base your future prospects? You probably felt that what happened to you after you earned your associate's degree wasn't your school's business. And what the school might discover, realize, or allege after it awarded you the degree wasn't especially your problem. You were on your way, and the school that awarded you an associate's degree shouldn't be stopping you.
Your Associate's Degree Revocation Dilemma
Associate's degree revocation presents you with obvious challenges. The possibility of losing your associate's degree makes you immediately think of the potential impacts, discussed in detail below. You presumably know that you can and probably should fight your school's effort to revoke your associate's degree, although you also likely know that you'll need a wise strategic approach. You should be thinking about these issues:
- where you can find the national education attorney advisor to help you discern and implement that strategic approach;
- how quickly you must act to take what effective steps to challenge the school's disciplinary action;
- what evidence your school may have supporting its disciplinary charges and what evidence you might have to exonerate you from those charges; and
- what you should do with your education, job, license, certification, and general life in the meantime while your degree revocation matter proceeds.
Your School's Degree Revocation Dilemma
But the questions aren't all on your side. Your college or university faces its own associate's degree revocation dilemma. Schools are in the business of educating, not in the business of policing and removing credentials they've already awarded. Revoking an associate's degree can be a major distraction for school officials who must take the necessary steps. Associate's degree revocation can also be an acute distraction for the school community. Your school must also evaluate whether it will face stiff opposition from you, including whether you will retain skilled attorney advisor defense representation. Your school may also consider:
- whether revoking your associate's degree may so seriously harm you as to be disproportionate punishment to any offense the school believes you may have committed;
- whether revoking your associate's degree will bring more negative publicity to whatever matter your school claims to have discovered than any positive or reparative publicity the school's action may generate;
- how students, faculty, staff, alumni, employers, accreditors, and regulators will react to your school's effort to revoke your associate's degree or not to do so;
- what authority the school has for associate's degree revocation and whether you and your retained attorney advisor will challenge that authority effectively; and
- what procedures your school must follow for associate's degree revocation if you and your attorney advisor demand that your school does so and whether the school has the staff and other resources for those procedures.
Common Grounds for Associate's Degree Revocation
A college or university that seeks to revoke an associate's degree must have solid grounds to do so. Revoking any degree, including an associate's degree, is serious business, much more serious than other forms of discipline like reprimands, repeating assignments or courses, or even school suspensions. Indeed, revoking a degree is about as severe a sanction as a school can impose. Degree revocation comes after the student has paid for, received, and relied on the degree. And degree revocation can be a sort of death knell to further education. So generally, schools must have strong grounds for degree revocation. And the grounds should generally have to do with protecting the integrity of other awarded degrees and of degree programs, although schools sometimes pursue degree revocation on other grounds. Common grounds include:
- various forms of academic misconduct, including exam cheating, cheating on problems, papers, and other course assignments, accessing unauthorized materials, relying on unauthorized assistance, and self-plagiarism (submitting the same work for dual credit without authorization);
- various forms of academic fraud, including falsifying credentials for admission, forgery of academic and administrative approvals, plagiarism (using the work of others while misrepresenting it as your own), altering graded work, altering scores or grades, and altering or fabricating research; and
- sexual assault, sexual violence, or other serious wrongs against other students on campus or during school activities, discovered after the associate's degree award.
Associate's Degree Revocation Authority
Authority is an important question in associate's degree revocation. Your school must have the authority to affect your degree. School officials can't just do whatever they wish to whomever they wish. Court challenges to degree revocation, claiming the school's lack of authority or due process limitations, have at times been successful. Your school should be keeping a close eye on whether it has that authority. Your school may also be keeping a close eye on whether you will retain a skilled and experienced attorney advisor who knows how to challenge your school's claim of authority. Schools generally seek authority to revoke degrees in authorizing state statutes and cases and in their own policies and procedures. Your retained attorney advisor can help you investigate and challenge your school's degree revocation authority. Sometimes, the best defense is a good offense right up front. Showing your school it has no authority to do as it proposes may lead to an early voluntary resolution in your favor.
Example Associate's Degree Revocation Policies
These schools awarding associate's degrees, like other colleges and universities nationwide, have each adopted policies expressly reserving their right and discretion to revoke a previously awarded associate's degree, typically related to academic misconduct:
- Colorado State University Global;
- Broward International University;
- New Mexico State University;
- Southwestern Oklahoma State University; and
- Columbia Southern University.
Associate's Degree Revocation Impacts
You've probably already begun to consider how your school's revocation of your associate's degree might impact your education, job, career, and future. You are wise to do so. Unless you understand and appreciate the potential impacts of associate's degree revocation, you may not marshal the resources and apply the effort you should to fight degree revocation. Take associate's degree revocation seriously. Don't simply assume that you'll go earn another associate's degree or another degree somewhere else. You might avoid several of these impacts. But any one or two of them could cripple your future. Consider these potential impacts.
Associate's Degree Revocation Educational Impacts
Because an associate's degree is often a stepping stone to further education, you should appreciate how revocation could affect your further schooling. If you are in a bachelor's program now to which your associate's degree gave you access and credits, your bachelor's degree school is likely to dismiss you from the program if you lose your associate's degree. Media reports that surveys show many students lying about their college and university admissions credentials and that schools are watching admissions credentials closely. Losing an associate's degree that you used for admission and credits in your next program generally means losing that program. And you may not get into another school for a fresh start if other schools find that the reasons for your associate's degree revocation indicate unfitness.
Associate's Degree Revocation Employment Impact
Associate's degree revocation can also impact your employment. The job you hold or seek may well depend on your educational credentials. Lose those credentials, and you would lose those jobs. Associate's degrees are an employment lifeline for many graduates. Hold onto the associate's degree to hold onto the lifeline.
Associate's Degree Revocation Impact on Vocational Certification
Associate's degree revocation also impacts vocational licenses and certifications. You might manage to hold onto your job when losing your associate's degree to school revocation. But not if you must hold a license or certification for your job, and your associate's degree is necessary for that license or certification. Lose your license or certification, and you are out of the employment field that requires that credential. You are then looking not just for a new job but also for a new field.
Associate's Degree Revocation Financial Impacts
Associate's degree revocation can also ruin your personal finances. If you lose your job, license, and certification to degree revocation, you're presumably losing your best source of income. You might start your own business or find employment working in a field that doesn't require any education. But those alternatives may not produce nearly the income you were earning or expected to earn in the field for which your associate's degree qualified you. Lose your income, and you can be out of house and home. You can also lose your vehicle and other personal property you hold on credit when the financiers foreclose.
Associate's Degree Revocation Family Impacts
Associate's degree revocation could also hurt not just you but also your family. You may have children, a spouse, or other family members who depend on your income from the employment you hold under your associate's degree. Few things hurt as much as seeing family members suffer. Don't let associate's degree revocation harm your family members.
Fighting Associate's Degree Revocation
Fortunately, you can fight associate's degree revocation through your school's protective procedures. Colleges and universities awarding associate's degrees, while claiming the right to revoke those degrees, publish procedures. Colorado State University Global's Hearing and Appeal Process for degree revocation and other forms of discipline is an example. Students and graduates who face disciplinary charges threatening degree revocation can invoke those protective procedures for a fair hearing on the charges.
The Lento Law Firm Fights Associate's Degree Revocation
You need not be alone when facing associate's degree revocation. Indeed, you'll very likely need skilled and experienced attorney advisor representation. Effectively invoking your school's protective procedures to successfully fight academic discipline, including associate's degree revocation, is no small challenge. Your school is your adversary, not your advocate. You need your own retained advocate to level the playing field and have a fighting chance of successfully resisting associate's degree revocation. Your retained attorney advisor from the Education Law Team at the Lento Law Firm can notify school officials to communicate with your attorney. Your retained attorney can also answer the charges and raise defenses. We can also evaluate the school's evidence while helping you gather and present your own exonerating and mitigating evidence at formal hearings and in appeals. Your Lento Law Firm attorney can also negotiate with school oversight officials for voluntary resolution, even after formal proceedings have concluded. Litigation may also be an option you would decide to pursue with your attorney advisor's representation.
Associate's Degree Defense Available Nationwide
The Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team can help you fight associate's degree revocation no matter your location, just as the Lento Law Firm Team has helped hundreds of other students and graduates nationwide. Call 888.535.3686 or go online now for premier associate's degree defense from the Lento Law Firm Team and national education attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento.
