With the recent deportation of many Indian students from US, there is so much of anxiety among students, parents and many aspirants planning to pursue higher education in US. I see many common questions like below asked by many students to validate their schools and higher education journey…

• What are the list of Blacklisted Universities in USA ?
• Is Silicon Valley University Blacklisted ?
• Is NPU a Blacklisted University ?
• Is Stratford University blacklisted ?
• List of blacklisted universities in USA for 2015
• Black Listed Universities for F1 Visa ?

Many such questions. Our goal in this article to shed some light on the Blacklisted Universities in US and educate you with some basics on how to identify such university.

Is there really a list of Black Listed Universities in US for F1 students?  Does USCIS or US Dept. of State or SEVP publish such list of Blacklisted Schools?

Technically, there is no such official list, unlike H1B Debarred Companies list for H1B Sponsors, published by USCIS, SEVP or US Dept. of State.  With incidents such as raids at the Tri-Valley State University that impacted 1555 International students in 2011, students and aspirants started to create their own list of schools that do not have accreditation or using their own parameters. There is technically no such defined list as such.  So, when you see a list of blacklisted universities in US, you are looking a list compiled by aspirants, with their own parameters of featuring them as bad.

So, what makes up a Blacklisted Universities List ?  How to Identify such schools ?

There are one or many of the below reasons that can make up a university eligible for being part of such blacklisted Universities list. If you identify a school with some of the below traits, then you should be cautious as they maybe risky for you to pursue higher education as they could be blacklisted schools.

• Universities Accepting Very low Profile Students, No GRE, TOEFL requirements: One of the most common trait of a bad or blacklisted school is that it accepts students with very low profile, which could include low test scores and low academics. Some of them even would not have GRE and TOEFL requirements. Some may just accept TOEFL and give admission. For instance, if you look at schools that offer admissions for students who had about 50% in academics in undergrad with 10 to 15 backlogs as part their journey and low scores like TOEFL of around 60, then it could fall under a low profile school, that becomes a candidate for blacklisted university. I am not trying to generalize here, there are always exceptions. But, if you see many students with the profile mentioned like above are given admissions and I20s, then something to think about the credentials of the school…you may be putting yourself into trap. It is speculated that US Dept of State tracks schools accepting many students with low profile and some day that might burst with a raid. The students may get visas, but you must be careful, ICE would be watching all of this and tracking…you never know, when it will burst, if the system is abused by University.
• Universities that do NOT have proper accreditation – Diploma Mills or Degree Mills: A diploma or degree mill is a school that awards degrees without proper standard and approval by officially recognized body. In fact, the accreditation program is also something that needs to be looked at carefully.
  • You can look up a school, if it is accredited or not by searching for school at US Dept of Education Accreditation .
  • You can read more information about Accreditation at US Dept of Education Accreditation
• Universities that are doing illegal activities by breaking or bending the rules : A classical example of this is Tri-Valley state University that was caught for visa fraud. It was raided by ICE and left about 1555 students in big trouble.  Similar situation at Herguan University, where CEO was charged with visa fraud…obviously, these kind of schools involved in illegal activities get added to the list of blacklisted universities in USA. Another aspect to consider is Universities that offer CPT from day one, while some have success with these kinds of options…you need to be very careful, if the school is following the right process for CPT…these are the kind of schools that can get you into trouble.
• Universities that are accredited by Accreditation Mills: An accreditation mill is an organization that gives accreditation to universities, where the accreditation is not recognized by the mainstream education body such as US Dept of Education, Secretary of education or Council for Higher Education Accreditation. The typical use of ‘mill’ signifies that it has very low standards similar to “Degree or diploma Mills”. You need to be very careful with the type of accreditation that a school has…you can think of diploma mills are accredited by accreditation mills..net in net, low standard accreditation given to a low standard school. That’s why it is critical to check the US Dept of Education website for accreditation status. You can check the full list of unrecognized higher education accreditation organizations.

In nutshell, if you come across schools that fall into any of the above categories, you need to be very careful…you may get I-20 and maybe even Visa, but you never know, if you would be in trouble at Port of entry… Read Port of Entry Procedures for F1 Students in US

So, what’s the list of Blacklisted Universities that is floating around on internet ?

I have looked at the so called list of blacklisted published in forums and other blogs…Basically the list that is floating around on internet as list of blacklisted schools is nothing but the list of unaccredited schools list at Wikipedia. You should check  List of Unaccredited Schools aka Blacklisted Schools in US , which is from Wikipedia and up to date with citations.

Have you noticed any other aspects that be attributed to a blacklisted school ?  Share your thoughts.

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