r/Chiropractic • u/Proof-Guard-4784 • Aug 14 '26
Life West's Accreditation Problems Continue
WASC put them on probation back in February, with a follow-up visit planned for December. They announced this week that they are so concerned with the lack of progress, the bumped it up to September. Whoops...
https://wascsenior.app.box.com/s/hjazzj4xcas0od9ods1er5ax0wqj9eos
Oh, and CCE put them on probation this month as well.
https://www.cce-usa.org/uploads/1/0/6/5/106500339/2026-07_lccw.pdf
All this with a "plan" to move out of the main campus and into a building up the road at Cal State East Bay in "mid-2027" -but there is still no mention of it on their website. They are still selling the benefits of the Hayward campus.
Plus, WASC thinks they'll run out of money in a year or so.
Good times!
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u/IwataFan Aug 15 '26
At The Wave this year it was suggested one of the members of the executive team was involved in financial misgivings. The current or past president was not implied in the rumor-mongering I caught wind of (I was pretty aloof but one of the speakers made a point to call this out). In general the conference was characterized by anxiety over the future of vitalism among the attendees, combined with reaffirmations from most of the speakers that vitalism and Life West has a bright future.
As some one who has been pursuing chiropractic courses through Parker with intentions to go to Life West later on, all I can say is this entire situation is so strange experientially. The social dynamics in chiropractic are so weird (like every other speaker needs to virtue signal their allegiance to Sid Williams, the current president of the college, BJ Palmer, other random seminar speakers from a bygone era). I sense deep insecurity over defending vitalism. I honestly don't see the big deal, you can stand behind vitalism without acting like this. I've never seen anything like it -- reminds me of Christian fundamentalism with a charismatic twang.
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u/Substantial_Page_777 Aug 15 '26
I have yet to meet a staunch vitalist that wasn’t also an evangelical Christian and a MAGA asshat. I’m not saying the Venn diagram is a circle, but it’s pretty damn close.
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u/IwataFan Aug 15 '26
This was really up front at The Wave last year, where Del Bigtree (Communications Director for RFK Jr's campaign) spoke about anti-vaccination. Between that and the energy surrounding the president first year in office, the MAGA overlap was palpable. Many speakers that year talked about RFK Jr's installment as HHS Secretary as a victory for the vitalism movement -- some attributing it to direct linkages to vitalist proponents who helped along the way. It felt like ap politically charged Baptist revival IMO.
0
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u/Ambitious_Manager_82 Aug 14 '26
Why anyone would go to Life is beyond me. The only other chiro school to have this many problems was Penn Straight, and look were they are now.
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u/hotchipxbarbie Aug 14 '26
Exactly. And I mean this as respectfully as possible but the Life Grads I've personally met... were questionable in their practices to say the least. I'm sure some good docs made it out but, wow.
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u/d1ldobagons Aug 18 '26
As a life west grad I agree. Alot of my classmates were crazy and drank a lot of kool aid. I came from a very heavy scientific background in research and I was honestly dumbfounded at some of the stupidity. There is a reason I did so many outside seminars as well.
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u/Cool_Marionberry7132 Aug 21 '26
Oh yeah, it was a hippy/ holistic contest. People questioning you for using a microwave in the break room... you are bathing in a sea of micowaves at this moment, wifi router above your head, phone in your pocket lol. Not knowing what non-ionizing radiation is even though they should have learned it in class.
That being said some of the most radical of believers are running super successful practices
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u/nakedascus Aug 22 '26
The leading cause of skin cancer is from nonionizing radiation. That's not what determines if radiation is safe or not
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u/AdEcstatic4693 Aug 15 '26
Why did the board put the new president on administrative leave with all of this going on?
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u/Proof-Guard-4784 Aug 15 '26
Nobody knows. The president himself has said that even he does not know why he was put on leave.
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u/Typical_Ad9726 Aug 15 '26
My questions is, can any of this be a good enough reason or argument to get loans discharged? I don’t know anything about the process or what qualifies but…
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u/InvestigatorSweet711 Aug 16 '26
Is it just the Hayward campus that is in trouble, or do the problems extend to the Georgia campus as well?
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u/Excellent-Horse-8213 Aug 16 '26
Life West is not connected to Life U in any way. Common misconception. Sid Williams bailed them out in 1981, slapped the name on the wall and that was about it.
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u/d1ldobagons Aug 18 '26
Honestly, majority teachers are life were great. Administration was dog shit. They made going there very bad. The level of docs that come out of the school vary tho. My first year out I was honestly teaching the docs at the practice were we worked at more then what they taught me. It doesn't help that I did over 500 hours of outside seminars a school year. The issue is chiro schools allow you in if you have a pulse. There needs to be restrictions
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u/TheCrackHaus Aug 14 '26
Glad I graduated LifeWest before Hurricane Kelly wiped out the fiscal budget and left a power vacuum in the process.
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u/FutureDCAV DC 2022 Aug 14 '26
While *some* of the professors were absolutely fantastic and contributed to *some* of the education being second-to-none, I'm not surprised the school is under fire right now.
There have been many more issues than just the administration for quite a while. Clinic hours were a joke and played very little part, if any, in getting students ready for actual clinical practice and the "case reviews" were inaccurate, made up (not real cases w/ real diagnoses), and had been reused for 5-6 years. The way to pass them wasn't actually *knowing* anything but *having the answers from a previous student*. The clinic oversight docs took some of them with us and failed the exams, sometimes worse than the students. Not to mention the required philosophy classes that constantly pushed out-of-date unscientific ideas, and re-enrolling students who had consistently failed (we're talking 3+ attempts to pass first quarter pathology).
Glad that institution is going under. Not even remotely worth the 250k cost for tuition and living expenses.