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issues
and studies
This page considers issues regarding 'degree mills' or
'diploma mills'. It also points to government and academic
studies about the diploma mill industry and its impact.
It covers -
issues
The operation of degree mills poses a range of issues
and regulatory challenges, including -
- ethics
- exposure
- accreditation
- public
safety
- consumer
protection
- confusion
ethics
One issue is simply the personal value of a degree where
effort has essentially been restricted to writing a cheque
- or typing credit card numbers into a browser - rather
than engaging with literature and writing a text that
requires some skill. The US$800 PhD in Oncology highlighted
by George Gollin would not provide a basis for scientific
research or for work in a pathology laboratory.
exposure
Elsewhere we have noted the comment that a fake degree
is
like
carrying a ticking timebomb with no idea of when it
could go off. It could happen when you claim the qualification
for the first time, or it might take years before it
explodes in your face - taking your riches and your
reputation with it.
It
might also explode in an employer's face, either because
the employer is embarrassed when a new appointee is revealed
to have a phony degree (so much for the recruitment process)
or because an unqualified employee is allowed to exercise
authority.
Such warnings are useful advice for purchasers who have
been beguiled by claims that
You
must not forget that your degree is obtained by exploiting
legal loopholes. We are often asked what this means
and the best definition, that neatly encapsulates the
concept, is that an institution is legally formed and
operating in such a way that it makes the granting of
a degree legal, whereas this would otherwise be illegal.
The only real limitation concerns accreditation, which
is not legally required.
accreditation
Accreditation is of salient importance because many nations
do not recognise degrees awarded by unaccredited institutions
(including institutions that have sought to subvert such
regimes by setting up tame accreditation bodies). It is
generally illegal to practice particular professions,
such as law or medicine, without certification by a government-recognised
accreditation body and/or an award from an accredited
institution.
The preceding page of this note flagged that Australia,
New Zealand and the UK restrict use of the term university
and issuing degrees, along with registration
of practitioners in professions such as law, medicine
and pharmacy.
Restrictions in the US are uneven and in other nations,
such as Liberia (home to Saint Regis University, duly
accredited by the Commission of Higher Education in Liberia),
may be meaningless. Consumers might hesitate before accepting
advice - or surgery - from practitioners 'trained' at
some US medical diploma mills.
enforcement
Omissions in US state law have been compounded by indifferent
enforcement (particularly since the 1980s 'Operation DipScam'
exercise by the FBI) and by scope
for evasion through incorporation as religious entities
such as FION. Bear for example noted
in 2000 that Kirk/McPherson sheltered behind his World
Christian Church, albeit eventually being sentenced to
five years in federal prison after 18 counts of mail fraud,
wire fraud and tax fraud.
Although issuing or receiving a degree from a mill may
be legal, passing it off as one with accredited status
is generally an offence, in some instances a criminal
offence.
Law enforcement agencies have unsurprisingly been hostile
to sites that have purported to be real universities (eg
fraudulently granted degrees as Oxford, Harvard and Cambridge)
or that have misled consumers into believing that their
paper is accredited.
The UK government for example successfully prosecuted
scammers in Romania and Cyprus who are reported to have
accrued around US$2 million per month while the fraud
was underway. Other governments and individuals have taken
action against mills that had blithely added the names
of academics to their faculty lists without permission
- or knowledge - of those scholars.
In 2004 Pennsylvania used state consumer protection legislation
in litigation against spammers who offered a PhD or MBA
within 72 hours, somewhat quicker than the traditional
14 day turnaround for mailorder degrees and the 36 months
of hard work for a real degree.
confusion and consumer protection
Much government angst about degree mills has centred on
perceptions that they will erode the credibility of international
online education, claimed as a potential major contributor
to national earnings.
There has been less attention to consumer protection,
with regulators apparently taking the stance that consumers
know - or should know - what they are buying. One state
government official commented last year that
if
you are silly enough to pay $500 for a worthless bit
of paper that's your problem. If you use it to get a
job that's the employer's problem ... and yours when
you get done for fraud
A
more positive response might have been to assist consumers
to navigate their way through the thickets of the Australian
Quality Framework.
studies
A crisp introduction is provided by Not For Novelty
Purposes Only: Fake Degrees, Phony Transcripts & Verification
Services (PDF)
and George Gollin's 2003 Unconventional University
Diplomas from Online Vendors: Buying A PhD from a University
That Doesn't Exist (PDF).
Australian scholar George Brown
has produced a range of cogent papers of particular value,
discussing principles, malpractice and remedies.
The outstanding resource about US mills is Degree
Mills, The Billion Dollar Industry That Has Sold Over
A Million Fake Diplomas (Amherst: Prometheus 2005)
by John Bear & Allen Ezell, which builds on the 1985
Fraudulent Credentials report to the US Congress
regarding findings from 'Operation Dipscam'. Other works
include Degrees for Sale (New York: Simon &
Schuster 1972) by Lee Porter and Diploma Mills: Degrees
of Fraud (New York: American Council on Education
& Macmillan 1988) by David Stewart & Henry Spille.
For Australia a perspective is provided in George Brown's
2004 Protecting Australia's Higher Education System:
A Proactive Versus Reactive Approach in Review (1999-2004)
(PDF),
discussing a number of Australian entities, and other
works on his site. His forthcoming doctoral dissertation
is likely to be of significant value.
For the Callahan case see Paul Sperry's 2005 article
How doubts about the government's own "Dr. Laura"
exposed a résumé fraud scandal. The
General Accounting Office reported (PDF)
on its investigation into online degree mills in 2001
and 2002. Claims of mills as a reflection of a broader
'cheating culture' feature in polemics such as David Callahan's
The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing
Wrong To Get Ahead (New York: Harcourt 2004).
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