Chronicle of Higher Ed diploma mill articles

galanga · Jun 21, 2004

This week's Chronicle of Higher Education features a series of articles about diploma mills. Here are brief extracts from them. A subscription is required to read the articles online. (first of two posts, due to length...)

Chronicle of Higher Education "Inside the World of Diploma Mills: A Special Report," June 25, 2004. (The following articles require a Chronicle subscription.)

1. Inside the Multimillion-Dollar World of Diploma Mills: The business is booming like never before, and some of its customers are college professors, Thomas Bartlett and Scott Smallwood.

The college degrees sold by diploma mills require no learning, but they turn out to be worth millions to the people who relentlessly promote them...

By some estimates, diploma mills, as the purveyors of such degrees are often called, generate a half-billion dollars in revenue each year. Pinning down precise numbers is next to impossible, but selling degrees is clearly big business. In the late 1990s, one diploma mill, Columbia State University, raked in a million dollars a month before its owner was caught and jailed for fraud. An international diploma-mill ring that was the target of an investigation last year by the Federal Trade Commission is thought to have earned more than $100-million over several years...
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2. Psst. Wanna Buy a Ph.D.? Some professors have dubious doctorates, other professors sell them, and colleges often look the other way, Thomas Bartlett and Scott Smallwood.

For enough money but little or no work, you can buy a Ph.D. to add to your name. Plenty of academics have done so, and some have even set up their own offshore universities...

It was a revelation rich in irony: A member of a college accreditation board holds a Ph.D. from a "university" that sells doctorates to anyone with $1,500. This year The Chronicle reported that Michael Davis, a member of the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, received his doctorate from Saint Regis University, which claims recognition from the government of war-torn Liberia and requires little, if any, academic work. He has since been booted from the board...

It turns out there are plenty of others like Mr. Davis, at all levels of higher education: A wrestling coach in Wisconsin. A librarian in Texas. An assistant dean at a Baptist university. Not to mention dozens of professors who hold degrees from unaccredited colleges, some of which require nothing more than a credit-card number and a mailing address.

And those are just the ones who can be found in the nooks and crannies of the Internet. Their true numbers are anybody's guess, although considering that unaccredited institutions rake in hundreds of millions of dollars each year, it's safe to say the problem isn't small.
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3.A Small World, Thomas Bartlett and Scott Smallwood.

Rarely is running an unaccredited college a game of solitaire. Most owners of such institutions operate within at least a small cluster of colleagues...

The "family tree" in this graphic provides a look at another cluster of operators, suggesting that the world of unuaccredited higher education is indeed a cozy one.
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4. Maxine Asher Has a Degree for You: Of course her university is accredited. She did it herself, Scott Smallwood.

Maxine Asher wanted her American World University to carry the imprimatur of an accrediting agency. So she started an association of like-minded entrepreneurs to offer recognition to themselves...

In a posh apartment building in the Westwood neighborhood here, a fax machine hums behind the front desk, spitting out pages on distinctive green paper.

No one would guess that it's the hub of American World University, an unaccredited institution with more than 7,000 students around the globe...

If American World were all that Ms. Asher ran, she would be an interesting bit player in her industry. But in 1993 she founded the World Association of Universities and Colleges, an accrediting service unrecognized by the U.S. Department of Education, that gives its imprimatur to a host of alternative institutions. Almost every day Columbus University and Lacrosse University, both of which are considered diploma mills by some government regulators, advertise in the back pages of USA Today. In bold type, they tout their accreditation from the association. That makes Ms. Asher a central figure in the shadowy world of unaccredited higher education...
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5. The Hypnotist Who Married Lana Turner, Thomas Bartlett.

The man who operated what may well have been the most profitable diploma mill in the United States is in jail for fraud...

In its heyday, Columbia State was the boldest and perhaps most profitable diploma mill in the United States. By one estimate it earned more than $70-million during the 1990s. A former employee says the university often made a million dollars per month selling degrees by placing advertisements in USA Today and other newspapers. With only a handful of employees working in rented office space, its costs were low and profits high.

The catalog says the university's founder is Austen Henry Layard. That's not true: Austen Henry Layard, a British archaeologist, died a century before Columbia State opened. In fact, nearly everything about Columbia State is a lie. The bogus testimonials from students, the nonexistent curriculum -- even the photograph on the cover of the catalog is deceptive. The lovely Gothic building pictured is the Lyndhurst mansion, in Tarrytown, N.Y., and has nothing to do with Columbia State...

At the moment, [Columbia State founder] Mr. Pellar is in a prison cell in Los Angeles, serving an eight-month sentence for mail fraud related to Columbia State. He is among the very few diploma-mill operators who have spent time in jail for running fraudulent institutions. And it was another scheme, not his multimillion-dollar degree business, that first attracted the attention of federal authorities. If not for that, Columbia State might still be in business, and Mr. Pellar might still be living on his $1.5-million yacht off the coast of Mexico.
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6. The University of Spam: In the latest generation of diploma mills, nothing is real except for the money, Thomas Bartlett.

Using barrages of e-mail messages, an American couple sold fake degrees to people all over the world -- and, despite government action, the e-mailings just keep coming...

The granddaddy of such operations is the University Degree Program, which began operating in the mid-1990s. It offered diplomas from bogus institutions with names like the University of Wexford, Shelbourne University, and the University of Palmers Green. Last year, after an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission, its owners turned over $100,000 in profits and promised to stay out of the degree-selling business.

But the e-mailing hasn't stopped. The call centers haven't closed. And the money hasn't stopped flowing. If anything, the business has grown.

This is a look at an international diploma-mill company that has customers and offices around the world. The story comes from interviews with insiders and investigators, who described how the University Degree Program, owned by an American couple, sold tens of thousands of fake degrees from its call centers in Israel and Romania. It also comes from court records, previously unreleased documents from the FTC, and interviews with those who have followed the rise of the company and those it spawned.

The Chronicle also tracked down one of its reclusive owners, a mother of four who has a Ph.D. in mathematics and lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. She is among those who, according to insiders and investigators, helped transform the diploma-mill business from an old-fashioned scam into a well-oiled industry...

The University Degree Program was owned by Jason and Caroline Abraham, an American couple who usually go by the Hebrew names Yaakov and Chaya Rochel. Ms. Abraham, who earned a doctorate in mathematics from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1979, ran the Jerusalem office. She was the one who decided who got fired, although she didn't usually do the firing herself. Aaron describes her as quiet with a good sense of humor. The employees liked her, he says.

They didn't feel the same way about her husband. Mr. Abraham, described as short and pudgy, with a long, white beard, "looked like Santa," Aaron says, "until he opened his mouth. Then everyone was afraid of him." Mr. Abraham was loud and volatile. "He is a scary man," says Aaron, who remains frightened of his former boss, which is why he asked that his real name be withheld...
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(continued next post...)

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galanga · Jun 21, 2004

Chronicle... continued

7. Tilting at Diploma Mills, Scott Smallwood.

A small but diverse group of people -- including a former FBI agent, a state-government official, a physics professor, and the former president of an unaccredited university -- has chosen to do battle with diploma mills...

They're not quite the X-Men, but the small group of people doing battle with diploma mills might have come out of central casting. One is a former FBI agent. Another is a government bureaucrat. There's the former president of an unaccredited university. And there's the physics professor who is devoted to stamping out fake degrees.

They've even given themselves a name and a logo right out of the comic books: the Carpmasters. (Get it? They're fishing for bottom-feeding pests.)

Because no coordinated government effort exists to combat diploma mills, these compatriots have become the go-to experts on the subject. They meet occasionally, but generally they coordinate their investigations through phone calls and e-mail messages...
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8. What's a Diploma Mill? Thomas Bartlett and Scott Smallwood.

While there is no single definition for a diploma mill, warning signs abound...

The Council for Higher Education Accreditation, a private group that represents more than 60 accrediting agencies, says that while there is no single, agreed-upon definition, several indicators suggest that an operation may be a diploma mill: for instance, giving degrees for life experience, listing no faculty members, and claiming accreditation from a questionable accreditor...
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9. 'Let Me Be Honest With You ... ' Thomas Bartlett and Scott Smallwood.

Excerpts from a telemarketing script used by the University Degree Program, which sold diplomas under phony university names, display both the soft and the hard sell...
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oxpecker · Jul 17, 2004

Article based on the Chronicle articles: Want a College Degree? Just Buy One

Bill Huffman · Jul 17, 2004

Thanks for the info

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