Degree Mills: The Billion-dollar Industry That Has Sold Over A Million Fake Diplomas

Discussion in 'Accreditation Discussions (RA, DETC, state approva' started by Lerner, Sep 26, 2005.

Loading...
  1. Lerner

    Lerner Well-Known Member

    Degree Mills: The Billion-dollar Industry That Has Sold Over A Million Fake Diplomas (Paperback)
    by Allen Ezell, John Bear

    Hi,

    For someone who owns most of the Bear guides and couple of other books by Dr. Bear and visits this site and others is there additional info in this book, can someone share?

    I most likely will get it but wanted to hear from someone who read it or Dr. Bear maybe can add couple of words.

    Thanks

    Learner
     
  2. George Brown

    George Brown Active Member

    More info and purchase details at http://www.degreemills.com A must for anyone interested in the weird and wonderful world of degree/ diploma mills.

    Cheers,

    George
     
  3. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    An excellent read, especially for those of us around when many of the events described ocurred.

    (NB: I'm not unbiased regarding this, having reviewed the manuscript. I don't have a financial stake in the book, however. In fact, I purchased my own copy before John sent me another signed by Allen and John.)
     
  4. Ryan IV

    Ryan IV New Member

    I just finished reading it last week (Thanks, Dr. Bear :D). I found it to be a very good history of degree mills. It covers mills going all the way back to the middle ages. It had several case studies of recent (last ~30 years) mills. It also gave a lot of good indicators on things to look out for when picking a school, especially for distance learning.

    Ryan IV
     
  5. tcnixon

    tcnixon Active Member

    Re: Degree Mills: The Billion-dollar Industry That Has Sold Over A Million Fake Diplo


    For those interested in the wacky world of degree mills, it is *the* source. Nothing else is as complete.



    Tom Nixon
     
  6. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    I heard SOMEWHERE that something like on third of all college degrees out there (of all sorts and levels) are fake?
     
  7. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    That would be a big number. That's a "look to your left, now look to your right" kind of situation. I would doubt that.

    If Bear's musing about their being a million or so (I think he wrote in an article that he wouldn't bet the house on it being less than a million people) is about right, then that would represent just a few percentage points of Americans claiming degrees.

    Of course, one is too many if you're writing a check to that guy....
     
  8. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    ...course...that depends on whether the CHECK is any good...
     
  9. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Oh, I remember now!

    It was a Navy doctor in the late 1970s who told me that something like a third of all M.D. degrees out there are fraudulent!

    Whew! What a RELIEF! There aren't that many M.D.s so that means there's a lot fewer fake degrees out there...

    (pause)

    Wait a minnut...

    (The story is TRUE, by the way...)
     
  10. Anthony Pina

    Anthony Pina Active Member

    I have read the book and will be working on a review for a distance learning journal. It is definitely the new "standard work" in the study of degree mills. It is a highly readible book that benefits greatly from John Bear's informal writing style. The book is chalk full of useful information, both current and historical. It goes far beyond the information offered in Bear's Guides and is essential reading for anyone interested in the subject of degree mills.
     
  11. tcnixon

    tcnixon Active Member



    And given the changes in the soon-to-be released Bear's Guide (16th ed.), I think it would be wise for folks to buy both. They greatly complement each other.



    Tom Nixon
     
  12. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    Our degree mill book got a long and very thoughtful (and positive) review in College and University Journal (Spring 2005), and a short and great review in the Chicago Tribune recently . . . and I can find neither one on line at this moment.

    Tom is definitely right about Bear's Guide 16. In addition to all the usual stuff, it will have an extremely valuable tool in it: a comprehensive list of just about every non-GAAP school, something like 2,500 of them, just name and location. Non-judgmental. Everything from decent California-approved schools to the most egregious mills. But the message is that if a school is on this list, you will want to look at it closely before enrolling or accepting their credentials.

    (While the Ten Speed catalog lists him as Thomas Nixon, M.D., thankfully the website and the book itself don't do so. But I'm sure all his patients will continue to call him 'Doc')
     
  13. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Dr. Bear:
    With all due respect why? With unaccredited degree holders of all types getting into trouble hasn't the time passed where any of this can be considered even remotely useful?

    Dan
     
  14. George Brown

    George Brown Active Member

    There are obviously two approaches to this. Develop a master list of GAAP schools and ignore everything else. Or develop a master list of non-GAAP schools and make sure these are avoided. The former is much easier to develop. The latter, as with the ODA's register, is far more challenging and is constantly 'a work in progress'.

    Whichever approach is adopted, the information is important so one can make an informed decision. I recently learned at a seminar I attended that just because a school is not GAAP, it is not automatically ruled out in an assessment process. Further digging is done into its bona fides etc. I am researching this process further, and am very interested in the criteria that are used/ addressed for this.

    Cheers,

    George
     
  15. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    FWD: With all due respect why?

    JBB: Perhaps one of the authors will respond. I'm not involved in the 16th edition.
     
  16. Guest

    Guest Guest

    George,

    What decision needs to be made? IMHO the average DL consumer will have a tough go at turning any unaccredited/non GAAP degree into anything useful.

    Time and time again the unaccredited degree holder is publicly humiliated. This seems to occur whether approved, licensed or totally bogus. I think it's time to eliminate the unaccredited from the DL suggestion box.

    Dan
     
  17. Lerner

    Lerner Well-Known Member

    What about SCUPS?

    It apears that their grads are doing fine, and become licensed Psy D in state of CA.

    Learner
     
  18. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Advocates of unaccredited schools often try to distinguish their favorites from others that should not be favored. But they're doing this in an arena with few standards and little consistency. Bear's guides for years tried to split out the obvious phonies from the legitimate schools. But is this really necessary anymore? What school doesn't have accreditation available to it?

    Using SCUPS as an example, why isn't it accredited? And with so many accredited alternatives available, why should anyone recommend SCUPS to a potential student?

    Can a useful degree be earned at SCUPS? Depends on what one deems "useful," of course, but the answer seems to be "yes, somethimes." But is it really necessary for Bear's Guide (or anyone else) to distinguish SCUPS (again, for example) from, say, St. Regis? Yes, they're different, but should a book on distance learning really do this? Not anymore, I say.
     
  19. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    Tony made a neologism. Chalk full instead of chuck full--who is this Chuck, anyway?

    Oh. Yeah. Good book. Waiting for the movie.
     
  20. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    Chuck Full O' Nuts?

    Let's just chock this up to experience.

    How much chalk could a chockchuck chuck if a chockchuck could chock chalk.
     

Share This Page