Do you think before we pass judgement that....

Is it possible that some people that went through degree mills - really thought they were getting legitimate credit for life experince?????? I mean when I first started looking I had no idea that mills existed - although I quickly learned about accredidation - as no such thing exists in Canada with nonaccredited schools claiming to be universities. Europe Universities are tougher I had several conversations with a nice man at Warnebrough who almost had me convinced about the legitimacy of his school - sounded OK - I write a dissertation over three/four years with an advisor.... Thank God I believe in collecting all the info. Maybe others aren't fibbers just fell victim to a scam - or think the degree in really worth while......

 

John Bear wrote an article for University Business discussing this very point. He split things into "victims" and "villians," and proposed that there are both kinds of degree mill customers. Some people get fooled, but many others are co-conspirators. I believe most people know what they're getting. If they don't know the school is a diploma mill, they know that at least it is not on par with a real school. "If it sounds too good to be true...."

Rich Douglas

 

I suspect that by the end of the program most know that something fishy was going on. For many of those they just don't want to admit it and will play games with themselves to try and justify the time and money spent. The hardest thing is to admit that a mistake has been made and to just walk away. Those are the people that I really have to respect.

 

I don't know. Probably in most cases students have some idea. Here's an unavoidably American view on the problem:

American students contemplating American schools know that some universities aren't regionally accredited. But beyond that point things get very blurry. There is everything from DETC to Trinity C&U. There are fifty varieties of state approval, each one often applied unequally. There are a host of unrecognized accreditors like WAUC.

I think that prospective students know that the non-RA schools are substandard in some sense, but they are very unclear on what that means. We share that confusion on this newsgroup, BTW. Does it simply mean not being accepted by the "old boy's club" or something much more substantive? If a school isn't RA, does that mean that it is *bad*?

I guess that lots of people convince themselves (in some cases correctly) that a non-RA school is legitimate and will meet their needs. Those who are taken in by the mills are just the extreme end of that spectrum.

Foreign students dealing with this American confusion sometimes are kind of pathetic.

Often they don't have a clue about accreditation. When they evaluate American schools, they do it in terms of how their own system works. Normally that means that they are looking for government approval. If the state authorizes the university, it must be legitimate by definition. The degree mills play to that, stressing on their accreditation pages that accreditation is private and voluntary. Sometimes they include some tripe about how accreditation only applies to traditional universities or how it is only for student aid eligibility.

On AED and here we have occasionally been treated to non-Americans arguing very eloquently for this view.

And when we see Americans considering foreign schools, the situation is often even worse. Now it is us that don't have a clue. There are some 200 nations out there. Each one has a subtly different educational system. And many of them have substandard universities trying to make a buck (euro, pound, drachma, dinar...) by exploiting loopholes.

How can we possibly know what kind of government approvals are legitimate and which are just business licenses? How do we know that an education official hasn't been bribed? What is the value of an individual British university "accrediting" another school? What are these weird accreditors and 'consortia' like APICS? Can a legitimate university operate in the UK but be registered elsewhere? What the hell is going on in Cyprus?

I guess that most Americans who are even aware of this stuff just wash their hands and look in the IHU. But we have seen several substandard American schools successfully sneaking into that book. That doesn't really inspire confidence.

Bottom line: I think that most of the students that are victims, rather than co-conspirators, do have some idea that they are in a gray area and that the universities they are dealing with aren't the best. But they are often confused about how to interpret particular cases. They think that while their school isn't prestigious, it is at least recognized.

Trinity C&U had South Dakota recognition didn't it?

 

I do think many get fooled. Many let their eagerness for a credential override warning signals; others have a strong suspicion but choose not to investigate; others know darn well.

A lot of people just don't know anything about how higher education works, and they are convinced that oh, 15 years selling insurance qualifies them for an MBA. They over-rate their own experience, under-rate the requirements for academic credit and degrees, and don't know enough to know that they're doing this.

A relevant article: "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments," Justin Kruger and David Dunning, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, December 1999 Vol. 77, No. 6, 1121-1134 http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp7761121.html

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Kristin Evenson Hirst
DistanceLearn.About.com

 

Manda wonders, "Is it possible that some people that went through degree mills - really thought they were getting legitimate credit for life experience??????"

Clearly some of each -- but I've long wondered if the ratio of "victims" and "villains" is 90-10, or 10-90, or what?

For years, I was the only person pointing to Columbia State as a phony. At that time (1990-1995 or 6) I got an awful lot of abusive mail from students and alumni who seemed absolutely convinced they had a legitimate accredited degree.

Then, as the truth slowly came out, and espec ially after the FBI raid and the 20/20 story, the mail shifted to perhaps 1/3 "I can't believe I really did that" and 2/3 the "OK, that's that' what do I do next." And a tiny percentage remained (or feigned) disbelief; one actually wrote, of the FBI: "Ruby Ridge, Waco, and now Columbia State."

It would be awfully tough to do research that could address that 90-10 or 10-90 (or whatever) issue, since many people would be very reluctant to share that information.

 

Also I would guess that it would be different percentage from one degree mill to another. For example, I suspect a higher percentage of the "alumni" from say the Sussex College of Technology know that they have a degree mill diploma than the "alumni" from a degree mill that does a better job of pretending to be a real school.

 

Manda,

I love you! You hit the nail right on the head! I went to PSEDI because I saw them on the internet...but before I invested any money...

I saw something by Tom Head that had a reference to this site and Low & Behold I found out that it is a mill! I saved myself some time and money and probably heart ache!

I wish that high schools or businesses would research a little more and advise their people to look before they leap into trying to "Quickly" further their education.

Manda...you go girl!!

Mike

[email protected]

 

My take is that the majority of people who buy mill credentials know exactly what they're doing. I'm sure there are some naive victims, but I would venture to say that the great majority of these are at the undergraduate level. I can't imagine someone with a legitimate undergrad degree thinking they can buy a graduate degree based totally on life experience verified with a simple resume.

Bruce

 

Gentlemen,

This thread is more relevant than one might think. Let me give you an example of my history, which is in conjunction to the question I posed to the group yesterday.
When I first started this journey I accessed the “College and Universities” and then “Distance Learning” link on my home page of Yahoo.com. There before me was a practically endless list of schools and institutions. One of the first I looked at was Barrington University. Now remember, I went in to this completely green.
On the Barrington U site (which is well made and with edu. prefix), it detailed the process of the school, costs, assignment of a mentor, etc. Hell, you could even see the page where current students can access their courses or take their exams. They even list the curriculums and bibliography. It looked serious; it was state licensed, and, holy cow! It covered the globe in campuses or affiliates. And the cost! Not tens of thousands but within my budget. I called the Mobile chamber of commerce; yes it was a member in good standing, no complaints there. I called the Alabama Dept. of Education, yes it was licensed, and no problems. I even called the Better Business Bureau, no complaints received by them. I called them, and WOW! They were really nice and answered all of my questions.
Then I dug some more, and I found those nasty articles in the South Florida Business Journal. Oh no! Some thing is wrong. I look around some more, and BANG! Find this forum and you guys hate ‘em. So I get nervous and do more homework. All of the sudden I’m learning about things like accreditation, RA, state license, and so forth. I learned new words like diploma mill and degree mill. I was introduced to Dr. Bear and I read his book. I learned that in the world of academia, a lot of it boils down to money, i.e. RA schools wont accept credits from DETC schools, and if they do, you still have to pay a “fee”.
What I’m trying to say is that there is a lot of the good, bad, and ugly out there and a lot of businesses and people don’t know, or don’t care. Period. And I’m not talking about teaching jobs either. When I went to the H.R. department at my work and asked them if I could get tuition reimbursement for Barrington U., even though they were un accredited, they asked me if it was state licensed and legal. I said yes. They said yes. I asked if my opportunities would increase at that company with an MBA from Barrington U, and they said defiantly.
So is Barrington U and out and out mill(pay money, no work, get diploma)? No it is not. Is it seriously flawed? Yes. it is. Is it legal? Yep! Is it legitimate, to you guys no, but to my office and pay check, yes!
So there you have it, from an average Joe. Just wanting to provide for his family and get by, but also wanting to increase his education base. Interpretation, opinions, and money Gents, that is what it is really about.

S/F
MB

BTW, I dont plan on enrolling into Barrington.

P.S. This is SgtBroderick. I tried to post with this user name but I couldent, Have I been kicked off of the board? If the admin people could fix this that would be great!

MB

 

I simply don't see how you can seriously consider a school that operates out of a PO box with no apparent physical location, has no apparent faculty, has moved to at least 5 different states in the past five years, and has been written up in, among others, the national magazine "Spy" as basically completely fraudulent.

This school is one of the worst. The fact that your employer's HR department isn't sharp enough to catch the fact that it's a fraud doesn't make the school any better.

It is one of many who operate from states that have no oversight, and thus, the degree is, technically, "legal". But "Legal" and "useful" or even acceptable are completely different.

*Your* employer might accept them, but I guarantee you it's a time bomb. And there is no reason on earth to consider this school, or, in fact, just about any other unaccredited program when there are so many excellent accredited schools out there, many of which are price competitive.

 

To be fair -- not many will have all those details about Barrington unless they've been following distance education for a while. And Barrington's website has grown much more appealing in the past couple years. I can see how at first glance it might seem like a possibility.

Of course, people need to go beyond that first glance and do further investigation -- and then they'll notice things like the lack of faculty and they'll learn from other sources about its recent history and about related matters such as accreditation.

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Kristin Evenson Hirst
DistanceLearn.About.com

 

Chip,

I did say that I was going into it completely green at the time. I think that whole essay was on the fact of what the average person sees after clicking on something listed in Yahoo. First impressions and what not. How was I to know how many times it moved? How was I to know it had an article in Spy mag? The address is in Mobile, Al. (and not a PO BOX). I've never been there. How was I to know? When I got the catalog, there was faculty listed. Try to look at it through a man or woman's eyes (with compassion) who really want to go to school, but has limited funds, has work, a family, etc. but doesn’t know any better.
If they say here is your diploma for $300 bucks, yea that is a fraud and something is up and one should know better.. but if you have to do some real studying or class work, take tests, etc, how does one know nasty from good?
But thanks to well versed people like yourselves, I looked deeper.
Besides, I’m not going to enroll there.

S/F
MB

P.S. I still cant post with Sgtbroderick. Please help!
MB

 

Nor can I!

Russell

 

True - but to be Devil's Advocate - apparantly I can get a PhD from the UK by submitting a journal of articles - so why not a BBA with a confirmed business record? Also what about schools like Warnebrough that put up a good front

 

Accreditation can bite even knowledgeable people. I once shared office space with a wonderful lawyer from California here in New Mexico. He told me that when he applied to our State Bar, he was shocked to learn that his JD was not acceptable. He had to document five years of practice in California for New Mexico to let him take our (notoriously easy) bar exam. He did and he was duly admitted. He would have been just as eligible if he held a correspondence school JD.
Now, he went to the RA University of LaVern law school. His three year full time resident JD is recognized by the educational establishment but NOT by the American Bar Association.

Nosborne (formerly Joybaum)

 

Can you please share what school gives a PhD for a journal of articles and what a journal of articles are? Sounds cool.
Thank you.
Gila

 

In most cases, I agree. But there is a lot of naivete out there, and some will equate the phrase "credit for life experience" in a very literal way, especially if they are only vaguely familiar with the portfolio practices of RA institutions that give fairly large blocs of credit for life experience.

I'm not defending folks who are so uninformed, but simply point out that a well-meaning person may make this mistake.

 

May I suggest that Bear's Guide for Earning Degrees by Distance Learning covers this subject.

My (admittedly weak) understanding is that these sort of degrees are rare and intended more for researchers that have been on the cutting edge of academic research for many years and the school would like to thank them with the acknowledgement of a PhD.

 

Bear also notes that with some schools, a connection to the university is necessary. This supports your "thanks" theory quite well, IMHO.

Rich Douglas