I found this article in the front page of bellsouth.net Fake Degrees Alleged at NYC College? Published: 7/16/07, 6:05 PM EDT By SAMUEL MAULL NEW YORK (AP) - Teachers, students and administrators tampered with a college's computer system to change grades and create fake degrees for money, prosecutors charged Monday. The 10 defendants created or altered records for at least 50 people since January, charging fees of $3,000 to $25,000 for better or deleted grades and for bachelor's and master's degrees, District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said. Those indicted include Touro College's former director of admissions, the former director of the school's computer center, three former Touro students and three public school teachers, Manhattan prosecutors said. Records found at the home of one defendant, a former $68,000-a-year admissions director at Touro's Manhattan campus, showed he was running the scheme as early as 2003 and possibly earlier, Morgenthau said. "We don't know how many hundreds, maybe thousands, were involved," the district attorney said. Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Good find, Manny. Scary article. Possibly thousands of fake degrees. Wonder if that includes Touro University International, for which Touro College is the parent school? The article is no longer easy to find. Here it is: http://tinyurl.com/yvazp5 When something comparable happened at the University of Southern California, it turned out there was no audit trail. All the paper records -- class lists, grade slips, etc. had been destroyed. All they had what was in the doctored computer.
Now reported in NY Times (free but requires registration) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/17/education/17college.html
Scarily, the first one discovered at USC was a medical degree. The guy apparently paid $25,000 for it.
Years ago I looked at the user interfaces to a number of registration systems (pre-windows era) and found them cumbersome and awkward. However after reading the article on the AT&T news page: perhaps there is a reason those historical systems were so bad.....
Click here to read another article on the Touro College (not university) scandal. In the old days, each transcript had to be manually created or changed, but in the age of computers, all it takes is a keystroke to rapidly change or create a transcript. Is this a sign of electronic corruption-for-cash to come?
Physician Assistant Program Under Fire Getting worse: Forbes Online: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/18/ap3927140.html Physician Assistant Program Under Fire
NY Post http://www.nypost.com/seven/07182007/news/regionalnews/sheepskinned_regionalnews_daniel_friedman__chuck_bennett__and_lukas_i__alpert.htm Is this media feeding frenzy or could this really happen?
Email repsonse I recieved from Touro Univresity International: Dear Dexter, We read in the press the allegations regarding employees and students associated with Touro College in New York. It caught us completely by surprise and we have had no knowledge about the investigation. While Touro University international is a division of Touro College, it is a separately accredited institution with a separate registration system. Therefore, Touro University International has no involvement whatsoever with any of the alleged activities. If you have additional questions I will be more than happy to respond to them. Best Regards Edith Neumann, PhD VP for Academic Affairs Touro University International 5665 Plaza Dr. Cypress, CA 90630 714-226-9840
