I've been listening to many opinions over the last couple of years on here and TRUST me whe I say I really try and read the majority of them. Now to my point which I want the noble minds that be to answer, what qualifies a so-called DL degree granting school as a degree mill? Or shall I say what disqualifies them as a legitimate school? Please try and not base it on your opinion but on fact and legality.
I am pretty sure Rich, Will jump to this one, but I can give my two cents. 1. Basically no authority to grant degrees, but this can be a broad issue since you can have Religious schools that have authority to grants degrees due to Religion Standing. 2. You Buy it with no work done or necesary look example below: U N I V E R S I T Y D I P L O M A S Obtain a prosperous future, money earning power, and the admiration of all. Diplomas from prestigious non-accredited universities based on your present knowledge and life experience. No required tests, classes, books, or interviews. Bachelors, masters, MBA, and doctorate (PhD) diplomas available in the field of your choice. No one is turned down. Confidentiality assured. CALL NOW to receive your diploma within days!!! 1 - 3 1 2 - x x x - x x x x or 1 - 2 1 2 - x x x - x x x x Call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including Sundays and holidays. 3. The misunderstood stated approved since the are not accredited but yet legal, they are label by some as degree mill. Rich will give a full explanation or at least guide for more details. Vini
Thanks! Thanks Vini for the information and I also expect Rich, Dr. Bear and a whole host of other folks to shed some guidance on this issue for me.
The issue, here, Mr. Sigma, is that we are looking at a continuum, not a dichotomy. And we're looking at hundreds of legal jurisdictions, from the state of Oregon to the government of St. Kitts and Nevis or Norfolk Island to the Ministry of Education of Malawi to the US or UK Department of Education. No one would deny that the San Moritz (+ 12 more names) business, whose ad you posted is a diploma mill. And no one would say that the University of Nebraska is a diploma mill. But in between: so very many categories, even within a given jurisdiction, and so very many jurisdictions. And, on top of all of this, the meta-phenomenon of the many litigious and threatening people, who exert influence on the likes of me to be very cautious about what I call a diploma mill (and which caused the authors of the book "Diploma Mills: Degrees of Fraud" to cave into to their lawyers' admonitions and not name any of the active diploma mills, as they initially said they would. In one way of looking at it, it all comes down to usefulness. In my fantasy edition of Bears' Guide, I would have a panel of 100 collegiate registrars and 100 corporate HR people, who would vote on every school, on at least a 4-point scale: always accept, often accept, rarely accept, never accept. Then every school in the book could have two associated numbers, between 0 and 100, and then each potential customer or evaluator could make his or her decision as an educated guess. Alpha University: 98, 100 (yeah, sure) Gamma University: 72, 94 (probably worth a shot) Delta University: 26, 37 (probably not worth the risk, but...) Omicron University: 0, 3 (the message is clear) The fact that, in my survey of registrars two years ago, a small percentage (4 or 5, I believe) did not accept regionally-accredited 100% on-line degrees, is a reminder that there may be no sure things.
I'd like to add my $0.02 worth: The mention of religious schools granting degrees got my dander up a bit. I have no problems with religious schools granting religious degrees even without 'legal' authority. However, what I consider questionable (and IMHO- criminal) are religious schools that grant secular degrees, such as MBAs, without legal authority and hiding behind their religious standing. While an MBA from one of these schools won't cause too much harm, someone trying to provide counseling could. Another red flag for me is a school that touts itself as "accredited", but its only so-called accreditation is not recognized by the Dept. of Ed. Finally, there are those schools that may legally confer degrees, may not be accredited, but try to pass their programs as being as good as a regionally accredited one. These are the ones that state accreditation is voluntary (true) but that such accreditation is not needed, and that their degrees are accepted as readily as regionally accredited degrees by major companies. One school listed a company I worked for (as a hiring manager), and I know for a fact they did not provide tuition reimbursement nor did they recognize the degrees from that 'institution.' These schools may be legal in their advertisements, but then one should never confuse legal with moral.
A successful degree mill can pull in millions of dollars. When these dishonest con-artists get their hands on so much money they don't need to think twice to bring frivilous lawsuits against people just for the fun and harrassment value. If you read Bear's Guide you will find out that none that have tried to strong arm the good Dr. Bear in this manner have succeeded in winning a dime. Some lost the case and others ended up in jail for fraud before their cases got to court however, it is still a time consuming, expensive, and unpleasant problem for anyone to have to deal with. An interesting twist in this crime is that the crime victims are frequently the most vocal and active defenders of the frauds. I'm talking about the people that hold these bogus credentials.
A favorite trick is to claim that they are fully recognized by such-and-such company leaving the victim with the idea that the company recruits there or at least sometimes hires graduates from the school. If it's not a flat out lie it is usually just an employee that has gotten their company to reimburse them for the tuition from the degree mill. This rarely means that the company accepts credentials from the school. All it really means is that the employee got a manager to sign off on the reimbursement request. The manager probably didn't realize that the place was a degree mill.
The one "successful" lawsuit + a Lexis challenge Bill Huffman: "If you read Bear's Guide you will find out that none that have tried to strong arm the good Dr. Bear in this manner have succeeded in winning a dime." John Bear: No one has ever won one of my dimes. But there was one miserable case in 1998, right at the time the huge publishing conglomerate Pearson bought my copyrights, when a school sued, claiming that my write-up on them and my comments on them had dramatically impacted their revenues and caused them irreparable harm . . . and they were asking for $15,000 in damages. The very annoying (to me) situation then is that Pearson's policy was to settle "nuisance" law suits. When you're a multi-billion-dollar company, it apparently is apparently much easier and cheaper to do this than to respond. So they negotiated a settlement of $8,000. Bah, I say. So, in fact, said Pearson's manager who had responsibility for 'our' business, who saw this as a wonderful publicity event: "Pearson Stands Up for Author Unjustly Accused by . . . " But he was overruled. Under the terms of the settlement, I am not allowed to name the institution in question. And so, at times like this, I wonder if someone with access to Lexis might possibly be able to find some publicly available reference to this suit. If such reference were out there, then the barn door, as it were, would be open. NOTE: No guessing, please; I won't respond. But specific references to actual suit filed in legal US jurisdiction would be welcome indeed.
Thanks for trying, Jon. May I have a quick mini-lesson in the law? If A sues B in, say, a state court, and a trial date is set and all, and then they settle 'out of court,' is there a paper trail of this matter in official public records, or does it disappear from view entirely? Thanks. John
What makes a degree mill? Also very relevant to this question is what is a degree mill. I have probably heard the term used in at least the following ways. 1. A school that teaches no classes but just sends out diplomas for money. 2. A school that is not operating legally. 3. A school that requires almost no work for a degree. 4. A school that defrauds their students. 5. A school that is way below standard. 6. Any school that is unaccredited. 7. A school that is slightly below standard. 8. A school that someone doesn't like for some personal reason.
Bill, www.AmericanCollege.com is one of those schools that "for some personal reason" I have issues with. Does that mean AC is a degree mill?
Russell, if you can find anything to dislike about AC and you choose to, then you may use that definition. I would just like to caution you though that AC advertises some very pretty diplomas that anyone should be proud to hang in their broom closet.
Indeed, the diplomas are lovely. But so is my wife's Charmin Tissue with all those little pink flowers on it.
Certainly in my jurisdiction, up in the Pacific Northwest, there would indeed be a paper trail on file in the county courthouse in the county in which the case was filed. However, that would not make it to Lexis/Nexis, which only reports on appellate cases. Cases filed at the trial court level, which are subsequently settled out of court, are not appellate cases, and are not reported on Lexis/Nexis. Generally speaking, trial court filings are not accessible via the Internet, and indeed may not be on any sort of computer system accessible to the public. In Seattle, where I am located, King County does have a computer system called SCOMIS that has information on trial court cases. But in order to use SCOMIS, you have to go to the clerk's office at the courthouse, or pay a very expensive monthly fee in order to have a terminal installed at your own law firm with a direct connection to SCOMIS. So what does all this mean? (1) There is most likely a paper trail of the case you refer to. (2) It is on file (perhaps archived by now) at the county courthouse in the county where it was filed. (3) In order to see the records, one would most likely have to physically go to the courthouse, look it up on the filing system, and have the file pulled for review. (4) It is unlikely that with a few clicks of the mouse over the Internet, one could pull up the file and review it. But if one wanted to make sure of this, one could always call the court clerk's office in that county and ask. Regards, Michael Lloyd Mill Creek, Washington, USA
