A couple of questions...

I'm pretty new to the whole concept of distance education, diploma mills and such. I was wondering if some of the more veteran posters could answer a couple questions for me.

1. What involvement does the government have in the accreditation of colleges and universities? How exactly does an institution of higher education become accreditted?

2. Is there a graph or table that shows the number of fraudulent diplomas sold in the past several years? I need just a general number to demonstrate the growth (or decline) of the number of degrees sold.

3. How do the veterans think the US government should handle diploma mills in the United States, their operators, and those who use the fake degrees?

Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much for your help.

 

Originally posted by cbahur

1. What involvement does the government have in the accreditation of colleges and universities? How exactly does an institution of higher education become accreditted?

Here's a link to an overview of accreditation written by Dr. John Bear:

All About Accreditation

2. Is there a graph or table that shows the number of fraudulent diplomas sold in the past several years? I need just a general number to demonstrate the growth (or decline) of the number of degrees sold.

Diploma mills don't exactly make this information public. You might be able to find some info on the increase in the number of mills themselves.

3. How do the veterans think the US government should handle diploma mills in the United States, their operators, and those who use the fake degrees?

Even if we could shut down every diploma mill operating in the U.S., it would do very little to address the problem. The mills are already increasingly operating from outside the country.

I suspect that the only way to really address the problem is to make the use of fake degrees illegal (as Oregon has), and then enforce that law (which Oregon has not.)

 

Thanks a lot for the information; the link was a great help!

 

Hi Chris. Welcome to Degreeinfo. I'll give you my opinions, but they certainly aren't authoritative.

In the United States, governments don't have much direct involvement. The accreditors are private associations, in the case of institutional accreditors often composed of the accredited universities themselves, and in the case of specialized professional accreditors, often associated with professional organizations.

Since the accreditors are private associations, and since there are no real barriers to the creation of new accreditors, there are some less credible ones. You sometimes see spurious accreditors being created to give a veneer of legitimacy to degree mills.

The government doesn't want to distribute its education funding to flaky schools. So the US Department of Education recognizes those accreditors whose standards and processes it finds credible, and only distributes government funds to the schools that those accreditors accredit. While technically this recognition is only for the purposes of determing where government funding goes, in reality it is a kind of accreditation of the accreditors, and few accreditors that aren't recognized have much clout.

There are a few exceptions like the American Chemical Society, which accredits chemistry departments. They aren't recognized by the Dept of Ed, but their accreditation is a big deal among chemists. Since all ACS chemistry departments are within regionally accredited schools, they are already eligible for funding, so the ACS doesn't bother with the government paperwork.

Not that I know of. But I'd guess that the number of phony universities has skyrocketed with the growth of the internet. Perhaps John Bear or one of the others can quantify this growth for you.

Degreemills are probably one of the easiest and safest scams going. Create a website and then kick back and marvel as people send you thousands of dollars. Hey, it beats working. Law enforcement simply isn't interested.

Unfortunately, I fear that this could do tremendous harm to distance learning, damage that it could take a generation to recover from, if ever. Comedians already get laughs with the phrase "internet university". If the general public starts to equate 'distance learning' with 'scam', we are all sunk.

I think that every state should have state licensing laws robust enough to exclude scams and mills. I have no problem with the kind of non-accredited schools that California approves, but I wouldn't want to see states lower their sights any lower than that.

Once states have laws on the books, they need to fund the enforcement of those laws. That means patrolling the web for new eruptions and prompt service of the offenders with complaints. There needs to be a legal staff ready and willing to take the proprietors to court and obtain judgements against them.

I'm less comfortable with outlawing the use of nonaccredited degrees. I admire Oregon's initiative and applaud the ODA's efforts, but I wonder if the idea of outlawing the "use" of a degree is so vague as to be unenforceable and perhaps unconstitutional. If you try to impress people at parties by telling them about your non-accredited degree, are you using it? What if one of those people offers you a job?

Perhaps a state could enact a code section that says that the state only recognizes certain kinds of degrees as meeting the state's educational standard. It wouldn't necessarily be illegal to use degrees that fail to meet that standard, but should the person using such a degree ever find him or herself involved in a court case where the degree was relevant, such as a wrongful termination claim for example, the degree would be defined by state law as substandard.

 

Re: Re: A couple of questions...

Fine, but I think it is important to point out that Oregon does not outlaw the use of nonaccredited degrees. For example, the use of a degree from Bob Jones University, an unaccredited but legitimate school, is not illegal in Oregon

I think you make a good point about "use", and your proposed solution is probably a good, realistic goal.

However, I don't understand your assertion that outlawing the use of a bogus degree could be unconstitutional. On what part of the Constitution do you base this assertion? It may not be a good (or even rational) public policy, but that does not make it unconstitutional.

 

Re: Re: Re: A couple of questions...

I think that it does, but it also provides for petitioning the state to allow use of non-accredited degrees from schools that would qualify for OR-approval if they were in Oregon.

I suppose that the law could be challenged on the grounds that it's overbroad. Conceivably it might also have problems associated with freedom of speech and freedom of association.

If I earn a CA-approved degree, can Oregon forbid me from speaking about it in Oregon? What if somebody invites me to associate with his Portland firm on account of my CA-approved degree?

But I'm not an attorney and these are layman's observations. Somebody like Nosborne could give a better answer than me.