Are college degree mills really such a problem?

Most people assumed not—until 2003, when the U.S. Government Office of Accountability undertook the first study of government workers who used federal tuition aid programs to obtain academic credentials.

That study, “Diploma Mills Are Easily Created and Some Have Issued Bogus Degrees to Federal Employees at Government Expense,” revealed an epidemic of false credentialing.

The Congressional investigation uncovered 400 government employees, including upper echelon managers, who had purchased fake university degrees using government tuition assistance programs or who had listed bogus colleges on their job applications.

The fakers held positions as high—and as frightening—as top security clearance nuclear scientists. The government list included doctors, lawyers and engineers.

In its special 2004 report on college degree mills, the Chronicle of Higher Education estimated that the market for fake degrees stood at about half a billion dollars.

That’s right: half a billion.


More Fake Online MBA Degree Programs than Real Ones

According to GetEducated.com’s National Survey of Online MBAs, as of spring 2008 there were more fake online MBA programs in the U.S. than real ones. According to our survey, 168 accredited graduate business schools offer distance MBAs; 212 fake online colleges sell this very same degree.

In 2004, when questions about degree mills and the credibility of online colleges became the number one user-generated query at GetEducated, we designed and launched a free consumer protection service, The Diploma Mill Police (SM).

The Diploma Mill Police represents an effort to provide a trustworthy database and resource center on online degree mills and educational fraud. By mid-2008, GetEducated.com had archived information on more that 300 fake online colleges operating in the United States alone.


How They Work & Why They Can’t Be Shut Down

Unlike most countries, the United States federal government does not require that a college be accredited. No single federal agency has the power to enforce colleges to undergo a quality review for the purpose of accreditation or consumer protection.

In many states the term "college" or "university" is not legally restricted. This means that virtually anyone might legally declare himself or herself a "university" and begin issuing degrees overnight.

The Council on Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and the U.S. Department of Education both approve and recognize valid college accreditors, but neither agency can force a “college” to undergo an accreditation or quality review.

The United States has been content to leave the regulation of colleges and universities to each state. This means that fifty different states have fifty different sets of laws that regulate the higher education industry.

When a degree mill is closed by one state it simply relocates to another state.

One of the primary tricks diploma mills use to confuse prospective students is to tell them the truth (sort of). Most display this sentence in their materials: “In the United States there is no government requirement that an educational institution be accredited. Accreditation is a purely voluntary process.”

Sadly, this is a true statement.

CHEA also offers a definition of accreditation mills: “dubious providers of accreditation and quality assurance that may offer a certification of quality of institutions without a proper basis.”


Related Resources

Diploma Mill Police
Online Degree for Career & Life Experience: Is This a Scam?
Top Ten Signs: College Degree or Diploma Mill
Online College Degree Mills: What They Are & How They Work
Regional v. National Accreditation: Which is Better?
Unrecognized, Fake and Dubious Online College Accrediting Agencies
Kitty Cat Earns Online MBA—With Honors

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