Education Scams (Part 1 – Phony Degrees, Part 1)

(Consumer Safety & Awareness article: Part 38)

One of the most important things young people can do to improve their lives is to get a good education. Unfortunately, scammers know this and build a variety of frauds to deceptively get money from people who are trying to improve themselves. Thus we get educational scams.

The Nation, a highly respected magazine, presented this information in 2004: “When large amounts of cash and the entrepreneurial spirit intersect with an institution as impoverished and trusting as schools, it's not long before financial scandal strikes. That time is now here.”

These scandals involve construction shortcuts and kickbacks, diverted funds, outright theft, and all the white-collar crimes we associate with Enron, the financial institutes, and other industries. In 2008, in a school in New Jersey that was being constructed, the contractors took so many short cuts and used such substandard material that the building was a disaster waiting to happen. In fact, it was such a horror story that the building had to be totally renovated at a cost considerably higher than the original estimate. Although several people did go to jail, the renovations, the trial and related expenses were all footed by the local taxpayers. The building may not open until 2012.

I once had the honor of working for a man who was proud to display his Doctor of Divinity degree. As I got to know him, during a five-month relationship, he proved over-and-over that his corrupt business methods, his desire to cut corners, and eventually the scam he was perpetrating, showed he was as phony as his degree. He had paid several hundred dollars to purchase it online.

The FTC warns, “Are you ever tempted by an email or an ad claiming you can “earn a college degree based...on life experience”? Don’t be, say attorneys for the Federal Trade Commission, America’s consumer protection agency. “Chances are good that the ad is for a ‘diploma mill,’ a company that offers ‘degrees’ or certificates for a flat fee, requires little course work, if any, and awards degrees based solely on life experience.”

Most employers and educational institutions consider it lying if you claim academic credentials that you didn't earn through actual course work. Federal officials say it’s risky behavior: If you use a so-called “degree” from a diploma mill to apply for a job or promotion, you risk not getting hired, getting fired, and in some cases, prosecution.”

Taking it a step further, USA Today has this story in 2003: “After Marion Kolitwenzew learned her daughter was diabetic, she took her in 1999 to a specialist for care. He seemed impressive, with an office full of medical supplies and a slew of medical degrees from universities. It turns out those diplomas came from degree mills, which are bogus universities that confer degrees for little or no study. When the mother followed his advice and took her daughter off insulin, the 8-year-old girl began vomiting and died.”

“The North Carolina man who treated her, Laurence Perry, is serving up to 15 months in jail for manslaughter and practicing medicine without a license. But questionable degrees aren't just being used by bogus doctors.”

“Employees armed with academic credentials from diploma mills have held jobs as sex-abuse counselors, college vice presidents, child psychologists, athletic coaches and engineers. While some employees simply falsify their résumés and make up degrees, others turn to diploma mills. These bogus colleges and universities make it easier to pull off the résumé charade because they provide fake diplomas and transcripts that often seem legitimate.”

USA Today discovered, “There are more than 400 diploma mills and 300 counterfeit diploma Web sites, and business is thriving amid a lackluster economy — doubling in the past five years to more than $500 million annually, according to estimates. Some fake schools in Europe have made as much as $50 million a year and have as many as 15,000 "graduates" a year. The number of fake accrediting organizations set up by con artists to provide diploma mills an air of legitimacy has swelled from half a dozen 10 years ago to 260 in 2003.”

Alan Contreras, Boston College’s administrator of the Office of Degree Authorization reports, “As recent cases show, the "false approval" problem has become widespread and now occurs in an astonishing diversity of venues. There have been problems with regulatory schemes and bogus colleges supposedly based in Australia, Canada, Malawi, Mexico, and St. Kitts. Of course, the United States is also full of diploma mills. We are now in a period of universal domestic and international portability of bad standards, poor enforcement, and worthless degrees.”

A recent example comes from Singapore and, sadly, concerns an Oregon college. Boston College was contacted by a Singaporean who had “earned" a degree from this school. Unfortunately, no such school exists. The entity was just an incorporated business (now shut down) with a college-like name. The incorporator sold degrees mainly in Asia and used the state-issued business license as proof that the "school" was government approved. Since this diploma mill made no attempt to sell degrees within Oregon, we did not even know it existed.

The true core of this problem is illustrated by the Singaporean’s main concern. The degree holder was troubled not because he had been scammed or because we had not done our job in catching the perp, but because we insisted that the degree was worthless. Under Singapore law, it seems, this was a "U.S.-approved degree" and thus legal for use, and he wanted to use it. So the United States is not only the victim of international falsity in academic credentials, but also the perpetrator, since (unlike Oregon) some states do not prohibit the operation of diploma mills.