Is an MBA worth the paper it's printed on?
Friday, June 9, 2006 at 09:14PM Let’s face it, the world is chock full of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs who know where there’s a big pool of money to be made from MBA students and they are lining up to dive in. According to an article published in USA Today “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.” Ads like the one below are just one of many “schools” on the net offering candidates a cheap and easy way to land a good paying job.
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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 kept by John Bear, author of Bears’ Guide to Earning Degrees By Distance Learning. He studies degree mills and gives tips to the FBI and other federal agencies on detecting degree fraud.
Only 40% of companies regularly verify degrees earned, according to a study by the Society for Human Resource Management, and even then they might miss diploma mills.
A random survey of a few websites found www.Diplomas ForLess.com selling “replacement” diplomas - $89 for a master’s degree and an additional $80 for a transcript on “security paper.” (If you want a cum laude on the transcript it costs another $25.) -excerpt from The Christian Science Monitor -
Fake degrees have become an interrnational problem. The U.S. Government has developed a business guide for employers to insure that the candidates they hire hold degrees from legitimate educational institutions. They offer this advice for spotting red flags about the schools listed on a candidate’s resume:
Tell-tale Signs of a Bogus Degree
Although it’s not always easy to tell if academic credentials are from an accredited institution, the federal officials say there are clues to help you spot questionable credentials on a resume or application.
What to look for:
Out of Sequence Degrees. When you review education claims, you expect to see degrees earned in a traditional progression — high school, followed by bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral or other advanced degrees. If an applicant claims a master’s or doctoral degree, but no bachelor’s degree — or if the applicant claims a college degree, but no high school diploma or General Educational Development (GED) diploma, consider it a red flag, and a likely sign of a diploma mill.
Quickie Degrees. It generally takes time to earn a college or advanced degree — three to four years for an undergraduate degree, one or two years for a master’s degree, and even longer to earn a doctorate. A degree earned in a very short time, or several degrees listed for the same year, are warning signs for the hiring official or the person doing the preliminary screening.
Degrees From Schools in Locations Different From the Applicant’s Job or Home. If the applicant worked full-time while attending school, check the locations of the job and the educational institution. If the applicant didn’t live where he went to school, check to see if the degree is from an accredited distance learning institution, using the steps described under ‘Checking Out Academic Credentials.’ If the degree is not from a legitimate, accredited distance learning institution, it may be from a diploma mill.
Checking Out Academic Credentials
Federal officials recommend that you always check academic credentials, even when the school they’re from is well-known. Some applicants may falsify information about their academic backgrounds rather than about their work history, possibly because employers are less likely to check with schools for verification or to require academic transcripts.
Here’s how to verify academic credentials:
- Contact the school. Most college registrars will confirm dates of attendance and graduation, as well as degrees awarded and majors, upon request. If the applicant gives permission, they may provide a certified academic transcript. If you aren’t familiar with the school, don’t stop your research just because someone answers your questions on the phone or responds with a letter. Some diploma mills offer a “verification service” that will send a phony transcript to a prospective employer who calls.
- Research the school on the Internet. Check to see if the school is accredited by a recognized agency. Colleges and universities accredited by legitimate agencies generally undergo a rigorous review of the quality of their educational programs. If a school has been accredited by a nationally recognized accrediting agency, it’s probably legitimate. Many diploma mills claim to be “accredited,” but the accreditation is from a bogus, but official-sounding, agency they invented.
Research schools on the Internet. You can use the Internet to check if a school is accredited by a legitimate organization at a new database of accredited academic institutions, posted by the U.S. Department of Education at www.ope.ed.gov/accreditation. (There are a few legitimate institutions that have not pursued accreditation.)
To find out if an accrediting agency is legitimate, check the list of recognized national and regional accrediting agencies maintained by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation at www.chea.org.
Look at the school’s website. Although it is prudent to check out the school on the Internet, it’s not always easy to pick out a diploma mill based on a quick scan of its site. Some diploma mills have slick websites, and a “dot-edu” Web address doesn’t guarantee legitimacy. Nevertheless, the website can be a source of information. Indeed, federal officials say it’s probably a diploma mill if:
- tuition is charged on a per-degree basis, rather than per credit, course, or semester
- there are few or unspecified degree requirements, or none at all
- the emphasis is on degrees for work or life experience, and
- the school is relatively new, or has recently changed its name.
Check other resources. There is no comprehensive list of diploma mills on the Web because new phony credentialing sources arise all the time. However, the Oregon Student Assistance Commission’s Office of Degree Authorization maintains a list of organizations it has identified as diploma mills at www.osac.state.or.us/oda. Another way to check up on a school is to call the registrar of a local college or university and ask if it would accept transfer credits from the school you are researching.
- tuition is charged on a per-degree basis, rather than per credit, course, or semester
- Ask the applicant for proof of the degree and the school’s accreditation. If you don’t get satisfactory answers from the school itself and the accreditation sites on the Web, ask the applicant for proof of the degree, including a certified transcipt, and the school’s accreditation. Ultimately, it’s up to the applicant to show that he earned his credentials from a legitimate institution.
Reader Comments (2)
Honesty is the best policy applies to resumes, now more than ever before. Finding out if a candidate is lying on their resumes is easy for an employer to do in 2007!