Feds Digging Into Degree Programs of Bogus 'Universities'
by Jim Brown and Jody Brown
May 20, 2004
(AgapePress) - Federal officials are being urged to prevent government workers from obtaining bogus college degrees from diploma mills.In 2002, a probe by the federal General Accounting Office found more than 1,200 résumés on a government Internet site listed degrees that actually came from diploma mills -- bogus universities that confer degrees with little or no study. Now a congressional investigation has found that federal workers have been reimbursed nearly $170,000 for college tuition paid to diploma mills. Last week, the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs held hearings on the investigation.
Michael Bopp, the staff director and chief counsel for the committee, says it will be tough to get diploma mills shut down because they have a lot of money and have hired some of the best lawyers in Washington, DC.
"We are working now with both the Department of Education and the Office of Personnel Management to figure out whether diploma mills can be shut down -- or at least the federal government won't be subsidizing diploma mills anymore -- through regulations that OPM the Department of Education can issue; or whether Congress needs to pass a law," Bopp explains.
Maine Senator Susan Collins, chairman of the committee, has vowed to draft such legislation if necessary, and to move it through Congress.
According to Bopp, one telltale sign of the unaccredited schools is that they provide an inordinate amount of academic credit for life or work experience. He says that contrasts greatly with distance-learning institutions that are above board.
"Legitimate schools often provide very limited amount of credit, and only for bachelor's degrees," he says. "So if a school is offering to allow you to waive out of half ... of the course-work requirements for a master's or a PhD or even a bachelor's, that's a pretty good indication that it's not an accredited school and that it could well be a diploma mill."
Bopp says diploma mills also frequently use high-pressure sales tactics and claim their degrees can be awarded in just a few months.
A recent report by ABC News highlighted "Lexington University," an online school that awards "life experience degrees." According to that report, the website for Lexington University -- which carries disclaimers stating its degrees are not suitable for use in obtaining employment with the U.S. government -- includes images of buildings that could "easily pass for an Ivy League building." In fact, ABC News says, the school's "main claim to architecture seems to be a store-front located in a mini-mall in Middletown, NY."
According to a press release from the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, the Government Accounting Office, at Senator Collin's direction, purchased two degrees in the senator's name from Lexington University -- one a B.S. in biology, the other an M.S. in medical technology -- as well as a fake transcript at a cost of just over $1,500.
