INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Is the Internet Becoming a Bonanza for Diploma Mills?

By LISA GUERNSEY

Joe Matera was determined to get a bachelor's degree, even though he was older than most traditional students and was working full time. So when he saw an advertisement for "Columbia State University" on the World-Wide Web and read that he could receive an accredited degree from the college without leaving his Bronx, N.Y., home, he signed up.

Three months and more than $400 later, Mr. Matera is now battling to get his money back. After he found out that he could get a degree in business administration by

ALSO HEAR: Length, 0:58 Real Audio 14.4 (good) Real Audio 28.8 (better) A recording of an outgoing answering- machine message for an agency that is currently listed as "COPA" in directory- assistance data bases for Washington, D.C. COPA, or the Council on Post-Secondary Accreditation, was disbanded in 1993. The recording says that COPA has accredited Columbia State University, an institution that experts say is a diploma mill. Law-enforcement agencies have not charged it with any wrongdoing.

summarizing a $25 textbook -- and sending in a total of about $2,000 -- he began thinking that something was fishy. Soon he discovered that the institution was being described elsewhere on the Internet as a scam.

"My jaw dropped," he said.

Donna Keilland, a 48-year-old American resident of Norway, was equally surprised -- and angry -- about her experience with Columbia State. When she saw an advertisement for the university in an international newspaper this summer, she thought she might finally have a chance to get a master's degree. According to the brochure she received, Columbia State was accredited. Besides, she reasoned, distance learning was gaining acceptance as a way to attain a degree.

The day before she went to the Norwegian government to ask for an educational stipend, however, she found a Web site that described the college as a diploma mill operating under false pretenses. "This would have ruined my chances of getting a degree," she says. "I would never have been able to apply for a grant again." Norway will not provide stipends to students who have enrolled in fraudulent institutions.

Such is the dark side of the distance-education boom. As the concept of earning a degree without leaving home becomes more accepted, the most virtual of virtual universities -- those that experts call diploma mills -- are gaining enrollees. They are capitalizing on the publicity surrounding distance- learning degrees, and they are using the freedom and breadth of the Web to lure students into their programs.

"The Internet has given new life to this movement," says Michael P. Lambert, executive director of the Distance Education and Training Council, a group that disseminates information about distance-learning programs.

Diploma mills have long been a problem for law-enforcement and higher-education officials. From 1983 to 1986, the Federal Bureau of Investigation shut down 39 so-called colleges that made false claims about their degrees and offered them for high sums. The crackdown, dubbed "Dipscam" by the F.B.I., seemed to have slowed the appearance of new institutions for a while, say those who have tracked advertisements for sham schools.

But in the past few years, advertisements for questionable colleges, and complaints about them, have become increasingly common, observers say.

Columbia State, for example, aggressively promotes itself on line and in international editions of American newspapers as the place to "get a college degree in 27 days." To several experts -- and to some of its applicants as well -- it is a clear example of a diploma mill. The institution has drawn several consumer complaints this year, but law-enforcement agencies have not charged it with wrongdoing. Officials of the institution, which has a mailing address in Metairie, La., did not return written requests from The Chronicle for comment, and they declined to comment over the telephone.

Many other institutions use the Web as their primary marketing tool. At first glance, their sites have many of the same elements of accredited colleges. Some display a university seal and a message from the president, provide links to catalogues of courses, and include on-line applications. Some call themselves "pioneers in international education" or "leaders in distance education." They also advertise themselves as accredited, and they are -- by agencies that they have set up themselves, or by organizations that are not recognized as reliable authorities by the U.S. Department of Education.

In several cases, a Web site is about all the institution has to offer. John Bear, co-author of Bears' Guide to Earning College Degrees Nontraditionally (C&B Publishing, 1997), has heard from scores of students over the past 20 years who say they have lost their money to universities that turned out to be nothing more than post-office boxes. Lately, he says, he receives as many as 50 e-mail messages a day from people who are confused about colleges they have read about on line. Every month, he adds, he finds new Web sites for colleges that claim to be leaders in distance education but that, on closer examination, offer degrees for almost no work and thousands of dollars.

Many of those who contact Dr. Bear live outside the United States. Such people, he says, are at the greatest risk of being duped -- or of duping their future employers. They are likely to assume that the U.S. government operates and regulates American universities -- as governments in other countries do their universities -- and they may be misled by names of institutions that use words like "United States" and "America." They are also typically uninformed about the U.S. accreditation system, and they often rely on what they see on the Web or in a mailed brochure when deciding where to send their money.

Dr. Bear and others have created their own Web sites to counter the diploma mills' on-line presence. Dr. Bear writes about distance-education programs in his own monthly on-line newsletter (http://www.degree.net/), but some educators view it skeptically, because he has ties himself to non-traditional, unaccredited universities -- ones that he says are not diploma mills. It was Dr. Bear's expose, in any case, that alerted Mr. Matera and Ms. Keilland regarding Columbia State.

Emir Mohammed, a Canadian student who says he almost fell for a disreputable college a few years ago, has also set up a Web site to keep students informed. It's called "Distance Ed for Dummies," and it includes pages of a fake Web site that Mr. Mohammed created to show others how easy it is to be fooled (http://www.angelfire.com/mo/ EmirMohammed/).

One of the most confusing issues, he says, is determining whether a stand-alone distance-education program is accredited by an authoritative agency. A Web site set up by "the University of the United States," for example, says the institution is accredited by the "International Accreditation Commission for Post Secondary International Education Institutions" and by the "World Association of Universities and Colleges," which are described as "global accreditation entities [that] have not sought specific recognition from any single nation." Neither group is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.

Officials of the university, which is based in Mobile, Ala., did not return requests for information about their accreditation, except to provide the addresses of the two accrediting groups. George Korey, a Toronto resident who says he is the international commission's director, said he would provide information by fax, but it had not arrived when The Chronicle went to press last week. The outgoing message on the answering machine of the world association, which is based in Las Vegas, said it would provide information to non-members only for a fee.

Like many of the institutions that offer degrees that are not recognized by the mainstream higher-education community, the University of the United States uses ".edu" in its Internet address (http://www.uus.edu/). Some people browsing the Internet for distance-learning programs assume that the ".edu" extension means that the institution qualifies as an accredited college or university. But Network Solutions, the company that registers Internet domain names, says ".edu" is given to anyone who asks for it. A company spokesman said the system is "self-policing."

"American State University" is another institution that calls itself an "accredited, non-traditional school." The materials that it sends to prospective students say it is "an internally accredited postsecondary institution of higher learning granting accredited degrees based on Internal Accrediting Standards." The institution says the "standards" are proprietary and will not reveal them.

American State is affiliated with the Higher Education Research Institute, which is based in Hawaii and has no relation to the institute with the same name at the University of California at Los Angeles. A Web site maintained by the Hawaii organization invites visitors seeking information about distance-education programs to fill out an on-line referral form (http://www.heri.com/). When a reporter did so, listing an interest in journalism and noting that she wrote for a newspaper, she received material from American State two weeks later. It said she could earn a bachelor's degree in journalism by sending in $1,890 and a 2,000-word thesis.

When The Chronicle asked about that offer, officials responded in an e-mail message: "We hope you did not miss the point here. The degrees granted by American State University are NOT based on the completion of a writing project. The degrees are based on extensive life and work experience which occurs over a long period of time."

Columbia State -- the institution that offers the "27-day" degree -- does not appear to have a Web site, although Dr. Bear reports that he saw a home page for the institution this past summer. It does promote itself on line, however, on Web sites that carry classified advertising. It also advertises in airline magazines, American newspapers, and even in The Economist.

Students say the brochures misled them into thinking that Columbia State is accredited by a nationally recognized agency. The fifth page of its brochure, for example, displays an "Official Great Seal" of the "Council on Post-Secondary Accreditation" and says the university has been awarded "Full Accreditation" by the council. But the Council on Post-Secondary Accreditation, or COPA, never accredited colleges in the first place -- it was an organization that reviewed accrediting agencies. It also no longer exists, having been succeeded in 1993 by the Commission on Recognition of Post- Secondary Accreditation, which last year evolved into the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. Accrediting agencies apply to that council and to the U.S. Department of Education for recognition.

But directory-assistance operators in Washington, where the disbanded COPA was headquartered, do have a current listing under that acronym. The number leads to a recorded message saying that colleges "approved" by "COPA International" include "Notre Dame, Notre Dame State," "Harvard, Harvard State," and "Yale." The message goes on to list "Columbia University," and then "Columbia State University."

The building on the cover of Columbia State University's brochure (above) bears a striking resemblance to Lyndhurst, a 19th-century mansion in Tarrytown, N.Y., that is owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The cover of Columbia State's brochure also bears examination. It displays a black-and-white photograph of a Gothic-revival building that could easily be mistaken for a university structure. Almost any architectural-history book, however, will identify the distinctive facade as that of Lyndhurst, a 19th-century mansion in Tarrytown, N.Y., that is owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The brochure provides no credit for the photograph, nor any description of what it depicts.

A few television stations, along with the magazine Consumer Reports, have run exposes on the university this year, but Columbia State representatives have not responded to charges of fraud, except to reply to inquiries from Consumer Reports about the Lyndhurst photograph. The problem was that the printer "went overboard," according to a man who identified himself to the magazine as "Mr. Roberts." When The Chronicle reached an Andrew Roberts at the college's main number, he would not comment on anything, including the photograph. He also declined to give his title.

Columbia State has not been charged with wrongdoing by law- enforcement agencies or by the State of Louisiana. But a jury in a federal court in Los Angeles last month did convict Columbia State's founder, Ronald Dante, on unrelated charges of criminal contempt that had been filed by the Federal Trade Commission. The charges stemmed from his refusal to comply with orders to disclose information about a series of workshops that a federal court had ordered him to stop misrepresenting. The workshops allegedly promised to teach participants how to apply "permanent makeup," a type of cosmetic tattoo. Mr. Dante failed to show up in court for the last day of the trial and is now considered a fugitive.

Many of the institutions that experts say mislead students do not appear to have broken any state or federal laws. They defend their operations by arguing that they are providing a service for people who want a degree to match the work experience they have acquired over the years. R.G. Marn, who replied to an e-mail message seeking information about American State, said: "We firmly believe that such experience is equivalent to, or in many cases superior to, education obtained in the classroom or by similar traditional means." Most of the universities say they do not need the stamp of approval provided by the nationally recognized accrediting agencies.

And, as some proponents of non-traditional education point out, a college that lacks accreditation from a nationally recognized accrediting group may still provide a worthwhile education for people in certain kinds of situations.

But colleges that provide low-quality education -- or none at all -- and at the same time pass themselves off as leaders in distance education are dangerous, experts say. Not only do they cheapen the value of degrees and trick unwitting employers into hiring people who may not have the skills they profess to have, but they also can taint all distance- education programs as something to avoid.

Degrees from diploma mills "pose an ominous threat to the reputations of legitimate adult-degree programs at appropriately accredited universities," write Henry A. Spille, David W. Stewart, and Eugene Sullivan in External Degrees in the Information Age, published this year by Oryx Press. The book draws from material in a 1988 book by Mr. Spille and Mr. Stewart called Diploma Mills: Degrees of Fraud. In part because of that book, California has tightened its requirements for state-based colleges. Strict state requirements -- which the authors say are lacking in Louisiana, the home of Columbia State, and in seven other states -- are often the best antidote to diploma mills, experts say.

A strong accreditation system for distance-education programs would help too, they add. So far, the Accrediting Commission of the Distance Education and Training Council is the only nationally recognized accrediting agency that evaluates distance-education programs. The agency has granted accreditation to 70 American institutions that offer degrees solely via distance education, and it is now starting to evaluate institutions outside the United States.

The Global Alliance for Transnational Education, formed two years ago, is a respected international group that is starting to evaluate and certify international institutions, including colleges that offer distance-education degrees. The International University, an on-line institution based in Denver that opened in 1995, received certification from GATE a few months ago.

The Denver university also received accreditation through a nationally recognized regional agency, the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, in November. North Central, along with three other regional accrediting agencies, is also involved in the accreditation of the Western Governors University, a distance-learning venture involving 16 states and Guam that plans to begin offering on-line courses next year.

But Dr. Lambert, executive director of the Distance Education and Training Council, says a strong accrediting program will be effective only if applicants both here and abroad are educated about how American accreditation works. "This is an issue that is going to keep coming up," he says. "We have got to educate consumers."

Ms. Keilland, the American student in Norway, says she wishes she had understood the differences between degree programs before she applied to Columbia State and wasted the $45 application fee. But she will continue looking for a distance- education degree program.

"This time, I will have to do some serious checking," she says. "It's frightening how easily you can be misled.