Wednesday, January 15, 2003

North Dakota Contemplates a Law Prohibiting the Use of Fake Degrees By DAN CARNEVALE The North Dakota Legislative Assembly is on track to pass a bill that would punish anyone trying to use a degree from a diploma mill as a legitimate credential. The Education Committee of the assembly's House of Representatives passed the bill, House Bill 1068, on Tuesday. The bill may be taken up by the full House later this week. Under the bill, anyone who uses a fake degree for employment, education, or other personal gain could be charged with a Class A misdemeanor. No specific punishment is laid out in the legislation, leaving the courts free to administer fines or jail time. The bill defines as a diploma mill any institution that is not accredited by an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education, or by a foreign equivalent. A handful of other states, including Oregon and New Jersey, have similar laws on the books. State Rep. RaeAnn G. Kelsch, a Republican who is chairwoman of the House Education Committee, introduced the bill after learning that the number of diploma mills that advertise on the Internet is growing. She said people may not realize that many of these advertisements are scams. "It could potentially become confusing," Ms. Kelsch said. "It's really a consumer-protection type of bill." Although there have been no recorded instances of someone's passing a fake degree off as real in North Dakota, state officials are concerned that illegitimate institutions are mimicking the names of legitimate ones, she said. Debra Huber, administrator for educational equity and private postsecondary institutions for North Dakota's State Board for Vocational and Technical Education, testified at an Education Committee hearing that an institution located on the Caribbean island of Dominica is called Concordia College & University. Many North Dakota students attend Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn., located on the border of the two states. The institution in Dominica advertises on its Web site that it usually awards degrees within 12 hours, based on an applicant's life experience. No classes or exams are required. Associate and bachelor's degrees cost $599, master's degrees cost $699, and doctorates cost $1,099, including shipping and handling. The institution's Web site advertises that a person who receives a degree will be sent a certified diploma and two transcripts, complete with watermarks in the paper. Officials of the institution in Dominica would not agree to be interviewed over the telephone. But in an e-mail exchange, Ron Pridgen, head of admissions, said the institution is not a diploma mill. He compared the institution's evaluation of life experience with nontraditional approaches taken by other institutions, like Western Governors University. However, WGU awards degrees only after students pass a series of competency exams. Concordia College & University in Dominica is accredited by the Distance Graduation Accrediting Association, an international organization that advertises itself as evaluating nontraditional institutions. But the association is not recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. "In the United States, as you obviously know, the Department of Education does not accredit colleges, and only recognizes a number of privately held regional accreditation agencies for no other than financial purposes -- which are irrelevant to colleges specializing in the academic assessment of adult experiential learning," Mr. Pridgen said. Roger Degerman, senior director of communications and marketing at the Moorhead Concordia, said officials at the college do not know of any instances in which people have confused it with the institution in Dominica. But he said the bill would help prevent such problems in the future. Other institutions around the country also share the Concordia name, including Concordia University in St. Paul and colleges and universities in Alabama, California, New York, and Wisconsin. There is also a Concordia University in Montreal. If the bill in North Dakota becomes law, it will not close down any diploma mills that operate outside the state. But Ms. Kelsch hopes the legislation will raise public awareness about the issue. "If nothing else," she said, "it's getting the message out that there are these Web sites out there." Background articles from The Chronicle: Colleges Demand That Fakedegrees.com Remove Their Names From Its Web Site (9/6/2002) Illinois Board Backs Plan to Fight Phony Degrees (4/19/2002) Australia and New Zealand Consider Database to Combat Fake Degrees (3/5/2002) States Struggle to Regulate Online Colleges That Lack Accreditation (3/23/2001) Is the Internet Becoming a Bonanza for Diploma Mills? (12/19/1997) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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