Tom Bartlett (Moderator):
    Hi everybody. I'm Tom Bartlett, a reporter for The Chronicle, and I'll be moderating our brown bag today with Alan Contreras. We already have lots of great questions – but please, by all means, send more if you got 'em. Let's get started.

Question from Allen Rawitch, University of Kansas Medical Center:
     Is there any attempt at a central list of institutions or entities that are known to be diploma mills and are non- accredited institutions necessarily diploma mills? I am aware that some states have put together lists but am not aware of any broader listings.

Alan Contreras:
    There is no such thing as a definitive list of degree mills because they can change their names in an hour if they want to. Some owners operate with twenty or thirty school names. Oregon, Texas, Maine and Michigan maintain online lists, but the content varies based on state law. Ours is simply a list of entities degrees from which are not valid for unrestricted use in Oregon.

Not all unaccredited U.S. institutions are degree mills. Most are, but some provide a legitimate educational experience. The difficulty lies in how to evaluate such schools. If they are in a state like Idaho, Hawaii or Alabama that has had poor state oversight, they could be state-approved and still awful.

I'm sure you are aware that there is a person at your own medical school whose graduate degree is from an unaccredited bottom-feeder school that used to operate in Hawaii. I discussed this case in my presentation at the Higher Learning Commission in April. Since Hawaii has no meaningful oversight, who knows whether the program was real?

Question from Andrew G. diploma mill:
    I work for a diploma mill that does a good job faking it. Who do I contact to get them investigated?

Alan Contreras:
    If they are in the U.S., contact the state agency responsible for oversight of private higher education. If the school is accredited, also contact the accreditor.

If those approaches seem unlikely to produce results (some states have only minimal oversight ability and most accreditors have next to none), provide as much information as you can to the nearest sizable daily newspaper.

In some cases, there may be a federal agency (e.g. U.S. Dept. of Education) interested, especially if there is federal title IV money involved.

Question from Goblin:
    Are "diploma mills" or "degree mills" actually illegal? Please, I want and need a straight answer, not opinions. Thanks

Alan Contreras:
    It is almost always illegal to operate a degree-granting institution in the U.S. without approval. In Oregon it is a criminal misdemeanor. In North Dakota it is a felony.

Approval can come from one of three sources: Congress, state government or an Indian tribal government. There is no private right to issue degrees in the U.S.

There are only a few states left where diploma mills can operate easily. Idaho is the top location for fake colleges right now; apparently the Idaho legislature considers attracting diploma mills to be economic development. Hawaii still has poor regulations, and of course everyone is waiting to see what happens in California, where the proposed new law could be pretty good or pretty bad, depending on the legislature's final product. The last draft I saw looked ok and is certainly worth a try.

That is half the answer. The other half is whether it is illegal to use as a credential a degree acquired from an unapproved, unaccredited college. In ten states (Washington, Oregon, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Illinois, Maine, New Jersey and Virginia) use of such degrees is illegal. Certain doctorates are illegal in Indiana. We expect this list to continue growing.

Question from George Gollin, University of Illinois:
    Title 33, chapter 24 of the Idaho Statutes appears to forbid the operation of unlicensed postsecondary schools, without reference to where those enrolled in the school actually reside.

But there are a number of unlicensed "providers" run from Idaho: Canyon College has been there for years, with a Caldwell, Idaho address listed on its web site. And Breyer State moved back (listing an office in the state capital of all places) after Alabama refused to renew its license. There's also Almeda, and also an appendage of the alarming St. Luke School of Medicine claiming a presence in the state.

Is this primarily a resources and enforcement problem, or are there legal issues that prevent the Idaho Statutes from being applied to unlicensed schools?

Alan Contreras:
    Historically, Idaho had a poor law and no enforcement capacity. They are still the nation's worst degree-mill haven after Alabama, which is starting to clean up.

Idaho recently revised its state law and hired a half-time private-college enforcement person. We don't know yet whether this will be sufficient to clean out Canyon College, Breyer, Almeda and their ugly sisters, but we're hopeful. Idaho is clearly getting the outfall now that Alabama has limbered up its plunger and gone to work.

Question from G. Jay Christensen, Emeritus, CA State University, Northridge:
    In your opinion, how frequently are diploma mills appearing on individuals' resumes, especially for government positions? We hear the Federal government has a list of diploma mills, and they cannot keep up in the Congress with how fast these diploma mills are increasing. Further, how effective is legislation and court cases in states like Washington and Oregon in putting these diploma mills out of business?

Alan Contreras:
    Greetings in somewhat less scenic southern California. Several issues here. First, the federal government is absolutely stuffed with diploma mill degrees. The GAO, working with Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, investigated this problem a few years ago and did a pretty good job - until they got to the "what do we do about it?" point.

Technically, the Federal Office of Personnel Management requires that degrees used for federal employment be from accredited schools. In practice, this is enforced very loosely and not at all against the echelons of grandfathered users. When the congressional investigators found out how many of these people were in the Department of Defense and other sensitive positions, they wilted: they didn't have the political energy to fight uphill against so many people not that long after 9/11. I wonder if our national situation would be different if all those Pentagon people with fakes had real degrees.

The political situation is different now, and we know that the U.S. Secret Service has a list of many federal employees who bought degrees from the St. Regis fake. However, the feds won't release this list as of last week, despite FOIA requests from several states and even the Swedish government. We don't know who they are trying to protect.

There are only a few states left where fake colleges can operate unmolested, Idaho leading the pack. In fact, "Breyer State U," which has links to the diploma mill called Canyon College in Idaho, opened a PO box in Boise within days of its losing Alabama licensure. Canyon used to boast on its web site about its accreditation by the National Board of Education of Liberia -- presumably it has stopped now that the people who invented that fake board along with the fake St. Regis University are on their way to federal prison.

Recent efforts by Alabama to root out diploma mills like Breyer State and Columbus are going to have a significant effect. If they can also deal with Preston and Clayton they'll be in pretty good shape. The leadership shown by Chancellor Byrne is laudable—I wish we saw that in Idaho, where the stench of all those carp rotting in PO boxes apparently doesn't reach the noses of elected officials. Mississippi has also made a recent effort to flush some of its dubious so-called colleges, as has New Mexico. With luck we'll never hear from Novus U or Madison U again. Of course everyone is waiting to see what California does with its defunct Bureau of Private Postsecondary - without enforcement there, all the world's bottom-feeder carp will swim to the Golden State.

The bigger issue is laws affecting users. Only ten states(Washington, Oregon, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Illinois, Maine, New Jersey and Virginia) make it illegal to use degree mill degrees. We need more states to pass laws protecting the value of genuine degree by disallowing the use of fake ones. It's a market issue: as long as the users can get away with it, the sellers will be in business, even from offshore.

Question from James Morrison, UNC-Chapel Hill:
    Can you provide a URL that identifies diploma mills in the UK?

Alan Contreras:
    I have a URL that identifies REAL schools in the UK, which I will dig up at the end of the session and have Tom Bartlett add it to the transcript. The UK has a pretty good list of real schools, and a whole pile of fake schools, but of course there can be no definitive list of fakes because they can change their name in an hour.

UPDATE: Here is the link: http://www.dfes.gov.uk/recognisedukdegrees/index.cfm?fuseaction=content.view &CategoryID=1

Question from Dale Gough, AACRAO:
    Alan, When an institution discovers that an applicant for admission or employment submits credentials from a diploma mill, shouldn't there be some criminal prosecution? Isn't this considered fraud?

Alan Contreras:
    Hi Dale. Thanks for all AACRAO's help lately.

It is illegal in ten states (OR, WA, NV, ND, SD, TX, IL, ME, NJ, VA) because those states have laws covering the use of unaccredited degrees. The definition of fraud varies state-by-state. With luck it will soon be illegal in many more, but that takes local effort.

I should mention that there are legitimate unaccredited schools, not many, but a few. That's why Oregon allows them to go through our own evaluation and get legalized here.

Question from Ron, College Instructor, Texas:
    I can understand the general public being naive about unaccredited degrees, but how can the HR department of any competent company still be oblivious?

Alan Contreras:
    Any HR professional should know the difference. You'd think that, yet they don't pay attention. Quite frankly I think failing to screen out a degree mill credential creates legal liability for that company if Jane with the fake degree screws up.

We have on our agency web site under "publication" an "Employer's Guide to College Degrees" that can be copied and used anywhere.

Question from Candace Byrne, Shasta College:
    How are colleges and universities responding when an administrator is identified as having an advanced degree from a diploma mill? What is a best practices response, one that acknowledges the difference between legitimate and spurious degrees and our valuing legitimacy?

Alan Contreras:
    Greetings in scenic northern California. I'm sorry to say that many colleges try to play duck and cover, thinking up reasons why there isn't a problem and suggesting that Dr. X accidentally tripped and fell into his degree mill PhD. I have seen unfortunate examples of this desire by faculty to protect people they know at the expense of the institution's reputation, most recently at the University of Kansas medical school, of all places that should know better.

Of course, many schools do the right thing. The problem is that once someone is caught using, they can't be trusted to perform the functions of a legitimate academic institution. They have demonstrated that they don't know or care what universities are for. Therefore the best practice has to be decoupling any user from duties related to the academic enterprise. Perhaps there is a vacancy in groundskeeping.

At the same time, we need to recognize that most colleges were once unaccredited (of course almost all non-U.S. colleges lack U.S. accreditation)and that what matters is whether a person has the desired skills, not whether they have a degree. I see no reason, for example, to ask football coaches or fundraisers to have degrees. They do not have an academic function, unlike faculty or those who oversee the college as a whole.

Question from Winston, large state university:
    There are a number of areas in the United States that are not served by community colleges. I would like to agitate for their foundation, however, one issue concerns me deeply. In "Rebel With A Cause" the founder of the University of Phoenix carefully documents (as one would expect from someone with a Cambridge Ph.D.) the innumerable problems and expenses in getting his school accredited. How would you deal with a new and unaccredited little community college with a limited budget where the board, administration, faculty, and students are trying their best?

Alan Contreras:
    Oregon had this problem when a community college started in the Klamath Falls area. They solved it by starting as a branch campus of Rogue Community College, an accredited school with sufficient central resources to handle a lot of the bureaucracy attendant on accreditation. They eventually applied for separate accreditation and achieved it.

Question from George Gollin, University of Illinois:
    I don't come upon very many crisply stated, legally binding definitions of the term "diploma mill."

It's as if we need three classifications for postsecondary programs: (1) postsecondary institutions that exceed certain minimum standards, and whose degrees serve as acceptable entrance credentials for enrollment in graduate and professional programs; (2) substandard programs which do teach their students something, but markedly less than would be the case in a type-1 program; (3) programs which are operating without the legal authority to do so, OR which require very little college-level academic work of students.

There is no natural algorithm for defining the boundary between truly awful (type 2) and criminally awful (type 3), and this indistinct boundary seems to paralyze regulatory and legislative bodies. On the other hand, if there were to be proposed a definition of the term "diploma mill" perhaps it could be taken as a starting point. (Attention would need to be paid to the fact that the set of schools that are "not diploma mills" will be larger than the set of schools that deserve legal authority to issue degrees.)

Could you offer up a working definition of "diploma mill" please?

Alan Contreras:
    I agree that once you get beyond the threshold of legality, you enter a dim world of mushy boundaries.

Oregon law does define diploma mill. Any entity that does not have formal legal authority as a school to issue degrees in the jurisdiction where it is located is a diploma mill. Also, any entity that may have legal authority but against which there is a formal finding of fraud or a court decision in which the entity has been shown to engage in academic dishonesty is classified as a diploma mill.

The term "unaccredited" cannot be substituted for "degree mill" or "diploma mill." What matters is the legal authority to issue degrees, given by a state, Congress or an Indian tribe.

That said, some unaccredited degrees are so awful that no one should accept them based on their merits. That is a screening function for employers. Likewise, some professions have special reasons for requiring accredited degrees to show competence in that profession.

Question from Betty Stevens, Kansas State University:
    Does every university and college demand official transcripts when they hire someone? And does every university and college examine those transcripts and check the status of every institution that they don't recognize? And if they did that, and refused to hire people with illegitimate degrees, wouldn't the problem eventually disappear? (This doesn't cover non-academic employers, but I know some of them literally don't care.)

Alan Contreras:
    I wish that every university got and kept official transcripts. Most do, some don't. The biggest issue here is with foreign degrees, and with the evaluation services that are used to screen them. We advise using AACRAO or a NACES member evaluator.

We don't see many fake degrees among faculty at regionally accredited schools. An occasional administrator. More at nationally accredited schools.

In my daily work, it is registrars that almost always have the best information about what is real and fake in the world of degrees.

Question from Carol, small rural two-year college:
    So what do states like Alabama, Idaho, and Hawaii gain by approving these kinds of institutions? I would think that allowing diploma mills to operate would hurt the legitimate higher ed. institutions...

Alan Contreras:
    In the case of Alabama and Idaho, I think the laws simply had quirks that were never fixed. Also, there is always the likelihood of corruption or inappropriate influences.

I recall that Wyoming legislators were treated by Preston U to a trip to the Middle East. I think a Wyoming state official now sits on the board of Warren National, which used to be Kennedy-Western. That kind of thing is a source of snickering, but also of crude political delivery.

I am not sure why Hawaii seems perfectly content to allow anyone with a pulse to operate as a college. They do have an excellent enforcement person, in fact he is a bit perplexed right now because a school against which he has a huge court judgment waiting to collect was just licensed by the state of Colorado. I think it is American U of the Humanities or something like that. Colorado needs to pull that thing up before it roots, and tell the owner to pay Hawaii. The owners of these carp are always venue-shopping.

Question from floridateacher, florida:
    What, if anything, do you know about or study in terms of accredited, legitimate institutions of higher learning that appear to resemble diploma mills, in that they award degrees which lack required courses and required internships, due to whatever bureaucratic foul ups? I complained to an accrediting agency of colleges of education when my required student teaching internships were omitted and I was assigned to the wrong grade levels for my degree - but they did absolutely nothing about my complaint and wouldn't even investigate. Is it possible this is another whole new echilada in this mess?

Alan Contreras:
    From the smell, I'd say a carp taco.

You should never, ever expect an accreditor to fix problems of this nature. They are not set up as enforcement or investigative agencies. Even a good one (and SACS would be very high on my list) has a limited ability to smite.

Gather your evidence and provide it, one way or another, to the nearest daily newspaper that is likely to cover the story.

Also, talk to the state agency in Florida that is responsible for signing off on teacher licensure and colleges of ed. They should, in theory, do something.

But always, always tell the media. You will get 95 percent more results.

Tom Bartlett (Moderator):
    For the uninitiated, let me just note that the term "carp" is used by the fearless band of diploma mill experts, like Alan and George Gollin, to refer to diploma mills. We're not talking about fish.

Question from Marc A. Clauson, Cedarville University:
    First, can you define a "diploma mill"? (I have always believed that it is results that matter, not input measures. Thus, if a school operates non-traditionally, it would seem prudent to examine the quality of what it is producing, not just presuppose that it is not producing a quality outcome just because it is operating outside traditional means). Thanks.

Alan Contreras:
    There is no private right to issue degrees in the US. Any degree-granter that lacks authority to grant degrees given to it by Congress, a state government or an Indian tribe is a diploma mill.

I do not use the term diploma mill to classify any school that has legal authority to issue degrees from one of these three sources. Foreign entities are a different situation, with unique problems including entire governments that are fraudulent.

The question of whether a degree is any good is different. That requires actual evaluation of the program and what it produces at a level of detail that most people or employers won't do. That allows a lot of shoddy schools to offer a dubious product.

I don't think nontraditional operation or delivery matters much. What matters is faculty quality, policies on the award of credit and genuine college-level work.

Question from Ron, College Instructor, Texas:
    I have seen several states pass laws criminalizing use of unaccredited degrees from places such as Kennedy-Western University and Rochville University. However, I still routinely see users of these degrees in print and in our community. Is there any active enforcement or is it more of a symbolic law? Is there a reporting mechanism / hotline for concerned citizens?

Alan Contreras:
    My understanding is that it is illegal to use an unaccredited degree as a credential in Texas. The Coordinating Board is supposed to be in charge of that. Contact Linda McDonough at 512-427-6225 in Austin.

Also, rat these people out to the media. They are lawbreaking scum.

Note that Kennedy-Western has changed its name to Warren National U. It has an operating license from Wyoming, though it is really a California animal. Rochville is a complete fake, a mail-order house.

Question from Denise D, Ohio, regional comprehensive university:
    You wrote "The other half is whether it is illegal to use as a credential a degree acquired from an unapproved, unaccredited college." What is an "unapproved" college?

Alan Contreras:
    Many people don't realize that there are thousands of unaccredited, legally-operating degree-granters in the U.S. A chunk are in California, where the state allows graduates on unaccredited schools to be licensed in certain professions such as law and psychology. A lot of the others are religious schools. These schools operate with state approvals (as indeed do all accredited colleges - you have to have state approval AND accreditation to be Title IV eligible). So there are three general categories: accredited, approved and unapproved, the last being what are usually called degree mills or diploma mills.

Question from Ron Aumann - College Instructor - Wisconsin:
    A simple Google search can find unaccredited degree holders working at Regionally accredited universities, in elected positions, and in about every walk of life in my community.

Someone with an unaccredited business degree may be relatively harmless, but what about elected officials, care providers, hospital administrators?

In your opinion, do community members have a duty to notify the proper authorities?

Alan Contreras:
    In the ten states I have already mentioned, use of such degrees is illegal and those people should be outed. I certainly would consider it my social duty to out any person working in a field related to public health or safety who is using a degree-mill degree.

Also, if someone gets a pay raise from public funds based on a dubious degree, as recently happened in the Sharon, PA school district where a bunch of people suddenly have Canyon College degrees,I think there is a serious question of misappropriation of public funds.

One of the odd aspects of the degree-mill business is that its customers are disproportionately represented in certain professions: police and fire, counselors, hospital administrators, "expert witnesses," school administrators and a few others.

Question from Ron Aumann - College Instructor - Wisconsin:
    Recently, the diploma mill St. Regis had it's day in court. The US Department of Justice however, is refusing Freedom of Information requests to disclose the "graduates" of this "university", citing department policy. What are your thoughts on how this should be handled.

Alan Contreras:
    How should it be handled? Loudly. This is a very odd situation in which the owners of the fake all pled guilty and are on their way to prison. We know there is a list, sorted by state, showing exactly who bought these fakes, with their addresses. Why the federal government won't at least give this information to states where it is a *crime* to use a St. Regis degree is a mystery to me.

Rep Betty McCollum from Minnesota is going to push this issue, as I understand it. I think you need to ask your state's attorney general and your members of Congress to make the feds release that list, at least to law enforcement agencies.

I should mention that the St. Regis investigation has found some surprised, including a U.S. Marshal who had a fake degree, and whose records disappeared when he abruptly retired. This is not a good situation.

Tom Bartlett (Moderator):
    Wow, that was a great chat, no? Thanks everybody for sending in questions. Thanks to Alan for answering them. We'll add some of the links he mentioned to the transcript. We didn't get to all the questions; there were just too many. If you have any diploma mill related tips, please send them to me: thomas.bartlett@chronicle.com. Thanks!