There are an extraordinarily fast growing number of students nationwide and worldwide who are

turning to online degree programs to complete or advance their educations while they work,

decisions that are driven by economics as well as by a society that is increasingly mobile.

Online courses are those in which at least 80% of the course content is delivered online. Face to

face instruction includes courses in which zero to 29% of the content is delivered online; this

category includes both traditional and web facilitated courses. The remaining alternative,

blended (sometimes called hybrid) instruction is defined as having between 30% and 80% of

course content delivered online.

Congress passed a law in March 2010 that drops the requirement that colleges offer at least half

their courses face to face to receive federal student aid. The new law will undoubtedly attract

more students and schools into the fledging online industry.

Online enrollment, including multiple courses taken by a single student, jumped from 1.98

million people in 2003 to 2.35 million the following year, accounting for 7% of postsecondary

education, according to Eduventures, a Boston firm that studies trends in education.

Critics of e-learning have long said that learning alone through a computer does not provide the

enriching intellectual exchange that in-person classes offer. Because the industry is so new, naïve

consumers may not know the difference between accredited institutions and fly by night

operations that imply accreditation and charge steep prices.

The University of Phoenix, the nation’s largest for-profit online school, has grown dramatically,

by advertising heavily and targeting adult students.

• American International University

• DeVry University

• Kaplan University

• Strayer University

• University of Phoenix

Unlike most countries, the United States federal government does not require that a college be

accredited. No single federal agency has the power to enforce colleges to undergo a quality

review for the purpose of accreditation or consumer protection.

In many states the term “college” or “university” is not legally restricted. This means that

virtually anyone might legally declare himself or herself a “university” and begin issuing degrees

overnight.

The United States has been content to leave the regulation of colleges and universities to each

state. This means that fifty different states have fifty different sets of laws that regulate the

higher education industry.

When a degree mill is closed by one state it simply relocates to another. One of the primary tricks diploma mills use to confuse prospective students is to tell them the truth (sort of). Most display this sentence in their materials: “In the United States there is no government requirement that an educational institution be accredited. Accreditation is a purely voluntary process”.

The use of “diploma mills” is exploding as the Internet makes bogus degrees easier to get than

ever before. More workers are buying these degrees because they’re looking for an edge in the

competitive job market. And with more legitimate colleges offering online degrees, the

environment is ripe for diploma mills to flourish, because it’s harder to determine whether a

degree earned long distance is really legitimate. In addition, many diploma mills adopt names

that are similar to bona fide universities or colleges.

There are more than 400 diploma mills and 300 counterfeit diploma websites, 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.

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 and an air of legitimacy has swelled to 260 in 2003.

“Diploma Mills used to be mom-and-pop outfits. It’s now a professional criminal operation” says

Allen Ezell, a retired FBI agent who investigated diploma mills in the 1980s. “It’s gone high tech

and global in nature. That’s something we’ve never had to deal with before.”

Many diploma mills charge a fee ranging from $50 to $5,000 for a bachelor’s, master’s, Ph.D. or

other such degree. Often, buyers only have to provide money to get a professional looking

sheepskin and transcript they can show potential employers. Other diploma mills require buyers

to complete cursory work, such as writing a short essay, before sending out the degree.

To help maintain the smoke and mirrors image of legitimacy, some diploma mills have phone

operators who verify graduations to employers who call. They will also send transcripts directly

to employers who request them. A few even offer class rings and laminated student ID cards,

even though they have no physical buildings or campus.

Other diploma providers offer fake degrees that look like the real thing from such established

universities as Harvard, Arizona State University, or the University of Minnesota. Using high

tech equipment, the diplomas include watermarks, encrypting and holographs. Some also provide

transcripts and toll-free numbers where employers can call and verify graduation.