Back to School

Julian Sanchez | January 17, 2006

I'm generally a fan of his stuff, but Clay Risen's New Republic article on diploma mills goes weirdly off the rails at the end:

To their credit, some degree mills, such as Breyer State, acknowledge that their accreditation is not officially recognized. But they, in turn, exploit the lack of enforced standards by noting, "There is no mandate by federal law for a School, College, or University to be accredited.... [E]ach accreditor has their own unique standards and, thus, there is no national consistency in institutional accreditation." This is, to put it nicely, extremely disingenuous, leading applicants to assume that accreditation from Breyer State's csccs is as good as that from a federally recognized body. And, until the feds get serious about accreditation, degree mills like Breyer State and American World will continue to scam students, employers, and the government itself.

He doesn't say it in so many words, but Risen certainly seems to be arguing that there ought to be "mandate by federal law for a School, College, or University to be accredited." One obvious downside to this is that there are plenty of people who go to something that calls itself a "school" with the primary goal of, you know, learning something rather than adding another bullet point to the resume. It seems unduly burdensome to slap up mandatory federal standards applicable to any institution that wants to call itself a school or college.

That said, the real problem with this idea is that it doesn't really speak to the problem. With regard to scamming employers and the government, the Department of Education already maintains a list of recognized accreditation agencies. If government agencies are hiring people with diploma mill degrees, how about we just get them to check the list and see whether those degrees are recognized as legit? Private employers could use the same list or their own, or rely on a combination of accreditation and more direct knowledge of the quality of smaller local institutions.

As for scamming students, the notion that this is a serious concern turns on Risen's uncritical acceptance of diploma mill poster child Laura Callahan's wildly implausible claim to have been gulled by the ersatz Hamilton University into thinking its degrees were legit, because, after all, it had "requirements." Let's look to a piece Paul Sperry wrote for Reason on this issue a year ago for a sense of those requirements:

To get her Ph.D., Callahan merely had to thumb through a workbook and take an open-book exam. The whole correspondence course—which includes instruction on business ethics—takes about five hours to complete. A 2,000-word paper (shorter than this article) counts as a dissertation.

At the risk of placing too much confidence in basic human intelligence, I find it pretty much inconceivable that a (to some extent genuinely) educated professional sincerely belived that a genuine Ph.D. could be had for writing a 2,000-word paper and completing a short workbook. If she were really uncertain, she could've checked that DoE list.

In short, we've got the resources we need in place now to prevent people from being scammed by diploma mills. We should try using them before we start clamoring for more federal rules.

Comments

|1.17.06 @ 11:02AM|#

They'll get my Hamilton University and Filling Station Diploma from me when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

Sandy|1.17.06 @ 11:13AM|#

A-frickin'-men. So many government solutions simply mask the failure of said government to abide by the rules, regulations, or practices it has in place. I'm curious what makes Risen think the government will be any better at following its new rules than it was its old rules?

|1.17.06 @ 11:24AM|#

a genuine Ph.D. could be had for writing a 2,000-word paper and completing a short workbook

The phrase "Good enough for government work" comes to mind here.

Dan|1.17.06 @ 11:39AM|#

This is just libertarian dogma.

If anything, regulation of commerce and making sure people really are selling what they claim to be selling seems like a perfectly reasonable function of government.

Rich Ard|1.17.06 @ 11:40AM|#

But they are selling what they claim to sell - to wit, a piece of paper (possibly with a gold seal).

|1.17.06 @ 11:44AM|#

"But they are selling what they claim to sell - to wit, a piece of paper (possibly with a gold seal)."

There are some places that make you wait four years to get the same damn thing.

|1.17.06 @ 11:54AM|#

Dan,

Maybe, but I think the Linda Callahans of the world know perfectly well what they're buying and trying to sell to everyone else. She paid to have the pay increase, and promotion that an advanced degree brought.

2000 words for a Ph.D.? My Bachelor thesis was 7500/30 pages minimum. Although, if I remember correctly, her Associates, and Bachelor's degree were correspondence degrees as well, so I guess it's possible that a 20 page paper for a doctorate might have seemed tough.

In any case, if the government(at any level) limited it's acceptance of degrees for promotion/pay increase to those from accredited schools, we wouldn't need another set of regulations.

|1.17.06 @ 11:59AM|#

As the Gary Busey Chair of Preying on the Hopes and Dreams of Retarded People Department at the University of Phoenix Online, I am outraged!

|1.17.06 @ 12:00PM|#

As the Gary Busey Chair of Preying on the Hopes and Dreams of Retarded People Department at the University of Phoenix Online, I am outraged!

|1.17.06 @ 12:23PM|#

"If anything, regulation of commerce and making sure people really are selling what they claim to be selling seems like a perfectly reasonable function of government. "

Ahhh - sounds so simple. In theory. Who decides the regulations? Who monitors the regulators? Does the cost of the entire effort/expense of "regulating" outweigh the benefits gained? At the cost of (yet another) bureacracy, a few diploma mills will shut down, and a few employers will be spared the expense of firing someone a few months after they hired them on (what turns out to be) bogus qualifications.

|1.17.06 @ 12:24PM|#

The problem isn't accreditation; the problem is the assumption that only people who carry a particular piece of paper can possibly be qualified to do a particular job.

ann arbor is overrated|1.17.06 @ 12:29PM|#

The problem isn't accreditation; the problem is the assumption that only people who carry a particular piece of paper can possibly be qualified to do a particular job.

Well, what if instead of Hamilton University, it were Hamilton Software, a "company" to which you send a "Hello World" program every month, and they agree to say you worked for them as a senior programmer? A PhD is no more just a piece of paper than experience is just a line on a resume and a favorable reference.

|1.17.06 @ 12:34PM|#

When I grow up, I'm going to Bovine University!

R C Dean|1.17.06 @ 12:37PM|#

If anything, regulation of commerce and making sure people really are selling what they claim to be selling seems like a perfectly reasonable function of government.

Depends on what you mean by "regulation", "commerce", "perfectly reasonable", "function", and "government."

I mean, you could be calling for tens of thousands of federal agents and hundreds of pages of regulations, or you could be calling for a return to the days when fraud was a common-law offense policed through the court system.

|1.17.06 @ 12:38PM|#

Bit of a non-sequitur, but once we finish lowering standards to ensure that every child has a chance to go to college, all diplomas will be about as meaningful as a sheepsking from Joe-Bobs University of Underwater Baseket Weaving.

|1.17.06 @ 1:01PM|#

A PhD is no more just a piece of paper than experience is just a line on a resume and a favorable reference.

I'm talking about degrees in particular, not just PhDs; it is possible for a person who has never set foot in a law school to read law on his own and have the ability to be a great lawyer (though he won't be allowed to, because he lacks The Paper). Likewise, a person can go to law school and have The Paper but still be a lousy lawyer because he barely scraped through.

I am simply pointing out that it is foolish to believe that anybody who has a given degree is automatically more knowledgeable than one who doesn't, just as it is foolish to assume that someone without a given degree can't possibly know enough to do a given job.

And that's not even mentioning the whole topic of "grade inflation" in colleges and universities.

|1.17.06 @ 1:11PM|#

again, we witness the impact of the age of 'experts' turning in on itself...as if a degree were the most universally descriptive definition of a person and their worth.

A degree/diploma is but one small quality of what makes a person worth anything...anyone who beleives a diploma makes them worth more...or who hires someone solely on those grounds...deserves what they get.

ann arbor is overrated|1.17.06 @ 1:31PM|#

I thought that non-law-schooled "law readers" could take the bar in most states. Anyhow, degree requirements and experience requirements are both valuable but hardly perfect ways of establishing someone's qualifications. I just don't think that degrees are any more arbitrary.

|1.17.06 @ 1:52PM|#

I just don't think that degrees are any more arbitrary.

I do--a degree requires a set amount of time and money, regardless of whether or not the degree-seeker already has the knowledge the degree is supposed to give.

|1.17.06 @ 1:56PM|#

"If government agencies are hiring people with diploma mill degrees,how about we just get them to check the list and see whether those degrees are recognized as legit"

why go through that trouble, according to some it will be obvious who has they diploma mill degree based on the work production of the hired people. If not, then Jennifer is right, degrees are overrated. Hey, you kick ass at your job, but I just found out this diploma is bunk so I'm gonna hire this college football player who has a degree.

Dan|1.17.06 @ 2:14PM|#

I am simply pointing out that it is foolish to believe that anybody who has a given degree is automatically more knowledgeable than one who doesn't, just as it is foolish to assume that someone without a given degree can't possibly know enough to do a given job.

Really? So if I believe that someone who graduated from medical school will know more about medicine than a high school dropout, I�m being foolish?

Come on, now.

|1.17.06 @ 2:21PM|#

Really? So if I believe that someone who graduated from medical school will know more about medicine than a high school dropout, I�m being foolish?

Dan, did you notice where I had the word "automatically" in my sentence? It makes the sentence mean something different from what you said. Read it again--you'll see.

ann arbor is overrated|1.17.06 @ 2:45PM|#

a degree requires a set amount of time and money, regardless of whether or not the degree-seeker already has the knowledge the degree is supposed to give.

Well, I'm thinking of this from a science PhD perspective, I guess. Science PhD students generally not only pay no tuition, but also receive a stipend. And the degree doesn't reflect simply knowledge, but also that the degree-holder has done original work reviewed by other scientists.