Accreditation Mills

Citation

Vinten, G. (2008), "Accreditation Mills", Quality Assurance in Education, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 100-103. https://doi.org/10.1108/09684880810848440

A greater assault on quality assurance in education cannot be imagined than that represented by the accreditation mills and associated degree mills. They undermine the level playing field of fair competition in which colleges are supposed to operate, make unjust and sometimes illegal profits, and represent potential danger to the consumer and public. For example who wants to be operated on by a bogus doctor and who wants to travel over a bridge built by a bogus engineer? They are an annoyance to those who have worked and often saved hard for their education. The internet has made it easier and cheaper to perpetrate such fraud, as has the way that legitimate educational devices such as e‐learning and credit recognition been turned on their head to suit the convenience of such mills.

It is fortunate to find attention drawn to this by Allen Ezell. Allen spoke at a well attended conference earlier on 17 April 2007 which was jointly organised by the National Recognition Information Centre for the United Kingdom (UK NARIC, which provides advice on properly accredited institutions worldwide) and the British Accreditation Council (BAC) (which certifies the credentials of private educational institutions and from 2009 will be one of a small number of organisations whose list of accredited institutions will be relied upon for the granting of visas by visa entry officers in the new Points Based System). The BAC has been running since 1984 when the Department of Education and Science (DfES) decided to withdraw from becoming involved in inspecting and recognising private education. A group of leading educationalists felt this left a significant hiatus and the BAC was born. Incidentally it is hoped that the new system will be consistent and not lead to strange decisions as at present. These have included excluding an accredited Australian institution's degrees on the basis it was not on the dubious DfES Register (and when I contacted the Register it was clear that there was no way they would be), and even failing to recognise the BAC. Decisions seem to be based on insufficient information and individual fiat.

The book is an educational version of Frank W. Abagnale's Catch Me If You Can which has appeared in book and film varieties. Frank manages all types of scams and gets away with posing as an airline pilot in order to travel free in the cockpit, and he also manages to fake being a medical doctor. Ezell describes matters as amusing as well as horrifying such as a dog granted an MBA, not to be upstaged a cat called Colby Nolan granted an executive MBA (p. 161), and another cat with an MBA (p. 85), a scam set up to catch scammers called YHICA for the Visual Arts (where YHICA stood for “Yeah, Here it Comes Again”) (p. 77), and a scam university to catch scammers again with the mottos “Solum Pro Avibus Est Education” (Education is only for the birds) and “Latrocia Et Raptus” (anything from petty theft to highway robbery) (p. 76). Degrees‐R‐Us in Las Vegas seems a suitable location and name (p. 86)! As an Ezell aside none of these sting operations are credited with having any lasting impact. Yet one per cent of degrees issued in the USA are reckoned to be bogus and it is estimated to rise to half of the 43,000 doctorates issued each year, according to the author's sources (p. 128). It would be valuable to learn more about this, since this is an extremely high figure and means one should question everyone purporting to have a PhD from the USA. Unfortunately the book does not enlighten us on this. The internet and e‐mailing has spread these scams across the globe and made it more difficult to detect and pursue, with different part of the operation in different parts of the world.

Allen Ezell headed the Dipscam (Diploma Scam) initiative at the FBI for the decade that the FBI showed an interest from 1980 to 1991, but with Allen's retirement it seems the FBI has lost interest in the estimated billion dollar fraud industry, most of which is based in the USA. Why is it based in the USA? It is because accreditation is part and parcel of the USA system, in which the state versus federal system is happy to make use of accreditation agencies, which just lends itself to fraudulent use as well as being almost impenetrable to make sense of by outsiders, and I suspect insiders. There are just too many of them spread over the 50 states, and it requires great effort to distinguish the genuine from the bogus. In 2004 more than 200 fake accreditation agencies were in existence and there are more now. It provides an historical perspective to be reminded that fake documentation goes back to at least the eighth century Merovingians, and fake Royal Charters and counterfeit Papal Seals.

Popularly it is stated “Make sure your school is accredited”, but it is not added and “make sure the accreditation agency is not bogus” (pp. 6‐7). Undoubtedly, the author indicates, these bogus accreditation agencies have given false accreditation to loads of false colleges and realised much cash for both. It is frightening, for example to find that there were 100,000 false medical qualifications awarded according to a House of Representatives investigation of 2003. A 2004 Hearing stated that this is not a victimless crime. Ironically the federal and state governments have not only employed staff with bogus degrees on their payroll, but have also paid money, including the very departments that should have a role in stamping out such degrees. In 2004, 463 employees were found in the federal government in a survey by the General Accounting Office, and this has resulted in zero action. Equally frightening is the list of over eight pages of non GAAP (Generally Accepted Accrediting Practices) accrediting agencies, who engage in unacceptable practices.

The various characteristics employed by accreditation and degree mills are: citing non‐government agencies that have no relation to accreditation, like the United Nations; citing names of companies that have accepted the degrees; criticizing the system of accreditation; copying text and/or logos from legitimate accreditation agencies; outright lying through claiming accreditations they do not have; displaying certification documents on their web site; advertising legitimacy in unconventional ways, such as in ways that give undue prominence to it; and ironically warning that other accreditation and degree mills exist.

The US system certainly lacks clarity. Accreditation is not compulsory in the USA and so there are adequate universities with no accreditation, as well as bogus ones with bogus accreditations. There is a very limited role for federal involvement and the States vary tremendously as to how much they pursue bogus institutions within their boundaries. Some have managed to hound out such institutions; others seem to intervene very little, and it has been described as the “Wild West” (p. 85) all over again.

The consumer is put to considerable trouble to sort matters out, and it is not helped by the fact that there are two organisations one can go to for assistance on accreditations with not all colleges in common between the two organisational lists. One is the Department of Education (ED) list and the other is CHEA (Council for Higher Education Accreditation). The reason there are two lists is a factor of the haphazard way in which the whole system runs, and adds to the confusion, as well as making it easier for the bogus to fudge the issues. Seven accrediting agencies are recognised by CHEA and not by ED, and 24 by ED and not by CHEA. One example is the AACSB International (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business), and there is acceptance by CHEA and not by ED. This is despite the fact that the AACSB is the premier and well recognised accreditation agency for business schools. CHEA has amalgamated the two lists, which tends to obliterate the discrepancy, and another valuable source is the State of Oregon Office of Degree Authorisation web site.

The US situation may seem hopelessly lost in confusion, and inaction with statutes not implemented and organs of state being quiescent. “… laws are effective only in print” p. 118). The patchwork represented throughout the States does not help. Of course there is a British patchwork, but it is more solvable than the US, although still in the state of being a mess and not joined up between government agencies with an interest, but there are early signs that this may alter. Favourable reference is made on p. 116 to the British Accreditation Council and its attempts to clean up the act.

However it is clear to the book reviewer that the old and still popularly‐called DfES (Department of Education and Skills) Register, but now part of the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills, does not help by including unaccredited universities and it is a complete curate's egg of some good and some bad. It was set up by David Blunket as Minister and started life on 1 January 2005. According to the current Minister, Bill Rammell MP, the Register is a list of both publicly funded and private learning providers in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is open to any provider who can demonstrate that they are providing education and training. The Minister claims that the aim of the Register is to prevent entirely bogus operators, and the purported students they bring to the UK from abusing the student immigration route, and is a significant means of tackling immigration abuse in the education sector (Letter dated 18 July 2007). Maybe the Minister is forced to believe what he writes, but such a claim will be extensively challenged. The Education Reform Act of 1988 is rightly criticised for allowing “UK based” operators to offer dodgy foreign degrees as if this could not be foreseen.

However there are some grounds for optimism within the book, and some States are taking the matter more seriously than others before they are overwhelmed by this cancerous growth. The biggest hope is the passage and implementation of the federal Diploma Protection Integrity Act 2007 introduced by Congresswoman Betty McCollum. It contains a valuable list of the characteristics of degree mills, such as no previous academic records are required for admission, credit for degrees are awarded for life experience rather than academic achievement, and exact locations are difficult to find. This may galvanise response across the country in a way that has not happened before. Any less and the rot will continue and federal funds may continue to be lost to such organisations. The same applies globally and without consistent action, the battle will be lost. The book reckons that the problem will never go away completely, but let us make more effort than before to make life as uncomfortable as possible to the educational fraudster. Allen has applied immense industry to producing this book, and brought together facts, figures and experiences not readily available. It was a joy to meet him at the conference (even though the airline has mislaid his luggage and he had little to wear) and one hopes that his enthusiasm will bear fruit in the most effective anti‐bogus degree and degree mill system imaginable.