Fighting Fakery
Diploma mills continue to churn out new "graduates" every day. What should legitimate colleges do about them? Is government action called for? By some estimates, diploma mills generate a half-billion dollars in revenue each year and churn out new "graduates" every day. The business is booming like never before, and some of its customers are college professors. For the most part, we ignore them. But does this indifference undermine the value of legitimate degrees? What steps can colleges take to make sure that academic credentials actually mean something? Do we need a federal law that makes it illegal to claim a degree from an unaccredited institution? How else should government and academe fight against the fake degrees? (more information)
A transcript of the chat follows.
Thomas Bartlett (Moderator):
Welcome to Colloquy Live, the Chronicle's live chat forum. I'm Thomas Bartlett and I am a reporter here. Our guest today is Alan Contreras, one of the few government officials fighting diploma mills. Please send in your questions for Mr. Contreras. Also, if you'd like to make a comment, send that in and we'll try to get it posted quickly ...
Question from Mark Grechanik, University of Texas at Austin:
Is it possible for our government to issue a list of accredited universities so that people (and human resource departments) can consult it when considering educational background of job applicants? What obstacles do you see to doing that?
http://chronicle.com/colloquylive/2004/06/diploma/Kenneth
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