The following post is a guest post by Sheena Freestone. The opinions expressed are of the author.
Everyone knows one of the keys to high achievement in life is the completion of a college degree. Whether you obtain your associates, bachelors, masters, or go all the way to PhD, the education and experience you receive at college forms the foundation for the rest of your working career. College isn’t easy, however – expensive tuition, long nights spent studying in the library, difficult tests to pass, group projects, papers, some people just can’t find up the money or dedication to get it done.
The demand for a degree combined with the vast number of people who don’t have one has spawned an online scam that has been going on for years: the degree mill. A degree mill is a fraudulent organization that enables you to buy a counterfeit degree from a bogus college to use on resumes. These degrees, (despite what the forger might promise you) are worth less than the paper they’re printed on. Today we investigate some of the biggest suppliers of fake degrees and expose them for the sham they really are.
Degrees-R-Us
This now defunct diploma has been cited as one of the most egregious purveyors of phony college degrees ever. The website name should have been a dead give away that something was up, as any well-intentioned educational institution would never be so bold as to name themselves something so campy. The website provided no testing and no coursework, just a simple order form that allowed anyone to come on, select a specialty, and purchase a degree in their name.
Degrees-R-Us succeeded in “graduating” quite a few counterfeit degree holders, including one fake medical doctor who USA Today reports resulted in the death of an 8-year old diabetic girl. “When the mother followed his advice and took her daughter off insulin, the 8-year-old girl began vomiting and died,” the article tells. “… Laurence Perry, is serving up to 15 months in jail for manslaughter and practicing medicine without a license.”
Cambridge State University
Capitalizing on brand recognition, Cambridge State University (located in Mississippi) goes by a name deceptively similar to the ivy league Cambridge University located in the United Kingdom. Degree purchasers do so in the hopes that unsuspecting hiring managers will gloss over the name and assume it must have come from the prestigious university, not the degree mill. Unlike some click-and-buy degree mills, Cambridge State actually does provide some semblance of course work, but it is more of a formality than an actual education. As an example, PhDs were offered for only 11 months of work, a clear example of “too good to be true.”
World Education News & Review reports that in 2006, Mississippi legislature passed a bill that “will allow the Mississippi Commission on College Accreditation to force colleges to halt the distribution of unapproved post-secondary academic degrees.” As a result, Cambridge State University is no longer located in Mississippi, Click to continue reading…
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