July 2004
News
A leading credentials-verification
company reports that the number of job applicants with fake
MBA degrees issued for "life experience" has been on the
increase. The degrees are increasingly being issued by
diploma mills with sophisticated websites that represent
them to be real schools and the diplomas do not mention the
school is purely virtual. Moreover some of these so-called
schools have degree verification offices that are
deliberately set up to deceive employers.
Views
This writer finds it hard to
believe that the 'students' are not fully aware of the true
nature of these degrees and feels they should have no
recourse against their "schools" should they flunk a
background test or lose a job due to this deception.
While it is not illegal to sell pieces of paper, these
diploma mills could be quickly shut down if the background
check companies asked the follow up question of what type of
work the job seeker did to earn the degree.
Finally, while many individuals do not care for the new
for-profit, online universities (Phoenix, Kennedy Western,
etc.), those schools do require
their students to attend classes, complete case studies, and
pass exams to earn their degrees. Accordingly, it is unfair
to lump these legitimate schools into the same grouping as
the diploma mills, which also offer fake medical degrees in
addition to MBAs, cited in this article.