The proliferation of online degree programs, many of them legitimate, has encouraged some groups to offer fake degrees to anyone with sufficient money. Here are just a few ideas to help employers avoid hiring people who present fake or counterfeit degrees or certificates as a means of getting a job or a promotion.
First, what is a fake degree? A fake degree is a diploma (such as an MA or PhD) that has been purchased from a degree mill that is not a genuine college or university and that requires little or no academic work. Give me $100 and I'll send you a PhD in Interpersonal Counseling or Social Accommodation Theory. For an extra $50, I'll send you a set of transcripts listing all the courses you took to qualify. And for another $100 (I'm just making all these numbers up as examples, since prices vary), I'll send you the dissertation you, uh, "wrote."
I don't want to be sued, so I'll keep these tips general and simply state that these are red flags, if not screaming evidence.
1. Find the school's web site. In the United States, virtually every college and university's online presence has an .edu (for "education") domain. If the place your candidate got a degree from has a .com (for commercial) domain, be very suspicious. The same caution holds for .org domains.
2. What is the university's web site URL? Oddly enough, many of the questionable sites have the word "university" as part of the URL, as in www.riverbottomuniversity.com.
3. Go to the university's web site and read some of the text. If the text appears to have been written by a non-native English speaker, be very cautious. Here are some examples:
+ "comprehensive curriculum that prepare you to face"
+ "interested in obtaining high level of education and expertise"
+ "Earning a doctoral program, adds credibility to your academic profile"
+ "Develop Expertise that are Essential for Successful Career in the Long Run."
+ "Dissertation: For successful completion of doctoral program, it is must for students to complete their research work...."
4. Admission requirements. Are there objective, third-party assessments required for admission? SAT, LSAT, TOEFL, GRE, GMAT? What are required scores? If there are no or only pro forma admission requirements, be suspicious.
5. Graduation requirements. Read the requirements (or call the institution) and find out if credit is given for "life experience" or "career accomplishments" so that the number of required units is lessened or eliminated. How many classes and units are required? Is there the possibility of waiving some or all of the required work?
7. Is the institution accredited and if so by whom? There is actually a Council for Higher Education Accreditation that lists the credible and authoritative accrediting organizations. https://www.chea.org/.The United States Department of Education also accredits American higher education institutions. See the site at https://www.ed.gov/accreditation?src=rn.
Go to the institution's web site and search on "accreditation." There should be ample evidence of accreditation by one or more of the legitimate organizations listed on CHEA.
8. If you are still in doubt about the genuineness of your candidate's degree, have him or her come in (or video conference by phone using Skype or WhatsApp) and discuss a paper or two or the dissertation submitted for the degree.
9. Other resources to help evaluate the quality of a higher education institution. (Listed for information only; not endorsed or guaranteed.)
+ https://www.geteducated.com/diploma-mill-police/degree-mills-list
+ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unaccredited_institutions_of_higher_education
+ https://thebestschools.org/magazine/online-college-vs-diploma-mills/
A Counterfeit degree is a certificate copied from a real degree (from a genuine, accredited institution of higher learning), with a faked name, degree, date, etc. If you suspect that your job applicant does not really have the degree claimed, in spite of sending you a photocopy, call the institution and ask.
Unfortunately, you just can't be too trusting these days.
If you know the techniques for interviewing people suspected of plagiarism, you can often use them profitably by interviewing a job candidate or employee, also.
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