Online Degree Mills and “Life Experience Degrees”
Never Heard of a Life Experience Degree?
These are given out by places that all too often brazenly call themselves “accredited universities.” They may even promise you a degree within 30 days, regardless of your status. Most often, they are “accredited” by “official and semi-official” organizations like the World Online Education Accrediting Commission (WOEAC) or the Board of Online Universities Accreditation (BOUA), or any similar sounding organization.
Many of these “accrediting agencies” are entirely bogus, created by the “universities” themselves. None of these accrediting agencies are recognized by the US Department of Education (USDE) or the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, the national non-profit organization overseeing accreditation. You can go to CHEA’s web site to find the names of valid accrediting bodies in the USA, as listed here: http://www.chea.org/pdf/CHEA_USDE_AllAccred.pdf. As you can see, the “accrediting bodies” listed above are not found.
The CHEA site is recommended by the US Department of Education. It is easier to use than that of the Department of Education, which does also have a searchable database of accrediting bodies here: http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/Search.asp
Meanwhile, none of these “universities” or “colleges” tells you about the number of court cases pending concerning their “accreditation” and degree-granting abilities. “Graduates” have been fired for essentially misrepresenting themselves on resumes. People have had to go to court (and lose cases) with no help at all from the diploma or online degree mill from which they bought their very expensive piece of paper.
By and large, the majority of online universities are accredited, legitimate learning institutions. Places like University of Phoenix, DeVry and many, many more are legitimate learning institutions that make you work for your degree or diploma.
The problem with online degree mills or diploma mills begins with federal government policy concerning accreditation. There is little that can be done to remedy the situation. The final word on degree legitimacy, though, is that a university or college degree is work, and it takes time. Trying to take a shortcut of any kind (from purchasing a “life experience degree” to plagiarism) is going to catch up with you sooner or later.
