Feature

Beware the Fake Degree

With the right amount of cash getting one can be easy, but it doesn’t pay off in the end

By Tristin Hopper, The Link (Concordia University)

MONTREAL (CUP) — It’s a tenth of

a millimeter thick, it’s composed of wood fibers, and it’s typically the second largest purchase you will make in your life. On this sacred parchment, years of study, thousands of dollars and countless sleepless nights are humbly distilled

and adorned with signatures, seals and an official-looking gold leaf. This is

the university diploma, essentially the doorway into countless future careers, the centerpiece of any resume, and one of the last things you see before the dentist gasses you unconscious for a root canal. But are they real?

Increased access to high-quality printing technology coupled with the rise of the Internet has spawned a new golden age for fake educational credentials. Fake diplomas, fake transcripts, fake accreditation, and even fake universities now make up the tangled web that is the modern world of falsified academia, a black market that some are calling the “perfect crime.”

“Law enforcement officials just haven’t picked up on this,” says Robert Clift, executive director of the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of British Columbia. “They consider it a victimless crime.” His Confederation recently set up www.bcdegrees.ca, a website designed to expose unaccredited universities operating in British Columbia.

Unaccredited universities, sometimes referred to as “diploma mills,” are institutions that operate without recognition by official accrediting bodies and grant degrees with little or no academic study. They often carry names similar to those of well known universities or colleges, operate by correspondence, and award a degree based solely on “work or life experience.”

“Anybody is able to profit off this crime very easily,” says Clift, adding that it is extremely difficult to prosecute known diploma mills. “Where did the crime happen? Students are in one place, schools are in another place, and the school says it’s located in another place,” he says, stating that prosecuting diploma mills requires intense coordination between law enforcement officials, which he says might explain why officials “just don’t really want to deal with it.”

Clift pointed out the potential dangers a phony university can pose to society. “Rutherford University—a degree mill currently under investigation by the BC government—will give out degrees in therapy and counseling psychology.” Professions, he says, where an unqualified person can “screw someone’s life up royally.”

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At the moment CUFA/BC is working to shut down a number

of known unaccredited universities operating in the Vancouver area, such as Rutherford and Lansbridge University. Often, they are known only by a PO Box or an email address, and, as Clift points out, “you can’t prosecute an email address.”

There is a thriving Internet market for the “speedy degree.” Even a search for “university degree” on Google will pull up Belford University as its first hit. Belford touts itself as a “fully accredited” university that offers a variety of

professors and government officials, received doctorates from four unauthorized foreign colleges.”

Reports such as these have raised concerns about contemporary methods for checking academic degrees. Provence Consulting is a Vancouver- based staffing agency that, among other things, fills academic positions at Concordia University. In over nine years of operation, an official with Provence says they “have never encountered a fake degree.” He added, “If there’s ever a question of academic integrity, we look into it.” Provence will contact the educational institutions on a candidate’s CV, and if “[those institutions] call back and say that they have no record of a particular candidate, then that’s all we

“Fake diplomas, fake transcripts, fake accreditation, and even fake universities now make up the tangled web that is the modern world of falsified academia”

degrees based on “life experience.” The university guarantees fast shipment of documents, and even offers special “discounted” prices on package deals. For instance, you can get a Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctorate degree all for only $1,034—a savings of $443 off individual purchases. Of course, to qualify you have to take a few minutes and fill out their online skills test.

Hardly a fringe practice, the fake degree has been discovered at all echelons of professional society. In November 2006, the United Nations issued a statement that it had fired a staff member because it was found that his degree was “bought from a well-known Internet-based agency, not earned at an accredited university.”

In February 2007, the New York Times reported “fourteen employees of the Fire Department of New York bought phony diplomas over the Internet and submitted them to the city in an attempt to meet educational requirements for being promoted or hired.” In October 2006, the Korea Times reported, “more than 150 high-profile national figures, including

need.”

Virginia Bruce, the Concordia director of graduate admissions, expounded on the variety of ways the university will check the credentials for applicants into Concordia graduate programs.

They receive transcripts direct from educational institutions, they hire private credential services, and they share information about worldwide-accredited institutions with other Canadian universities. Although Bruce couldn’t recall specific numbers, she stated the university has indeed encountered falsified documents.

In 2005, the South Korean government began a crackdown on foreign workers utilizing falsified documents. The Link spoke with a Newfoundlander who was deported for teaching English in Korea using false academic credentials. He chose to remain anonymous. He and his girlfriend had come up with the plan to teach English in Korea as a way to pay off their student loans. They got in touch with recruiter David Kang, who asked them if they had university degrees. While his girlfriend

did, he was only one course away from completing his English degree.

“He told my girlfriend to get her visa through the Korean consulate,” he says, “and told me that he would take care of my paperwork.” Kang removed his doubts by assuring him “not to worry about it,” and “this is how it’s done in Korea.”

When he arrived in Korea, he ollected his papers from the school where he would be working only to find that Kang had fixed him up with a ake degree and transcript from Acadia University. Over the course of his time in Korea, he would meet about 10-15 other teachers who were in similar situations.

They carried degrees from Acadia, Mount Ellison, and UBC, and often in subjects that were completely irrelevant to teaching English, “mine was for Kinesiology,” said the Newfoundlander.

He never openly advertised the fact that he held a fake degree, but he asserts that it’s unlikely his superiors would have minded. “Schools didn’t seem to care whether or not their [foreign] teachers had degrees, it was just about having a white person with an accent... there were definite racist undertones.” He added, “In these small private schools, the bottom line was a dollar... it was all about money, about filling the seats.” He said that failing a student was frowned upon.

After the Newfoundlander had been teaching for a year, David Kang was suddenly arrested, and his files seized. From those files, South Korean authorities began rounding up all those whom Kang had equipped with false degrees. After spending ten days in two different detention centers, the Newfoundlander was deported back to Canada.

He reflects, “I was pretty stupid not to do my homework,” and warns others “to make sure they know what they are getting into.”

Upon returning to Newfoundland he finished his English degree, and just recently he passed the TESL examination, which will allow him to legally teach English as a second language. He is currently looking to get into business school and, failing that, he’ ll look for another overseas teaching position.

Looking back, the experience has nevertheless given him a different and almost cynical perspective on university degrees. “[Regarding business school]

I would have to say, a lot of business is common sense...I don’t particularly see the value of business education,” and admitted, ironically, “I’m going for the paper.”