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How Prevalent are Bogus Degrees?

Posted by Cliff on from the a-BS-from-Phony-U dept.

Paul Townend asks: "The BBC are reporting that a US government investigation has found that 28 top federal employees possess bogus college degrees (usually based on 'life experience'), and the phenomenon may be much bigger. Have Slashdot readers come across or worked with people with such degrees? Does it give them an advantage? What happens when they're discovered?"

42 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. Shows by u-238 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    how much the actual acedemic drudgery is truly necessary for doing the job that requires the degree.

    1. Re:Shows by GigsVT · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If they were qualified without the "fake" degree why didn't they apply that way?

      Because a lot of jobs require degrees for no reason.

      I don't see how you can call it "overcompensation".

      If they weren't doing the job they were hired to do, then they should have been fired for poor performance.

      If they were doing the job well enough to command their compensation without getting fired, then that proves the degree is bullshit, by your own argument.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    2. Re:Shows by kabocox · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Bullshit, it shows they are liars and will probably be fired and sued for the overcompensation they received. If they were qualified without the "fake" degree why didn't they apply that way?

      You must be new to the US. The way things work are HR writes an impossible requirements page. Recent grads. with no work but lots of classroom experience, put as many buzz words in and get their resume padded that way. People that have been working for 10 years, but don't have anything other than a HS diploma if that just put down what they've done. Here is news for you: HS drop outs can make alot more money than PhD folks. On average they don't, but they can if they have the drive and skills. PhD folks rarely make good employees. They've just spent way too much time in school getting "educated" to be useful to society in anything but a research setting. HS drop outs are usually of no better use to society than janitors and min. wage employees. I'll let you in on a secret. There are people that have made millions without a degree of either HS or College.

    3. Re:Shows by nelsonal · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There is a signficant school of thought that believes that degrees (or any certification for that matter) is a signal to potential employeers that you have the determination to achive something difficult and the training invested in you will not go to waste. The hypothsis is also used to explain why bank signs and facades are quite expensive to produce. Since a sign is emblazened with a company's name it will not carry much use if the bank were to go under. Since the management team was willing to spend so much on a sign, they are capitalized well enough to be around for a while and not go under with your deposits (this was pre FDIC insurance). I think this is the vast majority of the extra value of an prestigous degree (let's face it if you try you can learn plenty from any undergraduate institution). Almost anyone can be trained to do most jobs (engineering, medical, and a few other no mistake jobs excluded) competently. The important part is the expense undertaken by the employeer to train someone. The degree shows that you are willing to endure some discomfort and effort to achive a long term goal. As such they are very, very costly signals, but no one has found a better method of sorting people.

      --
      Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
    4. Re:Shows by cmowire · · Score: 2, Insightful

      See, there's a difference between "padding your resume with keywords" and a fake degree. One's trying to defeat the keyword filter in an HR system, the other is outright lying.

      The problem with your opinion is that there are some folks who didn't graduate from HS, College, or both who have made millions. Bill Gates is one of them. But, on the average, a dropout isn't going to make as much money as somebody who got the BS. But that doesn't mean that the other 99.9% of folks who didn't "finish their education" are particularly brilliant.

      By drawing a sharp line between a PhD and a grade school education, you are confusing the issue. Most businesses don't care about a PhD, they generally care about folks with a bachleurs or a masters and that's about it.

      --
      Gentoo Sucks
    5. Re:Shows by kabocox · · Score: 2, Interesting

      But, on the average, a dropout isn't going to make as much money as somebody who got the BS. But that doesn't mean that the other 99.9% of folks who didn't "finish their education" are particularly brilliant.

      My thing is that I graduated with a BS from an state university. Both my brothers barely made it out of HS. Both my brothers make more than me. I know it averages and odd data points. I just hate seeing my brothers do better than me money wise when I was always ahead of them in grades in school.

      Life teaches you that school doesn't matter. Work doesn't matter other than the money you earn. What really matters is that you are somewhat happy doing what you do. If the money is a limiting factor for you, because you don't make much, find a job that you can earn more at. (You may not like it as much though.)

      Actually, both my brothers are slightly happier than I am. Ok. I have a wife and they don't so I am unhappy far more often than they are.

    6. Re:Shows by cmowire · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Don't know what your experience is, but life showed me that you can't quantify people.

      I've seen folks with a BS or even an MS from great schools who couldn't code their way out of a box. I've seen bright folks who had such obnoxious personalities that nobody wants to work with them. I've seen folks with a PhD in random off-the-wall fields with no "useful" degrees who can both code well and manage people. I've seen grads from great schools with no common sense. I've seen folks who didn't graduate and got a plum job and then had problem years down the road when they were trying to find a new job and the market wasn't the same as before so they couldn't. I've torn apart folks in an interview because they didn't know anything about the words they stuffed in their resume. I've seen excellent artists getting in trouble in art schools because they didn't stretch their own canvas or used computers or such things.

      There could be a variety of reasons why your brothers are doing better than you are other than education.

      --
      Gentoo Sucks
    7. Re:Shows by spectral · · Score: 2, Funny

      If they're NOT overcompensated, they're either compensated properly or undercompensated. Thus his new company won't work, because he's paying them less than they deserve. You seem to not understand what he's saying:

      If they do the job good enough for what they're being paid for, even though they don't have a degree, then what's the problem.

      if they're being paid more than their competence should allow, then the company is stupid for paying them that much.

    8. Re:Shows by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There are plenty of methods of sorting people that work better, but they have mostly become illegal in the past 50 years. Race and background are still reasonably good indicators. IQ testing is a tremendous indicator of future job performance -- far better than degrees -- but the Supreme Court made IQ testing for employment illegal 35 years ago.

      What you have to understand is that the "signal to potential employeers that you have the determination to achive something difficult" speech is code. What college degrees actually do is tell employers that the person holding the degree is more likely to come from such and such an economic background (hence the outsized importance of ivy league diplomas) and is more likely to be white, Jewish, or Asian. It also tells employers that the holder of the diploma is likely have an IQ above some threshold.

    9. Re:Shows by AlecC · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Did black America suddenly turn around and get its shit together while I wasn't looking?

      Yes. A lot, but not all, did. Social background and education are much more informative than skin colour. If you factor these two terms in, you have already used all the information given by skin colour; if you add skin colour in, you are effectively double counting. And these other measures are more efficient: they allow you to drop white dropouts and bring in brilliant blacks.

      It is true that if you had no other information at all, skin colour would have some predictive value. But if you have the information available on any normal resume, skin colour tells you nothing more than you know already.

      Statistics for black people only tell you an average for about 20 million people, exactly one of whome you are interviewing at this moment. They are about as useful as statistics for the 20 million people in the same height band.

      --
      Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
  2. equivalence systems by perlchild · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Lots of universities have some kind of system to accreditate "life experience" when relevant, to pre-graduate students. There are also lots of "honorary" doctorates going around. But do degrees as job requirements fulfill their basic tenet: "Only let someone competent do a job?"

    Even with a real degree, I'd certainly have doubts.

    1. Re:equivalence systems by foidulus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Supposedly a degree shows a willingness to challenge oneself and the ability to expand ones mental horizons. Though with the number of "diploma mills" in the US(and elsewhere) parading around as accredited schools, I doubt that is true anymore.
      An education isn't supposed to be a job training program, it's supposed to help you develop the skills needed to tackle any problem. This usually means doing more experimentation and research and less belching up whatever you crammed in last night on a test. Knowing where to look up obscure details is more important than memorizing them(because you will probably forget them anyway) However, that seems to no longer be the case in America's schools, and it is indeed sad.
      Sayonara creative problem solving!

    2. Re:equivalence systems by kabocox · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't want a doctor that only knows how to expand his mental horizons and creatively problem solve. I want a doctor that can tell me what is wrong and if he determines that there is nothing wrong with me won't just give me drugs to make me happy and go away (otherwise known as creative problem solving.)

      I don't want emergency personnel that have to look up things in the big book what is wrong with me and how to treat it. It may take them 10-15 min. to look it up, but I want them acting on me to save my life in that 10-15 mins not looking up information that they should know!

    3. Re:equivalence systems by override11 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But above all, the main thing a degree shows is that someone had the time and the money to go through and get the degree. I am 25 years old, and have been working at this current job for 3 years as a network admin, and the past year more and more as a coldfusion coder. Prior to that, I did sysadmin work hourly for local business that couldnt afford a full time IT person. Would you rather hire someone fresh out of school, or someone with 6 years on the job experience that is still young enough to be somewhat cheap? =)

      --
      No I didnt spell check this post...
    4. Re:equivalence systems by V_M_Smith · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I don't want a doctor that only knows how to expand his mental horizons and creatively problem solve. I want a doctor that can tell me what is wrong and if he determines that there is nothing wrong with me won't just give me drugs to make me happy and go away (otherwise known as creative problem solving.)

      This is an entirely different situation. Medicine is considered a "professional school" (much like law, dentistry, etc.) in which the point is to learn the skills and background needed to do the job and not an academic pursuit like philosophy, history, mathematics or physics.

    5. Re:equivalence systems by be951 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Apples and oranges. A masters bears little resemblance to an M.D. or nursing degree or even EMT certification. What is the point of comparing the vast majority of professions that can be successfully executed with OJT and minimal other training, with a select few that require highly specific training that can mean the difference between life and death? Besides, nearly all health care providers must be licensed in addition to their educational pedigree.

    6. Re:equivalence systems by BrodyVess · · Score: 2, Interesting

      As an EMT, I just want to make a clarification. We EMTs don't really *treat* anything. We manage conditions until a person is stable enough to get to a hospital for treatment. Belive me, you dont want an EMT to treat you for a broken neck. Put you in a cervical collar and then a full spinal package for transport? Yea, you want that.

      And another good point was raised in that all EMTs have an educational certification, but that's not what allows them to practice. The certification to work is issued by either an organization called the National Registry or the states themselves. That certification is dependant on course completion, skills demostration, and a surprisingly rigorous test.

      All that being said, emergency medical work takes a great degree of creative problem solving. You ever tried to get someone out of a compact car (thats become much more compact) without turning their head? Just try it next time in your own car. Now imagine doing that in on an interstate covered in blood, glass, metal, and with broken legs.

      --
      No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!
  3. Call me Dr. $99 by Conesus · · Score: 4, Interesting
    That's right. You can actually buy a doctorate for only $99 smackers. Amazing, isn't it? To think, that a non-accredited "university" would dish out meaningless degrees.

    Of course, forget about those 'honorary' degrees, or non-accredited but soon-to-be universities such as the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering.

    This story runs into a pet peeve of mine. When people are caught with fake degrees, their employers usually say "Oh, it's okay, we didn't hire him for his education anyway. Just his experience and background." My reply is, did you hire him for his integrity and honesty? Cause you sure didn't get what you paid for. And it's not the foreigners doing it. It's American citizens.

    Conesus

    --

    Don't eat your soul to fill your belly.
    conesus.com
    1. Re:Call me Dr. $99 by LinuxWeenie · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I work for a defense contractor and we check up on all degrees. I have worked for this company for almost 10 years and yes there has been more than one time that a newly hired person was sent packing for having "faked" his/her degree. We can't afford it in our business - and believe it or not the government checks up on the degrees and their accreditability in some of our contracts.

    2. Re:Call me Dr. $99 by NearlyHeadless · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There's an interesting presentation (8 MB PDF) from George Gollin, who researched (mostly on the Internet) these diploma mills. There are a few players who operate under a lot of different names. It's 123 pages, but basically a slide show, so it goes really fast.

  4. I'm unimpressed by Otter · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I'd be curious to see this report -- who are these "28 top federal employees"? From that description, I'd expect people one or two notches below Cabinet level jobs, not "including nuclear monitors". If they found a total of 28 white collar workers in the entire US government with sketchy degrees. I'd say the practice isn't too prevalent.

    In any case, if you have a degree from something like that "Capella University" that advertises in banner ads here, it's not like you're reaping huge benefits from it. The biggest is probably in union jobs or whatever where a degree automatically gets you a higher pay scale.

    --
    What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
    1. Re:I'm unimpressed by michaelggreer · · Score: 4, Informative
      From the CBS story:

      "Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles Abell has a master's from Columbus University, a diploma mill Louisiana shut down. Deputy Assistant Secretary Patricia Walker lists among her degrees, a bachelor's from Pacific Western, a diploma mill banned in Oregon and under investigation in Hawaii"

      These two, at least, are indeed just below cabinet level

    2. Re:I'm unimpressed by RyanGWU82 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Mr. Abell is not "Assistant Secretary of Defense" as the article claims. His actual title is Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness which puts him three levels below Rumsfeld.

      Likewise, Ms. Walker's actual title is Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Material and Facilities) (PDF), but even that's misleading because it's only for Reserve Affairs. In other words, she's 4-5 levels below Rumsfeld, as this PDF indicates.

      In the big scheme of the federal government, those people are high, but not unreasonably so. There are thousands of employees at their level.

      It's strange that they're in the Department of Defense, though. You'd think that a significant security clearance would be required for that kind of job. On the other hand, having a worthless master's degree wouldn't necessarily disqualify them from the job.

      Ryan

  5. Classify Bogus degree by MerlynEmrys67 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Shouldn't be a problem if they say they have a degree from Ajax school of blundering idiots, and indeed they do have that degree from Ajax.

    I would be much more concerned with individuals in government that claim to have degrees from the University of Texas (graduating with honors) when in fact they flunked out after their freshman year. ( I know this one happened when said in-duh-vidual came to speak at a commencement at my college and ended up getting exposed ).

    The problem as I see it is that a lot of "automatic" extra money comes along with saying I have an additional degree - there needs to be limits on this "automatic" money, to include things like "from an accredited source". The government is just a bunch of idiots if they accept degrees from non-accredited sources

    --
    I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
  6. Re:Nope by metamatic · · Score: 2, Funny

    Actually, McDonalds have a "University of Hamburgerology" in Oak Brook IL, and it does issue degree certificates.

    Not sure if they count as "bogus", though, and they're probably worth more than an MCSE.

    --
    GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
  7. An excoworker had one by SoCalChris · · Score: 3, Funny

    About a year ago, we found a bunch of an old coworker's newsgroup postings.

    One of them was looking to buy a forged degree from the California State University system. The posting was from a few months before he got the job with us, and of course, when he applied he said he had a degree from Cal State Long Beach.

    All of the others postings of his were personal ads of him looking for someone to kidnap and anally torture him, or for someone to dress up like a super hero in spandex with him. The day we found all of those was the day I laughed the hardest I ever have in my life.

    The guy wasn't well liked to begin with, but all of his old newsgroup postings made it so we couldn't even look at the guy without laughing.

  8. In Corporatist America by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Bullshit, it shows they are liars and will probably be fired and sued for the overcompensation they received.

    In Corporatist America, being a liar means that you're better qualified to be a C-level executive.

    --
    SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
  9. YES. by Neck_of_the_Woods · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Not only did the guy have a bogus degree. He claimed to have a MCSE, CCNA, and RHCE. Retired from the Military with 8 years in as well as 8+ years of Solaris, +2 linux, +4 SQL/MySQL. Turns out when I asked him what to expect from "ps-e | grep sendmail" on our solaris box he kind of just blinked and said "I did more coding on it than anything".

    Turns out he has +3 years of C. Which he can't code in, no solaris exp, no linux exp, no SQL exp, and did not know how to put together a computer from scratch. Let alone, no Certs at all and a bogus degree.

    The kicker? They hired him, then found all this out. Did they fire him? Nope cut his pay in 1/2 and put him in customer service.....I am amazed to this day.

    The justification quote "We could get him for 1/2 of what we pay you."

    Classic, just classic.

    --
    Neck_of_the_Woods
    #/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
    1. Re:YES. by kabocox · · Score: 3, Funny

      I have 3 questions for you. Where did you work, how much was half what you are paid, and are those managers still there?

  10. Re:What do you expect? by Nasarius · · Score: 2, Funny
    Thermonuclear Urban Renewal

    I assume you studied under Edward Teller?

    --
    LOAD "SIG",8,1
  11. Read "Art of Deception" by Mitnick by foidulus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    He writes a story "fake" degrees in the Michael Parker story(though the degree is real, but the person in question didn't earn it, but used it to get a job anyway)
    Offtopic, but interesting.

  12. There are a lot of "fraulleges" out there.. by RainbearNJ · · Score: 3, Informative

    But then there are at least a few that do help you do things like CLEP out of classes based on life experience. And they are acredited, like the Thomas Edison State College in New Jersey.

    Then again, they're not a "Send us $99 and we'll give you an MBA" type of school, either.

    --
    Lucky for me I always have Emergency Pants!
  13. Re:Bogus Resumes by dtfinch · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've seen people with real CS degrees who one year out of college couldn't code more than 5 lines in their favorite language. They're most likely to become managers, which ironically pays more than if they had to program.

  14. Sound-alikes schools by breon.halling · · Score: 2, Informative

    Let's not forget degrees form sound-alike schools; such as MIT -- the Miami Institute of Technology.

    And yes, such a place actually exists. I think it's above a convenience store.

    --
    "Yeah, well, Dracula called and he's coming over tonight for you and I said okay."
  15. Bogus Degrees... My Experience by MrIcee · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Way back when, in junior high school (and I'm currently 46 - so Wayyyyyy back when) - my math teacher, a jovial, portly, good natured woman, always had us do assignments that were strangly non-math related.

    Among the projects were memorial things like sticking colored beads to styrofoam spheres with pins (very attractive), drawing, and other things that struck me more as being "arts and craft" than math.

    About two years after I was out of junior high, she was arrested on the basis that her teaching degrees were completely fictious. She was sent to jail for a few years.

    The irony was, that after she got out of jail the city hired her as an accountant. Go figure. And I suck at math and blame it on her (but you should see my beaded styrofoam sphere collection :).

  16. Bogus how? by clambake · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I went to one of those real expensive accredited schools, but I was essentially a retard for four years and scraped by just enough to get my piece of paper without a shred of new knowledge (in class, that is... Oh boy did I learn a lot of new extra curricular knowledge) that I didn't already possess when I went in.

    How is my degree more valid than a $99 WalMart degree? Because I paid more money for it?

  17. Re:You'd be surprised if I told you where in the U by cperciva · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The University of Cambridge. After you get a BA you wait a few years (that's the 'life experience' bit) and you can then buy an MA.

    While you're right that they hand out bogus degrees, the MA isn't the bogus one. The BA is bogus.

    When you enter Oxford or Cambridge as an undergraduate, you're studying for the degree of MA. The MA is a seven-year course, just as it has been for the past eight hundred years.

    After three years, you've finished your lectures, and you get a certificate saying that. This certificate is called a BA. It's not a degree, and it doesn't give you any of the privileges of having a degree (eg, being allowed to mark exams); it's just an affirmation that you've studied for three years and passed some exams.

    --
    Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
  18. Re:You'd be surprised if I told you where in the U by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 2, Interesting

    More info

    --
    Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
  19. Wired News coverage about diploma mills. by KevinDumpsCore · · Score: 3, Informative

    Check out Wired New's coverage of diploma mills:
    http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54596,00.h tml

    They note that US colleges should be accredited by either the Department of Education or the Council on Higher Education Accreditation.

  20. Does an Economics degree count? by Simonetta · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I sometimes wonder about the validity of my 'academic' degree in Economics (as opposed to my trade degree in Electronics).

    Most US universities actually offer two Econ degrees: one in the liberal arts college and one in the business college. Generally the arts degree requires upper level language and literature study for a B.A. while the business college requires upper level marketing and accounting classes for a B.S.

    Depending on the university, it is possible to get an Econ degree without writing a single paper in four years. Econ classes (at least the ones that I took) never required undergrads to write papers. For my upper-level arts classes, I ran the university film committee for three semesters. Got college credit and got paid for doing the projection work.

    Generally Econ classes are not difficult if you accept the fact that what you're studying has little grounding in reality. For example, we were taught that high unemployment and high inflation would not happen at the same time, but that was exactly what was happening in the late 1970's when the deficits incurred as a result of losing the Vietnam War and the OPEC oil shocks were working their way through the economy after a few years delay. (Don't look now, but something similar will likely happen again in about five years).

    Anyway, the classes were full of contradictory material, there were no papers due, and no seriously difficult material to master. So is an Economics degree bogus even when it's legit?

    I might add that there is absolutely nothing that you can do with an Econ degree. If you are not making more money from student aid, Pell Grants, scholarships, and subsidized student services than you are paying for tution and opportunity cost of hanging out in Econ classes, then chose another major.

  21. Real World School by phorm · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A degree may show a willingness to challenge oneself, but more often it simply shows that you had both the money and time to go to University. I've got my diploma, and I know the contents of the equivilent degree course... while some of the basic problem solving theories and documentation/coding practices were useful, I could have learned them in a 2-4 month course. The rest is all pretty much dogcrap which has been of little use to me in my job, nor have any seen many other jobs where it would prove useful.

    Ability to adapt, learn fast, and think outside "the box" (in this case, I have to think not only like a programmer but also as a user) have kept me my job and made me good at it. I learned more within the first 6 months at work than I did in college, and I'm still learning.

    That being said, there's definately something to be said about programs that offer a "co-op" or paid practicum term. It helps pay the college bills, and gives really valuable experience. If anything out of college was useful to me, I'd say that my workterms were the most important.

    Of course, I'd definately have trouble trusting some guy who claimed to have X years of experience in field Y. Even with a degree, I'd look much more at his employment history in related fields than post-secondary education. But if his experience was limited, a degree would still count for something.

  22. Re:Degrees by dcavanaugh · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I once had a candidate call me and ask about a job that was advertised. I was the hiring manager for the position, which made me the chairman of the search committee. The candidate said, "I was thinking about applying for the job, and my experience looks like a good match, but I have no degree. How serious are you about the degree requirement?" I explained that if the degree requirement was enforceable, meaning we found a very good candidate who also had a degree, then the degree requirement would be enforced. On the other hand, I was not going to be limited to hiring the second or third best candidate just to enforce the requirement -- at that point, I would rather make an exception. If you want to find out what we will do, you must be willing to print a resume and invest 32 cents for a stamp. The worst we can do is say no.