College degree diploma fake online

When Omaha elementary school principal Nila Nielsen got her Ph.D. last year, she celebrated by giving each family member a bound copy of her dissertation. All but the original soon landed in the trash. A mortified Nielsen tossed them after learning from a friend that Columbia State University--and the home-study program into which she had poured months of research and $3,500--was a sham, with phony accreditation and a Metairie, La., mail drop for a campus. "If I can be rooked, others can be, too," warns Nielsen. "It's just not fair."

Law enforcers have another word for it: fraud. Last month, the Louisiana attorney general won a court order to shut down Columbia State, citing a host of deceptions it had used to finagle more than $1 million a month in tuition from hundreds of often innocent victims. A temporary restraining order was issued against another school, Shreveport-based Cambridge State University. (It reopened in Hawaii.) And complaints keep rolling in; Deborah Baer, an assistant attorney general, says as many as 15 other schools are under investigation. At one point, the attorney general's hot line prompted callers: "To report a diploma mill, press 1."

Degrees of latitude. Meanwhile, federal investigators are sifting through two truckloads of student files and other data seized in July from Columbia State's base of operations, an office cum warehouse in San Clemente, Calif. Some call it the biggest case of mail fraud and money laundering ever to hit academia. Graduates include local politicians, police officers, a minority businessperson of the year from Houston, and a jailed Hamas terrorist.

Clearly, many "graduates" were gullible. This was, after all, a school that advertised 27-day degrees--and gave college credit for such life experiences as playing golf. Prosecutors say some people probably knew what they were buying and used the degree to embroider their resumes. But countless others were clueless, even those who checked out Columbia State's credentials before enrolling, as Nila Nielsen did. A North Carolina minister tearfully told the U.S. Department of Education that many of his flock had been fleeced after signing up in the belief that education would better their job prospects. "It was just a tragedy," recalls the official who took the call.

Columbia State is not the only problem case. Hawaii recently sued two "distance learning" schools for misrepresentation (one is contesting the charge). Illinois shut down an online degree program last year and is suing Columbia State for reparations. Meanwhile, the Education Department is aware of half a dozen dubious institutions.

Scam schools have surfaced before. Between 1983 and 1986, the FBI bagged 39 outfits that offered pricey degrees for little or no work. The difference today is the surging demand for distance learning--and the ability of technology to provide or promote it. "The Internet has spawned a new generation of diploma mill," says Michael Lambert of the Distance Education and Training Council, which accredits 72 correspondence and online schools.

The rush of legitimate institutions into distance learning "makes it harder and harder for people to distinguish" the bogus programs, says Louisiana's Baer. A third of all U.S. colleges and universities now boast some form of remote learning, from cybercourses to online degree programs, and the World Wide Web has spawned a host of "virtual" schools. Just last week, Kaplan Educational Centers, known for test prep, unveiled Concord University School of Law, a college without a campus.

"The good guys have paved the way for the bad guys," laments John Bear, author of Bear's Guide to Earning College Degrees Nontraditionally, who estimates that over 100 distance-learning programs are little more than rented-mailbox operations. Even accreditation is no guarantee of legitimacy, with 35 unrecognized bodies to rubber-stamp any program.

Columbia State's setup was among the slickest, legal authorities contend. The august towers on the school's brochure resemble those of the Lyndhurst estate, a historic site in Tarrytown, N.Y. The school's true "administrative office" was mailbox No. 231 at Mailboxes Etc. in Metairie. Its contents were forwarded to a California office where "admissions officers" in cutoffs and sandals fielded calls, the wall clock set to Louisiana time.

Thing of beauty. The accreditation was just as spurious; the agency whose "official seal" gleamed from Page 5 was never an accrediting agency. As for the school's founder, he's not the one pictured in the catalog. The true owner, Ronald Pellar--also known as Dr. Dante and the seventh ex-husband of film star Lana Turner--was convicted under federal fair-trade laws of running a fake cosmetology school in California in the early 1990s. He fled before being sentenced last year to 67 months in jail and is believed to be in Mexico.

Some students said their concerns were allayed once they went through brochures for the schools and read their glowing testimonials. Mike Magolnick, vice president of marketing for a TV production company near Fort Lauderdale, Fla., found the life-experience assessment "a little cheesy"--he'd expected more than just listing his hobbies and work accomplishments. Nielsen, the Omaha principal, was completely taken in: She was stunned to find there had been no professors writing comments such as "great job" or "you're on the right track" each time she mailed in a chapter of her dissertation. Her occasional administrative calls received prompt responses, and she took the lack of interaction with instructors as a compliment.

One reason students get taken in is that most don't know what a good distance-education program might entail. Take credits for life experience. To earn them at pioneering programs like Thomas Edison State College in Trenton, N.J., though, students have to connect each activity to specific courses offered by accredited institutions, then submit employer letters and other supporting documents.

Experts suggest several steps that can help prospective students avoid distance-learning scams. To start with, stick to schools that have been accredited by organizations recognized by the Department of Education and listed on the Council on Higher Education Accreditation's Web site, www.chea.org. Check with licensing boards and professional associations to see if the program provides an acceptable level of training. Thinking of transferring to a traditional classroom for a higher degree? Ask the university if your distance-learning credits will be worth anything on campus. And heed any warnings--discounts for multiple degrees, misspellings, and the like. Still suspicious? Call or write the Better Business Bureau and the attorney general's office to make sure the school is operating legally in a state and to see if anyone has filed a complaint.

Note, though, that states regulate academic institutions with varying degrees of closeness. Given the gaps in enforcement, diploma mills promise to sting students for some time to come. Still, even spurious programs can provide a valuable education--in Street Smarts 101. A wiser Nila Nielsen plans to resume her lifelong goal of earning a Ph.D.--this time at the University of Nebraska's evening program.