Scams and Christian Education: Inflated Credentials and Fraudulent Accreditation

A while back I encountered a book by a self-published author that was presented as very helpful and offered for free, but when I picked it up, it was such a basic and low-content product that it might do more harm than good. It showed a real lack of expertise in the content and in style. That isn’t too uncommon for self-publication, but it is sometimes interesting to see how an author got to the point of self-importance that caused them to want to publish something absent expertise.

To find out more, I read the author’s biography. This is something I’ve gotten used to doing as a serial book reviewer. Before I read a book, I tend to ask myself why this author is the person who has something to say on this particular topic. There are gems that can be found by people who have no clear qualifications or experience on a subject, but they are rare. I don’t consider it my responsibility to find and expose those gems.

What drew my attention in this case was that the author listed an advanced degree from an institution I’ve never heard of. It was a doctorate of some variety in biblical studies. (The author’s website actually lists a degree the institution does not offer, but that is a topic for another post.)

Not being a known institution of higher learning may reflect more on my ignorance than the quality of the education, but my interest was piqued. So, I searched for the institution online. And I found it. It has a very elementary website with a number of missing elements (e.g., the institutional history claims to be under development), typos in menus (e.g., “Distance Learning” became “Distant Learning”), and interesting language about accreditation, which led me on my quest. The issue went beyond careless typos into blatant dishonesty.

What I found is a profoundly deceitful example of trying to ape the world’s standards dishonestly. It was an attempt to inflate credentials for the individuals. For the institution, it was an opportunity to make a little money by offering a knock off imitation of a product very much in demand. It is likely that the primary target audience of the institution’s sham degrees is people overseas who want an American education at a developing world price.

Basically, what I discovered in following this trail was a Diploma Mill designed to inflate credentials and put of a false front of credibility. More significantly, the false front was deepened by relying on an unrecognized “accreditation agency” whose approval is self-designated and, therefore, virtually meaningless. It was a Diploma Mill certified by an Accreditation Mill: a double deception destined to dishonor the name of Christ.

Background on Accreditation

Maintaining accreditation can be a difficult process. Not everything in the accreditation process is really helpful or cost effective, but overall, it does provide some assurances of institutional integrity and quality that protect students and faculty from various forms of abuse. I say this as someone who has worked on accreditation reaffirmations for several institutions.

In the United States, accreditation is unlike many other countries. The federal government authorizes the Council for Higher Education Accreditation and US Department of Education to set standards and vet the agencies that accredit programs and institutions. CHEA and USDE both accredit accreditors. Neither accredits specific programs or even whole institutions.

There are six regional accrediting agencies that oversee the accreditation of institutions along distinct geographic lines. If you are looking at schools in the U.S., this is generally the mark of a degree that will have value in the marketplace after graduation. Regional accreditors certify the quality of an entire institution and do not accredit specific programs.

In addition, there are specialized accreditors that approve specific programs at an institution. For example, there are two accreditors for nursing programs recognized by CHEA and/or USDE. Those agencies are focused on nursing and will come into an institution (which is likely accredited by a regional accreditor) to check the specifics of the nursing programs. They will not look at the English major (for example) when they come to visit. If you are shopping for programs in a distinct professional discipline, it is often very beneficial for your program to be accredited by one of the recognized specialized accreditors. You can get a degree in nursing (for example) from an institution that is only regionally accredited and does not have a specialized accreditation, but that may have negative implications for hiring or licensing.

To be clear, a good education can be attained apart from accreditation. There may come a time when accreditation of orthodox, faith-based institutions in the U.S. will not be possible. However, at the present time, degrees from regionally accredited institutions are the baseline standard in the marketplace. Employers expect you to have a degree of a certain quality from an institution certified by an authorized accreditation agency. In certain fields (like engineering, seminary degrees, nursing, and other professional fields), specialized accreditation is also necessary for the degree holder to enter the workforce in their chosen specialty.

Diploma Mills

Other than hiring practices and licensing requirements, CHEA and USDE derive their significance from being gate keepers to federal aid money. Institutions that are accredited by CHEA or USDE recognized accreditors can (but don’t have to) allow their students to get subsidized student loans, federal grants, or other government authorized aid. Part of the reason for the rise in significance in accreditation was to ensure that GI Bill money and other Federal student aid money was being spent on real, value-added educational programs.

However, as educational opportunities have proliferated, undergraduate degrees have become more of an entry ticket into more stable professional employment. (There are signs that this is changing, which I generally see as a good thing.) This has made it more important for people to have “the piece of paper” that states they completed a specific degree. Enter the Diploma Mill.

A Diploma Mill is an organization (or individual) representing itself as a legitimate educational institution with degree granting authority, but which does little or nothing to validate the recipients of that degree have the knowledge, skills, or experience that the degree normally implies in common usage.

For many people, going to school to obtain a degree is a schedule and/or financial impossibility. It becomes very tempting for institutions to pop up to offer easy access to get degrees. In the worst cases, these “institutions” are simply people with a nice printer that will spit out a personalized piece of parchment with a legitimate sounding school name on it for a few hundred dollars. In less egregious cases, there are actual institutions that offer real classes, but the amount of work required to complete courses is far below reasonable expectations or the amount of credit they grant for experience is well above normal limits. Often the faculty at these institutions have degrees from other Diploma Mills (even the one they teach at), so have never been exposed to experts in the field.

These, and the variants between, are all referred to as Diploma Mills. Most of these institutions make no claim to accreditation, it is up to the buyer to figure out the potential market value of the offered degree. The price seems too good to be true and the product much needed. Most of the time, the product is cheap because it is fake.

To be clear (and fair to some good actors), there are non-accredited institutions that offer legitimate educations. In some cases, there are ideological arguments for not seeking accreditation. For example, some Fundamentalist Christian schools believe that seeking accreditation requires a compromise of the principle of separation from sin. We can debate the merits of that position, but it is a legitimate one. In other cases, an institution may simply not have existed long enough to have accreditation. An institution cannot get accredited until it has a track record of operation for the accreditor to evaluate. Accreditation is also a costly process, so some young or financially struggling institutions that are academically sound may not be able to afford it. Not having accreditation, however, should be plainly stated with an explanation somewhere in the institution’s literature and website. The simple lack of meaningful accreditation does not make an institution a Diploma Mill, but it bears further investigation.

Accreditation Mills

The rabbit hole that I followed based on the author biography, however, revealed a third type of institution: a school that asserts it is “Fully Accredited” with a link to an “accreditor” that is not recognized by either CHEA or USDE. The accreditor, in this case, is actually an “Accreditation Mill.”

Simply put, an Accreditation Mill is an organization that claims to offer a value-added certification of the quality of the degree from an institution but does little to ensure its quality. It offers the appearance of legitimacy, without the necessary diligence to ensure it.

In the world of educational deception, Accreditation Mills are generally more morally insidious than bald-faced Diploma Mills. Accreditation Mills are tools used by illegitimate degree conferring institutions to maintain the appearance of validity without doing the work needed to have it.

In the best light, a struggling institution may purchase their “accreditation” from an Accreditation Mill to stay alive. It’s hard to attract students to a school that is not accredited. However, purchasing that accreditation is an act of deception intended to give the appearance of legitimacy to an otherwise low to no value degree. It is, necessarily, a form of dishonest misrepresentation.

Institutions that represent themselves as “Accredited” or, worse, “Fully Accredited” by an “accreditor” that is not recognize by USDE or CHEA are using people’s general ignorance as a tool to legitimate them. It is, at the heart, a fundamentally dishonest and despicable practice.

A Problem of Standards and Legitimacy

Out of curiosity, I moved from the website of the Diploma Mill in question to the “accreditor” from whom the institution received their status as “Fully Accredited.”

As a side note, no institution or program should ever claim to be “Fully Accredited.” (Just as a woman cannot be a little bit pregnant, but is either pregnant or not.) In legitimate regions of higher education, there is accreditation or no accreditation. An institution may have findings against their accreditation status, but they are still either accredited or not. Some legitimate institutions mistakenly publish themselves as “Fully Accredited” due to ignorance in their administrations, but that term should be a flag to ask further questions.

In the case under investigation, the institution claims to be “Fully Accredited,” but the “accreditor” is not certified by either the USDE or CHEA, nor are they pursuing any official status. The claim is a false front design to deceive the ignorant about the market value of the degrees.

If you know what to look for, it can be easy to pick out this misrepresentation. In this case, helpfully, the organization is pretty plainly a low-grade confidence scheme. The “accreditor” has a link from their main page offering to explain their “legal status.” Their website advertises them as a registered 501c3, showing a recent filing as a non-profit entity in Florida (despite being based in Missouri). Above that document there is a strongly worded paragraph that warns visitors they are a legitimate organization and that they have sued and will sue anyone who publicly describes their disreputable activity as…disreputable. They object to the term “accreditation mill” and “diploma mill.”

Most dishonest people don’t see themselves as bad guys.

Below their Florida entity registration area host of mean letters they have paid lawyers to send to bloggers and review sites to attempt to have the evidence of their perfidy scrubbed. [Incidentally, I am not putting these frauds “on blast” by name because I don’t feel like wasting my time on exposing them, and dealing with frivolous complaints, when the type of fraud is much more significant and widespread that this one Accreditation Mill.]

The organization also attempts to mislead visitors to the website by having a “US Government” link on their main page, which has links to documents that in no way connect them to the U. S. government in any meaningful sense. Oddly, the jobs page provides links to several positions at public universities (including an LGBT diversity coordinator, which is odd for an organization that “accredits” KJV loving institutions) that are outdated by several years and well out of the reach of anyone who graduates from a school “accredited” by this organization. And, to top off the wonder of the train-wreck, they list a Gmail account as one of the primary emails for the site.

For those who explore the links, there are a large number of warning flags.

Even more telling, perhaps, is that there are typos in the accreditation standards on their website. For example (and sic), “Institutions muse provide a time requirement…” Such an obvious typo in one of the few standards the “accreditor” has seems sketchy, to say the least. Not to mention that the accreditation standards are so far below any accepted standards of quality as to be meaningless.

The whole thing is a fraudulent shell game. It is a dishonest ruse.

Why Is This Bad?

The ruse works because most people who are seeking a degree do not understand how accreditation works. It intentionally trades on general ignorance of what accreditation means

The ruse is damaging for several reasons.

First, some people may do the work and pay for the degree from one of these fraudulent institutions and not recognize that it is making claims that are fundamentally dishonest. When businesses require an accredited degree, they mean one that has been accredited by a recognized accreditation organization. Ignorant people who get jobs based on untrue claims, even if it is not due to their own dishonesty, may face job loss. Or, they may find that they get rejected for employment because the hiring manager investigates their qualifications and writes them off as either a fool or a trickster for representing themselves as having a valid degree. In either case, the too good to be true degree that they got is really false and can cause damage down the line.

Second, counterfeit degrees devalue real degrees. Someone who invests four years going through the work of earning a 120-semester hour Baccalaureate degree deserves more credit than someone who spent a year and a couple thousand dollars doing busy work (if that much) for a Diploma Mill diploma or a degree from a non-accredited institution. Getting a degree may not mean you are a better person, but it should mean that you’ve done something recognizable and meaningful. If someone does not value the process of becoming accredited or earning a degree, then be honest and don’t pretend to have the product.

Is this Illegal?

What many of these Diploma Mills and Accreditation Mills are doing is likely not illegal.

It is dishonest to take advantage of people’s ignorance or confusion to sell them a low-quality, low-value degree, even if it is at a cut-rate price. However, in the cases I examined neither the school nor the “accreditor” make openly false statements about the value of their accreditation or their relationships with the US government.

This is simply a case of using information superiority to take advantage of ignorant people who think they are buying a product they are not.

The guy selling “Oakley” sunglasses on the streets of New York may never tell you they are actually brand name products. He allows you to draw that conclusion from the similar logo and look without making the overt statement. His conscience is clear (maybe) and he is not legally liable because, in some sense, you have deceived yourself. He just set up the conditions for it to happen.

Diploma Mills and Accreditation Mills are immoral, but they may not be illegal.

Why this Annoys Me

In this case, the author whose biography prompted this whole investigation makes a claim to hold a doctorate. I happen to hold a doctorate from an institution with both a regional and specialized accreditation. My doctorate took me years and required me to write a book-length dissertation. His dissertation was completed online in monthly installments and required a “thesis” that would be a lengthy seminar paper in most PhD programs.

The problem here is that to the average person on the street, his credentials are the same as mine. The difference is that he didn’t do the formative work to earn that title or status, and it shows in the results he puts on display.

The individual who sparked this post got my attention for offering a low-quality book, but also because he preached one of the most illogical and rhetorically poor sermons I have ever heard. The credibility of his preaching was raised in the eyes of some because of his “doctorate.” The fact that he said multiple things that were incoherent or simply factually false discredits my degree, because a religiously-based doctorate becomes associated with foolishness. When people see his errors and associate them with the education he claims, it decreases the trustworthiness of those who earned their credentials from a reputable, accredited institution.

Worse still, people who hear him are going to assume that his objectively false statements are valid because he is supposed to be an expert. Having a degree in the field about which you are speaking should ensure some credibility. In the case of this author and speaker, any credibility would be falsely assumed.

Degrees from institutions that misrepresent the nature of their “accreditation” are issuing counterfeit credentials that devalue the perceived value of degrees for those who do the work to earn them from legitimate institutions. This is dishonest and represents a failure of neighbor love.

Both the dishonesty and the degradation of my earned credentials rub me the wrong way.

Degrading Christianity and Christian Institutions

Perhaps more significantly than my personal annoyance, however, is that creating Christian Diploma Mills or pursuing an Accreditation Mill certification to misrepresent reality is a form of treachery.

Notably the Accreditation Mill that I was focused on is “faith based.” When I did a search for institutions that were “accredited” by them, the ones I clicked on all claimed to be Christian or at least to offer some sort of theological education. (This despite the fact that one of them included “State” in their name to masquerade as a public university.)

Several of these institutions issue semi-standard fundamentalist warnings that their degree was not intended to advance your “secular career.” The insinuation is that non-Christians are likely to look down on your degree simply because it comes from a religious institution.

There may be some validity in that, though it has not played out that way for institutions like Notre Dame, Baylor, and Georgetown.

However, these institutions are working toward devaluing degrees from religious institutions because they are putting forth low quality substitutes for the real thing and crying about it. In truth, overtly Christian institutions that provide excellent educational opportunities tend to have students that do well in both “secular” and faith-based fields.

There are enough cultural forces trying to put highly qualified Christians in a dhimmi status without creating a back-alley café with greasy silverware and claiming it is just as good as a highly rated New York bistro. Being a shyster as a representative of Christ is a good way to get everyone to think that all Christians (or most) are shysters.

If institutions don’t want to play by the accreditation rules, that is fine, but it degrades Christianity and legitimate Christian academic institutions when people falsely claim to produce excellence when they are pumping out excrement. This dishonors Christ because it is intentionally deceptive.

Why Is This Dangerous?

The false credentials purchased through these online programs can be dangerous because it can produce people who, to those who aren’t aware, have the letters that signal expert without the knowledge to back it up. The low-quality book and poor sermon of the “doctor” I encountered is a symptom that could have truly negative consequences in another field.

For example, one of the institutions “accredited” under this false front offers a “Doctor of Psychology” degree for about $8,000. The courses for this degree are all “accelerated” with one offering noting that it expects students to do a 6-semester hour course in 6 weeks.

This requirement is unrealistic.

Most institutions of higher learning expect, for undergraduate programs, a basic 2:1 ratio between homework and class time. They also anticipate that a given semester hour will have 50 minutes of contact per week for 15 weeks. So, a typical 3 credit course could be expected to have 2250 minutes of contact time—or classroom time for traditional education—per semester with an additional 4500 minutes of homework. For those good at math, that is an expected 6,750 minutes of total work for the average student to master the material in that course. That comes to 112.5 hours.

This 6-semester hour course, therefore, could be expected to consume at least 225 hrs of the students’ time during that 6 week period. That is 37.5 hrs per week.

What are the odds that the amount of work in this class actually matches that standard expectation for an undergraduate program? Recognize that the work for a graduate or advanced course is usually more taxing.

I didn’t register for the class (and the syllabus was not online) to find out, but I’d lay even money that this class isn’t that rigorous otherwise no one would finish the program. Even if a student crams through some material in this six-week session, how much are they likely to retain? How can someone who has crammed that much material hope to be exposed to the range of literature in the field? Education typically requires soak time.

At the end of a series of these classes, someone with a little extra time and a few thousand dollars has a piece of paper that lists a degree that could convince a patient to come listen to their advice and pay them for it. Even if they never get a job from a medical practice, someone with no real knowledge could be giving advice to people in desperate need of real help.

All of this is an issue because people rely on degrees, accreditation, and certifications to mean something. Beyond being immoral and dishonest, when bad actors intentionally misrepresent their product, it could lead to real danger.

Conclusion

Credential inflation is not something new in the Christian world. The number of honorary doctorates given by Fundamentalist Christian institutions in the 20th century could probably feed a bonfire for a decade.

Credential inflation is problematic because it reflects a desire to see oneself as more important than one really is. It is an attempt to claim a level of expertise and experience that is not legitimate. It is an attempt to gain honor from the work that others have done.

Significantly, institutions and individuals that misrepresent their own credentials are dishonoring the name of Christ by putting their own honor above the truth. It is not strictly necessary to say something untrue to lie, one can simply intentionally mislead.

As Christians we ought to be known for our adherence to truth. Pursuing inflated credentials or misrepresenting the nature of credentials offered by an institution within the body of Christ should be unthinkable. May it become so soon.