Would You Like Fries With That PhD?
I just finished an article about the “huge problem” diploma mills are causing. There are dozens of companies out there that, for a nominal fee, will grant you a Bachelors, Masters or PhD based on whatever life experience you claim to have.
Recent auditing by the US Government and military turned up thousands of employees (some in very senior positions) with degrees from these bogus institutions. The article went on with predicable prattle about how these fake collages are undermining American business and government.
As usual, no one sees real punch line here.
The fact that tens of thousands of people with fake degrees do their jobs just as well as those with real degrees demonstrates pretty clearly that having an degree is no indication of ability. Of course, that train of thought goes to destinations unknown, so it’s much better to stay on track and blame the diploma mills for all the confusion they are causing.
Actually, although there are notable exceptions (medical and legal licensing comes to mind) almost all kinds of certification are basically scams. Whether you are talking about university degrees or software certifications, the business model is the same.
- Spend half your marketing dollars convincing employers that your certification indicates an ability to perform a specifc complex job.
- Spend the other half of your marketing dollars convincing job seekers that employers will only hire those with your certification.
- Set up an official certifying authority to keep out competition. It’s best if this “authority” is a non-profit, so you can point to it when wearing your do-gooder hat.
- Charge those seeking certification as much as you can possibly get away with.
People are worried about diploma mills not because of the difficulty they cause employers, but because of the threat they pose both to the “real” universities’ business model, and to the self-esteem of those of us who have already bought or worked our way into the system.