Diploma Mill - Characteristics

Characteristics

Diploma mills share a number of characteristics that differentiate them from respected institutions, although some legitimate institutions can also exhibit one or more such characteristics. Some common characteristics are:

• They lack accreditation by a nationally recognized accrediting agency, although not all unaccredited institutions of higher learning are diploma mills. Some diploma mills claim accreditation by an accreditation mill while referring to themselves as being "fully accredited". Some institutions base their assertions of academic legitimacy on claims of affiliation with respected organizations (such as UNESCO) that are not engaged in school accreditation. Promotional materials may use words denoting a legal status such as "licensed", "state authorized", or "state-approved" to suggest an equivalence to accreditation. Some advertise other indicators of authenticity that are not relevant to academic credentials. For example, the University of Northern Washington advertises that its degrees are "attested and sealed for authenticity by a government appointed notary" although notarization certifies only that the document was signed by the person named.
• No teaching facilities – the address is a postal box or mail forwarding service or suite numbers.
• There is little or no interaction with professors. Even if comments and corrections to coursework are given, they do not affect getting the degree. The professors may serve only to write compliments to the "student" that can be given as references.
• Name of institution is deceptively similar to well known reputable universities.
• Degrees can be obtained within a few days, weeks or months from the time of enrollment, and back-dating is possible.
• Either there are no faculty members or they hold advanced degrees from the institution itself or from other diploma mills. They may also sport legitimate degrees that are, however, unrelated to the subject they teach.
• Academic credit is offered for "life experience," and this is featured heavily in the selling points of the institution.
• Tuition and fees are charged on a per-degree basis rather than on a per-term or per-course basis.
• Prospective students are encouraged to "enroll now" before tuition or fees are increased, or they qualify for a "fellowship", "scholarship" or "grant" or they're offered deals to sign up for multiple degrees at the same time.
• The institution has no library, personnel, publication or research. In short, very little that is tangible can be found about the "institution".
• Doctoral theses and dissertations are not available from University Microfilms International or a national repository or even the institution's own library, if it has one.
• Promotional literature contains grammatical and spelling errors, words in Latin, extravagant or pretentious language, and sample diplomas. The school's website looks amateurish or unprofessionally made.
• The school is situated in the United States but the website does not have an .edu top-level domain. However, an .edu domain cannot be taken as verification of school quality or reputation, as enforcement has sometimes been lax, resulting in some unaccredited schools retaining an .edu domain prior to any enforcement policy. Similarly, some non-US mills use a .ac top-level domain name (for Ascension Island) to give the impression of a genuine second-level academic domain name (e.g. .ac.uk). However, some legitimate academic institutions have registered .ac domains to prevent misuse of their names.
• The school is advertised using e-mail spam (unsolicited electronic mail) or other questionable methods.
• Jurisdiction shopping: the school is situated in another country or legal jurisdiction, where running diploma mills is legal, standards are lax or prosecution is unlikely. Splitting the business across jurisdictions is a way to sometimes avoid authorities, e.g., operating in one jurisdiction but using the mailing address in a different jurisdiction. Compare forum shopping and tax haven.
• Despite being situated in such a diploma mill-friendly country, the school has no students from that country, and is run entirely by non-native staff.
• In most of the European Union, tertiary education is free of charge to students who pass highly competitive entrance examinations. In this environment, schools that have a tuition fee, lack entrance requirements, and are possibly based in another country, may be diploma mills; particularly when they match other criteria in this list.
• Unusual academic subjects. Instead of "hard sciences", where competence is easier to verify, the subjects are esoteric and may be based on a pseudoscience, e.g. astrology or natural healing. This makes external verification impossible, because when they define their science, they can also define the educational standards without external oversight.