4th January 1998

Students in-the-net

Joe Matera was deter- mined to get a bach- elor's degree, even though he was older than most traditional students and was working full time. So when he saw an advertisement for "Columbia State University" on the World-Wide Web (www) and read that he could receive an accredited degree from the college without leaving his Bronx, N. Y. home he signed up.

Three months and more than $ 400 later Mr. Matera is now battling to get his money back. After he found out that he could get a degree in business administration by summarizing a $25 textbook and sending in a total of about $2,000 he began thinking that something was fishy. Soon he discovered that the institution was being described elsewhere on the Internet as a scam.

"My jaw dropped," he said.

Donna Keilland, a 48 year old American resident of Norway, was equally surprised and angry about her experience with Colombia State. When she saw an advertisement for the university in an international newspaper this summer, she thought she might finally have a chance to get a master's degree. According to the brochure she received, Columbia State was accredited. Besides, she reasoned, distance learning was gaining acceptance as a way to attain a degree.

The day before she went to the Norwegian government to ask for an educational stipend, however, she found a Web site that described the college as a diploma mill operating under false pretences. "This would have ruined my chances of getting a degree," she says.

"I would never have been able to apply for a grant again." Norway will not provide stipends to students who have enrolled in fraudulent institutions.

Such is the dark side of the distance education boom. As the concept of earning a degree without leaving home becomes more accepted, the most virtual of virtual universities, those that experts call diploma mills are gaining enrollees. They are capitalizing on the publicity surrounding distance learning degrees, and they are using the freedom and breadth of the Web to lure students into their programs.

"The Internet has given new life to this movement," says Michael P. Lambert, executive director of the Distance Education and Training Council, a group that disseminates information about distance learning programs.

Diploma mills have long been a problem for law enforcement and higher education officials. From 1983 to 1986 the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) shut down 39 so called colleges that made false claims about their degrees and offered them for high sums. The crackdown, dubbed "Dipscam" by the F. B. I., seemed to have slowed the appearance of new institutions for a while, say those who have tracked advertisements for sham schools.

But in the past few years, advertisements for questionable colleges, and complaints about them, have become increasingly common, observers say.

Many other institutions use the Web as their primary marketing tool. At first glance, their sites have many of the same elements of accredited colleges. Some display a university seal and a message from the president, provide links to catalogues of courses, and include on line applications.

Some call themselves "pioneers in international education" or "leaders in distance education." They also advertise themselves as accredited, and they are by agencies that they have set up themselves, or by organizations that are not recognized as reliable authorities by the US Department of Education.

In several cases, a Web site is about all the institution has to offer. John Bear, co-author of Bears' Guide to Earning College degrees Nontraditionally (C& B Publishing, 1997), has heard from scores of students over the past 20 years who say they have lost their money to universities that turned out to be nothing more than post-office boxes.

Many of the institutions that experts say mislead students do not appear to have broken any state or federal laws. They defend their operations by arguing that they are providing a service for people who want a degree to match the work experience they have acquired over the years. R. G. Marn, who replied to an e-mail message seeing information about American State, said: "We firmly believe that such experience is equivalent to, or in many cases superior to, education obtained in the classroom or by similar traditional means." Most of the universities say they do not need the stamp of approval provided by the nationally recognized accrediting agencies.

Degrees from diploma mills "pose an ominous threat to the reputations of legitimate adult-degree programs at appropriately accredited Universities," writes Henry A. Spille, David W. Stewart, and Eugene Sullivan in External Degrees in the Information Age, published this year by Oryx press.

The book draws from material in a 1988 book by Mr. Spille and Mr. Stewart called Diploma Mills: Degrees of Fraud.

In part because of that book, California has tightened its requirements for state based colleges. Strict state requirements which the authors say are lacking in Louisiana, the home of Columbia State, and in seven other states are often the best antidote to diploma mills, experts say.

A strong accreditation system for distance education programs would help too, they add. So far, the Accrediting Commission of the Distance Education and Training Council is the only nationally recognized accrediting agency in the US that evaluates distance education programs. The agency has granted accreditation to 70 American institutions that offer degrees solely via distance education, and it is now starting to evaluate institutions outside the United States.

The Global Alliance for Transnational Education, formed two years ago, is a respected international group that is starting to evaluate and certify international institutions, including colleges that offer distance education degrees.

The International University, an on-line institution based in Denver that opened in 1995, received certification from GATE a few months ago.

The Denver university also received accreditation through a nationally recognized regional agency, the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, in November. North Central, along with three other regional accrediting agencies, is also involved in the accreditation of the Western Governors' University, a distance learning venture involving 16 states and Guam that plans to begin offering on line courses next year.

But Dr. Lambert, executive director of the Distance Education and Training Council, says a strong accrediting program will be effective only if applicants both in the US and abroad are educated about how American accreditation works. "This is an issue that is going to keep coming up," he says. "We have got to educate consumers."

Ms. Keilland, the American student in Norway, says she wishes she had understood the differences between degree programs before she applied to Columbia State and wasted the $45 application fee. But she will continue looking for a distance education degree program.

"This time, I will have to do some serious checking," she says. "It's frightening how easily you can be misled.

Chronicle of Higher Education

A degree in 27 days

Students say the brochures misled them into thinking that Columbia State is accredited by a nationally recognized agency.

Columbia State, for ex- ample, aggressively promotes itself on-line and in international editions of American newspapers as the place to "get a college degree in 27 days."

The institution has drawn several consumer complaints this year, but law enforcement agencies have not charged it with wrongdoing.

Officials of the institution, which has a mailing address in Metairie, La., did not return written requests from The Chronicle for comment, and they declined to comment over the telephone.

Students say the brochures misled them into thinking that Columbia State is accredited by a nationally recognized agency.

The fifth page of its brochure, for example, displays an "Official Great Seal" of the "Council on Post-Secondary Accreditation" and says the university has been awarded "Full Accreditation" by the council. But the Council on Post Secondary Accreditation, or COPA, never accredited colleges in the first place, it was an organization that reviewed accrediting agencies.

It also no longer exists, having been succeeded in 1993 by the Commission on Recognition of Post Secondary Accreditation, which last year evolved into the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. Accrediting agencies apply to that council and to the U. S. Department of Education for recognition.

But directory assistance operators in Washington, where the disbanded COPA had headquarters, do have a current listing under that acronym.

The number leads to a recorded message saying that colleges "approved" by "COPA International" include "Notre Dame, Notre Dame State," "Harvard, Harvard State," and "Yale." The message goes on to list "Columbia University," and then "Columbia State University."

The cover of Columbia State's brochure also bears examination. It displays a black and white photograph of a Gothic revival building that could easily be mistaken for a university structure.

Columbia State has not been charged with wrongdoing by law enforcement agencies or by the State of Louisiana. But a jury in a federal court in Los Angeles last month did convict Columbia State's founder, Ronald Dante, on unrelated charges of criminal contempt that had been filed by the Federal Trade Commission.

The charges stemmed from his refusal to comply with orders to disclose information about a series of workshops that a federal court had ordered him to stop misrepresenting.

The workshops allegedly promised to teach participants how to apply "permanent makeup," a type of cosmetic tattoo. Mr. Dante failed to show up in court for the last day of the trial and is now considered a fugitive.

Self Policing

Like many of the institutions that offer degrees that are not recognized by the mainstream higher-education community, the University of the United States uses "edu" in its Internet address (http://www.uus.edu)

Some people browsing the Internet for distance learning programs assume that the "edu" extension means that the institution qualifies as an accredited college or university. But Network Solutions, the company that registers Internet domain names, says "edu" is given to anyone who asks for it. A company spokesman said the system is "self-policing."

Missing the Point

A Web site maintained by the Hawaii organization invites visitors seeking information about distance education programs to fill out an on line referral form (http://www.heri.com/).

When a reporter did so, listing an interest in journalism and noting that she wrote for a newspaper, she received material from American State. It said she could earn a bachelor's degree in journalism by sending in $1,890 and a 2,000 word thesis.

When The Chronicle asked about that offer, officials responded in an e-mail message: "We hope you did not miss the point here. The degrees granted by American State University are NOT based on the completion of a writing project. The degrees are based on extensive life and work experience which occurs over a long period of time."

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