The largest diploma mill in the world is owned by an American living in Romania, has its mail sent to an address in the United Kingdom, buys its printing in Jerusalem and uses banking services in Cypress. Wired.com reports that it goes by more than three names--Harrington University, or University of San Moritz or University of Devonshire--and has sold 70,000 diplomas in the United States. It is one of hundreds of bogus Internet diploma mills. "No country seems willing or able to do anything," diploma-mill and distance-education expert John Bear told the news service.

In testimony before the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Sept. 26, Western Governors University president Robert Mendenhall painted a significantly different picture of the safeguards on distance-education program credibility. He asked Congress to lift the current restrictions on Title IV student aid funds to distance-education institutions. "There are already sufficient safeguards to mitigate the potential for student aid fraud and abuse without disenfranchising an entire class of institutions and hundreds of thousands of deserving students," he said.

Mendenhall noted that distance-learning courses are the fastest growing component of higher education--with more than 2 million students currently enrolled. Why then, one wonders, does it need to lift safeguards that protect students from fraud?

[Barbara McKenna / AFT On Campus]

[February 25, 2003]