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GCN Home > 04/26/04 issue

Hill sets plans for confronting diploma mill problem

By Wilson P. Dizard III, GCN Staff

A new wave of scrutiny into government employees’ use of academic credentials from unaccredited institutions will begin within weeks.

The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee will hold hearings early next month on the issue of diploma mill degrees, which will focus at least partly on whether federal employees have used government money to pay for the credentials.

Meanwhile, the Education Department—at the urging of lawmakers—is finalizing plans to issue a task order by the end of next month to create a database of accredited colleges and universities. Secretary Rod Paige still must give the project final approval.

Congressional officials said the hearings would feature witnesses from the General Accounting Office, which is preparing a report on the use of questionable degrees by government employees, as well as Education and the Office of Personnel Management.

The House Government Reform Committee likely will follow up with its own hearings, spokesman David Marin said.

“We are in close contact with GAO as they move forward,” Marin said. “We want to gather all information and decide if legislation is necessary.”

The Education project follows a January meeting with congressional staff members as well as representatives of OPM, GAO and the FBI. Department officials pledged to explore the option of creating a list of accredited schools.

Department and congressional officials refer to it as “the positive list,” said John Barth, director of accreditation and state liaison in the Office of Postsecondary Education.

Government officials agreed that creating a “negative list” of diploma mills would be too difficult because of the problem of tracking down constantly emerging and disappearing bogus schools, he said.

Education is working out the logistical issues of creating an online list of the accredited schools, Barth said. “I haven’t surveyed every [accreditation] agency, but I am assuming we will be dealing with different databases,” he said.

Education plans to field the list in two phases, Barth said. The first phase, which would be finished this year, will cover schools accredited by federally recognized national or regional agencies. The second phase would track down schools that may have lost their accreditation.

“Some accrediting agencies say their records are in electronic format and easily shared,” Barth said. “In other cases, the records are in paper form and are stored in warehouses.”

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