Degree Mills: The Billion-dollar Industry That Has Sold Over A Million Fake Diplomas
Books / Paperback
ISBN: 159102238X / Publisher: Prometheus Books, January 2005
Got a hankering to perform thoracic surgery? Pony up a few thousand dollars and get yourself a knife. Care to give expert testimony in criminal trials, propose legislation, or control the lives of hundreds of people in a major corporation? Ditto, except for the knife, maybe. Fake degrees from colleges abound, complete with transcripts, diplomas, and glowing recommendation letters. Apart from having to endure Homecoming in a post office box, many people buy these degrees without qualms, enriching both themselves and the criminals pandering to them. Ezell and Bear, retired FBI agent and educator respectively, and experts in the field collectively, expose how these degrees get on the market and who buys them. They show how to find if a college or degree is legitimate and give very useful lists of fake colleges, degrees, and accreditation organizations to help sort out job applicants, candidates, and annoying coworkers. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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Do you know where your doctor, lawyer, or clergyman earned his or her degree? In 1986, a congressional committee report concluded that "more than 500,000 working Americans have a fraudulent degree." The media hardly noticed. The public yawned. The academic world buried its head in the sand. And things have gotten much, much worse since then.Fueled by the Internet, more than 300 active degree mills are selling thousands of fake degrees each week, including medical and law degrees. Their total sales exceed $500 million a year, yet the damage that their "customers" do is immeasurable. In a recent case, a man with a fake medical degree was put on trial for manslaughter after a patient died from incorrect medication. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.Allen Ezell, who specialized in degree fraud during his 35 years with the FBI, and John Bear, prolific author and expert witness on the subject in federal and state courts, reveal the shocking dimensions of this growing scam in this thoroughly researched exposé. They show how degree mills operate, offer detailed warning signs that a school might be fake, tell how to check up on anyone’s degree, and what to do when a fake degree is discovered. Also provided are information and links to useful lists of bad and fake schools.This is an invaluable reference book for personnel departments in business and academia, as well as for the average consumer.The authors have made more than 200 television appearances on the subject, including on Good Morning America, 60 Minutes, and The Today Show. As the foremost experts on degree mills, Bear and Ezell have been interviewed on the radio and in magazines and newspapers worldwide.
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