Action taken against diploma mills

Jennifer Knight

Friday, May 23, 2003 | 10:29 a.m.

Want a doctorate in 10 days? It will cost you about $650.

That's the going rate for a Las Vegas-based diploma mill -- although the Legislature was moving closer this week to making it illegal for anyone to use such bogus degrees to get a job.

"This bill sends a message that Nevada will no longer serve as a safe haven for these diploma mills," said Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas.

Assembly Bill 264 was approved Wednesday by the Assembly Ways and Means Committee. The bill would make it a misdemeanor to grant or use misleading educational credentials. A violation would mean a $2,500 fine.

The wording on the bill is generic enough to cover school transcripts, but some say it might leave an opening for phony accreditation companies to slip under the radar.

David Perlman, an administrator for the Nevada Commission on Postsecondary Education, said the bill closes some loopholes in the law. He added that Internet-based mills are also supported by fake accreditation companies, which are not specifically addressed in the bill.

"It's a great step," Perlman said. "If the law passes, you cannot say you have a degree if you really don't. But we've been looking for any kind of language to give us jurisdiction over an accrediting body, but it's pretty difficult language to come up with."

There's no indication that people are using fake diplomas more often in Las Vegas than elsewhere, but two recent cases of academic dishonesty helped hasten the legislation.

The first case was brought forward by the U.S. General Accounting Office. The GAO's investigative arm launched a sting operation in November 2002 and bought fake diplomas from Degrees R-Us, a company based in Las Vegas and run by a disbarred attorney who claimed he started the business after "viewing a television expose about the prosecution of a diploma mill operation."

The November GAO report said the Internet-based company sold more than 100 degrees and that some people had attempted to get jobs using those degrees.

The results of the sting have been forwarded to the Federal Trade Commission for further action, but nothing has come of the case. The website is still up and running.

Another case may result in action from the attorney general's office.

in October it was discovered that a study skills instructor at Community College of Southern Nevada falsified his Ph.D. credentials. McTheron Jones was hired for a tenure-track position last year at a salary of $61,595 a year. His resume, transcripts and diploma on file at the college indicated that he held a doctorate in counseling psychology from San Diego State University -- a degree that would allowed him to earn $8,500 more annually than he would without such a degree.

But the Sun found that San Diego State University never offered such a degree and did not confer doctoral degrees in 1976 -- the date Jones claimed to have earned the degree there.

The case has been reviewed by the attorney general's office and the findings on Jones have been forwarded to a prosecutor who will make the final decision regarding possible criminal charges, said Greg Smith, the attorney general's deputy chief of investigations.

Thomas Peacock, CCSN's associate vice president of human resources, said while the bill won't completely eradicate the problem of academic dishonesty, he hopes it will send a message.

"It sends a message to diploma mill people that, no, you're not going to park yourself in Nevada and you're not going to take away jobs from people who go through the trouble of going to school and doing the work," Peacock said.

The bill now goes to the state Senate.