Dark Bilious Vapors

especially when one can get far in government service with a fake degree. From the AP via MSNBC: Some federal workers have fake degrees. What makes the story even better is that some of the workers actually got the government to pay for them:

At least 28 senior-level federal employees in eight agencies have bogus college degrees, including three managers at the office that oversees nuclear weapons safety, congressional investigators have found.

The problem is likely even bigger, mainly because the government has no uniform way to check whether employees' alma maters are "diploma mills" that require little, if any, academic work, the General Accounting Office reported.

...

An earlier GAO report revealed how easy it is to buy a degree from a diploma mill; this one shows high-level federal workers securing such degrees at taxpayer expense. The tally was $169,471 at just two of the schools.

The colleges in question often use names similar to those of accredited schools and offer degrees largely on a person's "life experience." Some simply sell degrees for a flat fee.

Under law, the federal government may only pay tuition for academic degree training at schools sanctioned by a recognized accrediting body.

In contacting representatives of three diploma mills, an undercover GAO investigator found they would not permit enrolling in individual courses. Yet they were willing to change their billing practices to receive federal money, dividing the flat fee they charged by the number of courses a student needed to appear as if a per-course fee was charged.

The number of bogus degrees and the amount of tax dollars spent on them are likely understated across the government because of incomplete records and verifications, the GAO said.

Len on 05.11.04 @ 04:04 PM CST