In Defense Of Diploma Mills
Or, Should a College Degree Be Worth More Than Knowledge and Ability.
This is Part 3 of a series of three on diploma mills.
I am setting politics and issues of politicians aside in this first case to focus on ability alone. Laura Callahan had successfully preformed the duties of Deputy Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the US Department of Labor and Senior Information Technology Manager at the White House. She then became Senior Director at the United States Department of Homeland Security. No one has questioned her ability to do the job but she was forced to resign due to the fact she listed a diploma mill as the the source of her doctorate in computer information systems. In fact she was able to perform all her duties successfully with her only accredited degree being from a two year degree from a community college.
Frank Reed is a softball coach for University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. The position of coach requires a bachelor’s or master’s degree at that university. His team has just finished another winning season(41-22). The college website with his biography proudly lists Western States (wildly considered a diploma mill) as his alma mater.
So whats the point? If people can be successful and are being successful with a a fake degree why are having degrees a requirement of employment. A measurement of a person’s abilities should not be the the weight of there degrees. If Frank Reed can consistently lead a team to a winning season who cares if he can even write, or has a masters degree. If Laura Callahan was able to run the computer network at the White House she is capable of doing that with or with out the proper pedigree.
More and more educational requirements are becoming the norm in our society. Capable teachers are forced back to school for advance degrees even when they do an excellent job with there current educational level. See College: Door to Opportunity or a Barrier to Enter?
It is time to look at a person as a whole with no one part of the resume being used as a trump card or a barrier to entry. I do not condone lying on a resume or using fakes degrees. It is also wrong to use degrees to keep the capable out of jobs they would succeed at.
The Dumb Kid
References: http://www.gomocs.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=92092&SPID=10582&DB_OEM_ID=17700&ATCLID=1146493&Q_SEASON=2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Callahan
http://www.newschannel5.com/global/story.asp?s=8674699
Useful links:
January 17th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
I agree wholeheartedly! Once upon a time, long, long ago college degrees equated to ability. College degrees proved that you had the necessary skill set for a particular field because you had spent 4 to 8 yrs studying, researching, and working hard in that particular field. I am not saying that is still not the case but times are a changing and more flexibility in how we define ability based on an college education is in order. In many fields by the time one graduates much of the skill set is outdated such as with the computer industry. It seems to me to be an endeavor in futility to try to perpetually keep pace with the advance of technology. One would have to be a super computer just to be able to store all that information. What I was taught was not the answer to a question but rather the ability to find the answer to the question using deductive reasoning.
This is not a black and white issue and that is why I argue for some flexibility. Would you want your surgeon to have a fake degree or the engineer down the street at Dow Chemicals to fudge his resume? Proboably not…. Do you care if your house painter or Real estate agent have a liberal arts degree? I think not….. what you want is that all these people have the specific knowledge, the ability to carry out their particular role and I feel a college degree does not always equate to this ability.
I have a B.A. degree is Psychology. So what! It has made me a more well-rounded individual, a person better suited to dealing with people but I have no particular skill sets from it but it does open the door to many entry lvl positions. Is this right or fair? I don’t know but one thing is for sure. It shows the prospective employer that an individual is willing to commit to many years of hard work to attain their goal and many times that is all an employer wants because often the skill set is learned on the job. What do you think??
January 18th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
I think the problem is that companies use the degree as a minimum bar, just to make sure that the applicant has at least some level of competency. So sitting in class for 4 years writing papers the night before they are due I suppose means you can do a reasonable job in the workforce.
Because degrees cost so much these days, it becomes a class barrier where less wealthy people can’t compete. They might have the skills, but get lumped into the same category as dropouts.
I do think that degree mills capitalize on the laziness of companies to properly evaluate employees by charging too much for a relatively worthless product. But if I could change the world there is a lot more to think about first.