Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Bogus degrees in high places

At least 28 high-level federal employees have degrees from bogus colleges or unaccredited schools, only a slice of a problem that ranges from worker quality to national security, congressional investigators say.

The employees with dubious or worthless degrees serve in eight agencies; three are supervisors with security clearances in the office overseeing nuclear weapons safety, the General Accounting Office found.

...Two high-ranking Pentagon officials, Charles Abell and Patricia Walker, both list degrees from schools identified as diploma mills. Laura Callahan, deputy chief information officer at the Department of Homeland Security, resigned over a controversy about the doctorate she got from a bogus school.

Three workers with bogus degrees in the review served in emergency operations roles at the National Nuclear Security Administration, part of the Department of Energy. One of those workers paid $5,000 for a master's degree from LaSalle University, an unaccredited school unrelated to La Salle University in Pennsylvania. The worker attended no classes, took no tests and told the GAO his degree was a joke.

Three unaccredited schools investigated - Pacific Western University, California Coast University and Kennedy-Western University - reported that 463 current or former students were federal employees. Most of those listed were in the Defense Department.
  Salon article

So much for "vetting".

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.