Cut-Rate Diplomas

Reason, April, 2005 by Ken Hamady, John Gilmore

I enjoyed reading Paul Sperry's article on diploma mills ("Cut-Rate Diplomas," January) but feel compelled to correct the impression he left of Thomas Edison State College when he compared it to Hamilton University. Thomas Edison is a nonresident institution, but that is where the similarity ends. It is a New Jersey state college and is fully accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. It is one of very few regionally accredited nonresident programs.

I earned an undergraduate degree from Thomas Edison before going on to do graduate work at Trenton State College. While at Thomas Edison I studied on my own and was able to test out of 75 college credits by taking 15 fully accredited college-level equivalency exams. My admissions counselor at Trenton State told me that he particularly liked getting graduates from Thomas Edison because they all knew how to learn independently.

Ken Hamady

Leesburg, VA

I was not amused at Paul Sperry's cheap attack on government employees who get cheap college degrees. Sperry offered no evidence that these employees are unqualified to do their jobs--merely that they didn't suffer through an endless institutional program to get their license to work. Since when do "free minds and free markets" require anybody to get a license to work?

I'm a computer specialist with 30 years of experience, starting in my teens. I was too busy programming, starting successful computer companies, and relaxing to waste four or six or eight years going to college. Is reason suggesting that, as a result, I wouldn't be qualified to be chief information officer of a government department? It might well be that such a job has a bullshit requirement that applicants have a "degree." As an otherwise-qualified candidate, what would be wrong with my getting the cheapest and easiest degree possible?

John Gilmore

San Francisco, CA