Group Issues Accreditation Fact Sheets

The Council for Higher Education Accreditation, which represents accreditating agencies in the United States, in May issued a fact sheet advising the public on how to tell a "diploma mill" from a legitimate educational institution and an "accreditation mill" from a legitimate accrediter. Such mills deceive students into spending money and time on substandard education and unusable credentials, the council says. Students may rind out about their situation only when they seek to transfer to another institution or apply to graduate programs. Few states have laws or regulations pertaining to mills, and they rarely come under scrutiny by federal agencies, so prospective students are on their own when it comes to identifying them.

The council lists a number of indicators that suggest an educational or accrediting institution may be a mill. The indicators of a diploma mill include requiring little or no class attendance, granting degrees based on students' life experiences, charging fees that seem very high or low compared with those of other institutions, failing to provide a list of faculty and their qualifications, and having a name similar to a well-known college or university. Indicators of accreditation mills include accrediting institutions without their knowledge, charging unusually high fees, publishing few standards of quality, requiring only a short period of review before granting accreditation, and granting accreditation based solely on documents submitted with no site visits or interviews.

The council's Web site also has other information about how accreditation works.