Opening Statement of Howard P. "Buck" McKeon

Good morning and thank you for joining us today for this very important hearing on the issue of diploma mills. This hearing is intended to examine questions about what constitutes a diploma mill and hear more about the safeguards that currently exist in the law to protect consumers, taxpayers, and the federal government from the proliferation and tactics of fraudulent institutions claiming to provide a legitimate higher education.

I want to start by welcoming our witnesses and thanking them for joining us here today.

No formal legal definition exists for a diploma mill, but they are generally regarded by many as an entity that lacks accreditation from a state or a professional organization. Diploma mills are also described as selling college and graduate degrees that are fraudulent or worthless because of a lack of standards in curriculum, instruction, and completion.

However, there is more to the definition than that. It is important to differentiate between non-accredited institutions of higher education and diploma mills. I hope our witnesses will be able to draw that distinction for us here today.

Additionally, stories and conversations about diploma mills tend to turn into conversations about on-line institutions and education over the Internet. Although many diploma mills operate their phony institutions of higher education over the Internet, it is important to distinguish between these scams and legitimate, credible on-line institutions that operate quality accredited distance learning programs.

Diploma mills harm students, taxpayers, and both federal and state governments. They mislead consumers and employers and pose dangers to legitimate institutions of higher education.

Reliance on phony degrees is not a victimless crime. Take the disturbing story of an individual claiming to be a physician in North Carolina who treated an 8-year old girl for complications with diabetes. The girl’s mother trusted the "doctor" based on his MD degree, and took her daughter off of insulin, as instructed. Sadly, her daughter died. The physician? He earned his "degrees" from bogus institutions; all of his diplomas came from diploma mills.

Although the federal government has been successful in keeping phony institutions out of the federal student aid programs, in recent years, policy makers at both the federal and state levels have begun to recognize the need to find ways to keep diploma mills out of business altogether. I hope our witnesses can talk more about current safeguards that are in place, as well as offer insight into what more can be done to keep fraudulent institutions out of the marketplace.

Thank you again for joining us here to discuss this important topic. I look forward to hearing your testimony so that my colleagues and I can learn more about this very serious issue.