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At a recent trade show, I sat through a presentation by Jason Morris of EmployeeScreenIQ that demonstrated how many professionals are touting their education credentials. If you are a member of the professional network service LinkedIn, you can easily perform this simple exercise. Go to the Advanced People Search at www.linkedin.com/search. Enter Almeda in the college box, and click on search. You will see a list of people or connections who are touting their degrees from Almeda.
The problem is Almeda is a Diploma Mill.
Merriam-Webster's online dictionary describes a Diploma Mill as:
a usually unregulated institution of higher education granting degrees with few or no academic requirements
A Diploma Mill issues a paper diploma paid for by the student and the student performs little or no actual study. Some schools, such as Almeda, offer degrees based on life experiences. There are some diploma mill factories that even provide a phone number or email address for students to submit to employers or employment screeners to use for verification. This contact point leads to a bogus registrar's office with a very convincing, fake registrar who will confirm the school's existence and even get uppity if you suggest there is fraud.
The fact that Almeda is a diploma mill has been substantiated by Accredibase (www.accredibase.com) which maintains the leading global database of unrecognized institutions as well as accrediting bodies. A free report on diploma mills including statistics from around the world can be downloaded from www.accredibase.com/report.
Further, the State of Oregon's Office of Degree Verification webpage at www.osac.state.or.us/oda/unaccredited.aspx has this to say about Almeda College (University):
Closed by legal action in Florida but may still be operating there. Operating illegally in Idaho. Degree mill. Also uses name Almeda International University.
Also, Almeda is listed as a Diploma Mill in BRB's database of colleges and universities.
By the way, the first page on my LinkedIn list with Almeda "degrees" includes a corporate security director, a security consultant, a VP of Human Resources, an employee of one of the nation's largest public record vendors, and a chapter chairman of ASIS.
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