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.
