For the sake of argument, let's say you run the company that makes Rolex watches. For many years, your company has carefully cultivated and protected its reputation for quality. One day you pick up a major business magazine and see the following advertisement: "Genuine Rolex Watches by Mail, $50." You quickly learn that they are being made in a huge factory in another country. You are confident that your sales will be dramatically affected, and as these fakes fail to work well, your reputation will be damaged. But despite your increasingly frantic attempts, you are unable to interest law enforcement agencies in taking any action, and you can't persuade the media to stop running those ads.
It sounds like a nightmare.
It is a nightmare, and it's happening today-not in the world of wristwatches, but in the world of higher education.
Consider the following:
There are more than 300 unaccredited universities now operating. While a few are genuine start-ups or online ventures, the great majority range from merely dreadful to out-and-out diploma mills-fake schools that will sell people any degree they want at prices from $3,000 to $5,000.
It is not uncommon for a large fake school to "award" as many as 500 Ph.D.'s every month.
The aggregate income of the bad guys is easily in excess of $200 million a year. Data show that a single phony school can earn between $10 million and $20 million annually.
With the closure of the FBI's diploma mill task force, the indifference of most state law enforcement agencies, the minimal interest of the news media, and the growing ease of using the Internet to start and run a fake university, things are rapidly growing worse.
The prognosis is bleak. This is not some jerk with a laser printer on his kitchen table cranking out a few phony diplomas, often to the mild amusement of the media (as when Florida congressman Claude Pepper bought a fake doctorate to show how easy it was and proclaimed himself Dr. Pepper).
Fake schools are a serious economic force in America, hitting legitimate schools in their pocketbooks in two important ways:
A fair chunk of that $200 million is being spent by people who really want and need a legitimate degree but don't know enough to tell the difference. It's tuition that should be going to the legitimate schools.
Every time a phony school is exposed by the media, the whole public perception of distance learning suffers. So when the public sees your ad or press release, they are more likely to say, sneeringly, "Oh, I've heard about those kinds of programs," and you'll never hear from them.
A huge crime wave is under way, and almost no one has noticed. You can't have a crime wave without two basic ingredients: villains and victims. In this particular crime wave, there are four kinds of villains and four kinds of victims. In the course of looking at each of them, much can be learned about what is going on, and why.
 Read About The Four Villains
Read About The Four Victims
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