Unmuzzling Diploma Mills: Dog Earns M.B.A. Online
Original Article By Marc Parry (as always italics and footnotes by me)
How’s this for “hounding” diploma mills?
GetEducated.com, an online-learning consumer group, managed to purchase an online M.B.A. for its mascot, a dog named Chester Ludlow. Things then took an unexpected turn when Chester was hired as the group’s leader based, in part, on his newly acquired credentials.
The Vermont pug earned his tassles by pawing over $499 to Rochville University, which offers “distance learning degrees based on life and career experience,” according to a news release from GetEducated. He got back a package from a post-office box in Dubai that contained a diploma and transcripts, plus a certificate of distinction in finance and another purporting to show membership in the student council.
“It was the diploma itself that drove our decision to hire Chester” explained Brian Groom, President of GetEducated.com. “Granted, we’d rather have promoted one of the GetEducated staff. They have so much more experience and demonstrated skill but they just didn’t have the right degrees. You know how it is.”
Sadly, Chester was forced to fire the very people responsible for his new degree and subsequent new position. It seems the GetEducated.com crew misused time and company resources during the very stunt that resulted in Chester’s degree.
GetEducated.com believes Chester is the first dog to get a diploma for life experience. As for work, it turns out Chester is taking to it like a duck to water.
“It’s amazing!” crowed Mr. Groom, “I really can’t tell the difference between Chester and someone with a real MBA. If he keeps this up I may have to evaluate my employees based on performance instead of their willingness to spend grotesque amounts of time and money on traditional education1.”
1 What I find most ironic about this whole deal is that people with the “fake” degrees are usually doing fine until they get exposed. If that’s the case then they didn’t need the degree to begin with. If I were Higher Ed I’d take note of that.
Obviously Chester has the right stuff. I’d hire him in a minute
I’ll soon have an MBA as well and a side of PhDs. I’m still working on Chester’s “can do” attitude.