(off-topic) PhDevaluation: Diploma mill degrees

[Brandon]

This is off topic from naturism, but since several people here are pursuing higher degrees, it might be of interest.

There was an exposé on the TV news tonight about pubic officials who put "PhD" after their name, but who received their degree from a very "iffy" university. The State of Texas has a law making it illegal for any government official or employee to represent that he or she has a particular degree if that degree came from a university on a blacklist of universities the State considers illegitimate, i.e. internet diploma mills. According to the report, to pass a particular class at one of these universities, you might be required to read one text and write an exam. At others, you simply pay your money and they send you your degree.

So what type of person would represent himself as having a PhD, when the degree came from a university the State considers illegitimate? It turns out that in a very large, affluent, suburban county, the County Clerk (a senior administrative position) and the County Judge (more like a mayor, not a judge in the usual sense) both put PhD after their names on the county website, but both of them got their degrees over the internet from an out of state university on Texas' list of essentially bogus institutions.

Okay, no big deal, because you don't really need a PhD for those positions. But how about a professor? According to the news report, a professor at a state university also got his PhD from the same out of state university on Texas' list of essentially bogus institutions.

Should degree-granting institutions be subject to state/provincial or national oversight or regulation? Does it make sense to blacklist institutions doling out "PhD-lites"? Would that just push them offshore, as happened with internet gambling? Would it be better to maintain a "recognized" institution list and say it is illegal to for a person to put the letters after his name if his/her degree did not come from one of those "recognized" institutions?

What if someone got a degree from a perfectly legitimate university in India or China? How are people outside those countries supposed to determine whether the degree is meaningful. Should there be some international body that accredits universities? Or is this an intractable problem?

How do those of you spending several years of your life earning a degree feel about the proliferation of lightweight internet degrees?

[Karla]

More and more I come to the conclusion that a PhD by itself provides very little benefit. Just having those three letters after your name, in Britain anyway, won't give you any extra pay. Even the research that you produced during the PhD will have little impact. You may have published papers during it, but a lot of papers get published worldwide every year and your results will be preliminary in most cases. And the format of a (scientific) thesis isn't ideal for referencing in other research because people reading it for results have to wade through many chapters written when the author was exploring the field.

The advantage of a PhD is in it being a stepping stone. It allows you to start a career whereby you can build your own academic reputation. Your reputation is important as people will think of your work when thinking through a problem and will reference you. It also gives you tremendous self confidence as well as many personal skills.

I see a PhD as being very similar to a first degree in that it's what you do afterwards that really counts. So people who are pretending to have PhDs by sending off money to some internet scammer aren't really gaining much. Not that it should be allowed to continue though because as you say, they may try using it to gain positions that they are not qualified for.

[Mr Flibble]

My PhD taught me how to think, and how to communicate complex ideas in a concise and unambiguous manner. The research and the subsequent thesis were mere by-products.

[Karla]

My PhD taught me how to think, and how to communicate complex ideas in a concise and unambiguous manner. The research and the subsequent thesis were mere by-products.

Agreed. I wouldn't want anybody to think that I don't think a PhD is a worthwhile thing to do, I am very proud of my PhD, my thesis and my research. Just in terms of a career it's a stepping stone and it has little value for someone to pretend that they have a PhD unless they use it to blag a job they are otherwise unqualified for.

I wish I could do another!