May 11, 2004
WASHINGTON - At least 28 senior-level federal employees in eight agencies have bogus college degrees, including three managers at the office that oversees nuclear weapons safety, congressional investigators have found.
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Three unaccredited schools — Pacific Western University, California Coast University and Kennedy-Western University — provided data showing that 463 of their students were federal employees. Most of those listed were in the Department of Defense. The report did not name employees.
The investigation took place from July 2003 through February.
The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee planned hearings Tuesday and Wednesday on diploma mills and the taxpayer's role in subsidizing them.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4951979/Some fake degrees are available with the names of actual universities. The Daily Aztec received one such degree for San Diego State University. That diploma came with transcripts that listed classes not offered at SDSU and the phone number for a "transcript office" based in Washington, D.C., to verify that the holder of the degree went to the school.
http://www.uwire.com/content/topnews021203002.htmlLooking at the personnel of eight federal agencies chosen at random, the GAO found that 463 employees showed up on the enrollment records of just three unaccredited schools. (It actually looked at four colleges, but only three responded to its request for information and only two fully cooperated.) This was merely a sampling of the dozens of mills operating nationwide, not an exhaustive audit; given the limited nature of the GAO's investigation, the true number of federal employees who are academically unqualified to fill the positions they hold could be in the thousands.
Agencies tasked with defending America from terrorism were among the top employers of workers with phony diplomas identified by the GAO. The Department of Defense employs 257 of them. Transportation has 17. Justice has 13; Homeland Security, 12; Treasury, eight.
The GAO also found that two diploma mills alone have received a total of nearly $170,000 in payments from a dozen federal agencies for tuition for 64 employees. Hamilton University refused to cooperate with the GAO in its audit of federal payments for student fees, so it remains unclear whether Callahan's tuition was subsidized.
But as a serial fake-diploma shopper, Callahan is one of the worst offenders among the senior officials identified from the eight federal agencies the GAO surveyed. At least 28 senior-level employees had degrees from diploma mills, the GAO found, while cautioning that "this number is believed to be an understatement." Among them: Daniel P. Matthews, chief information officer for the Department of Transportation (which oversees the Transportation Security Administration), who got his $3,500 bachelor of science degree within eight months from diploma mill Kent College in Mandeville, Louisiana, and three unnamed managers with super-secret Q-level security clearance at the National Nuclear Security Administration—including an Air Force lieutenant colonel who attended no classes and took no tests to get a promotion-enabling master's degree from LaSalle University, a diploma mill affiliated with Kent College and also based in Mandeville. No word yet if they, too, will be forced to resign, or if it will again take the news media to drum them out of office.
http://www.reason.com/0501/fe.ps.cut.shtmlEVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THAT LIST SHOULD PONY UP THEIR QUALIFICATIONS.
After we double check them ALL,
then we will get back to you.
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