A licensed architect since 1986, Stephen Corbin always wanted a college degree, saying the lack of a diploma on his wall left him with "an empty feeling."
Between raising a family and running his own company - which specializes in public school projects - the Bakersfield, Calif., resident never had time to polish off his course work. Instead he called a telephone number at the bottom of an e-mail advertisement offering degrees from a European university based on "life experience."
But the University of San Moritz, which granted him a bachelor's degree in architecture and a master's degree in business administration, is one of numerous names used by a worldwide Internet diploma mill that sells phony diplomas, trumped-up transcripts and ersatz honors such as summa cum laude.
"We went through a discussion of what I had done in my profession, running a business and everything like that," Corbin said. "And they said, `Oh, yeah, you qualify.' "
His degrees cost him $500 in a package deal. The "university" also offered him a doctorate, but that "would have been pushing it too much."
He did allow San Moritz to backdate his architecture degree to 1985 to make it seem as if he had gotten it just before he received his license.
Like its low-tech predecessors that advertised on matchbook covers, the University of San Moritz, which also operates as Glencullen University and the University of Wexford, and numerous other regal-sounding diploma mills prey on ego and greed - college graduates earn 62 percent more than nongraduates, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
But unlike traditional diploma mills, the online versions exploit the wide reach of the Internet to send millions of e-mail advertisements promising degrees without "tests, classes, books or interviews. ... No one is turned down."
A long history
The history of so-called universities that sell degrees without any education or true evaluation of experience goes back at least to the 19th century, said John Bear, co-author of "Bear's Guide to Earning Degrees by Distance Learning," which includes information on diploma mills operating on the Internet.
"Nothing has much changed, except that on the Internet it's so much easier," he said. "You can set up a site in an hour and send out e-mails. Then you just need a printing press."
Some elaborate diploma mill Web pages feature pictures of campus buildings, classrooms and student outings. But the images and much of the text often are copied from the Web sites of legitimate universities.
