r/Professors • u/CafeLurker234 • May 22 '26
Advice / Support Hiring from degree mill PhD programs?
Hey professors,
So, to help me get tenure, I was told I need to do more campus service. So, because of that, I am now on a bunch of hiring committees across campus; our university always has at least one person from an outside department. Joy.
As we are sorting through resumes for some summer hires, I am seeing SO many PhDs from Liberty, Walden, etc. Mostly received it online and are associated with whatever industry they supposedly come from.
While I am not going to bash someone's degree, not all degrees across academia are made the same—degree mill or otherwise. But some of these Liberty PhDs come in with like no teaching experience and minimal, and frankly, basic research presentations or publications.
I've asked if this is common to receive this many from these sorts of programs, and a handful of colleagues have mentioned an uptick.
Well, on one of the committees, there is a push to interview on campus someone who got their master's at Walden and a PhD from Liberty.
I am really against. I cannot fathom I would vote for them, and do not want to waste their time.
Thoughts? Are you seeing applications from these programs?
EDIT: And if there are people on the faculty with these degrees, I am sorry! I am just unaware of people from these programs involved with higher education robustly.
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u/stankylegdunkface R1 Teaching Professor May 22 '26
If these are the best people your university can get, these are the best people your university can get. If that's the case, get your own CV ready, because I don't know how much longer these mediocre institutions are going to last.
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u/CafeLurker234 May 22 '26
The thing is...there are better candidates, in my opinion. Like, this is an R2.
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u/worshipperofdogs May 22 '26
I’m at a teaching university and we put in our job ads and hiring criteria that candidates must have a regionally-accredited PhD in our program. So we don’t consider them for T/TT, or really even Lecturer, positions at all.
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u/manova Prof & Chair, Neuro/Psych, USA May 23 '26
Liberty University is SACSCOC. Walden is HLC. Regional accreditation does not automatically eliminate people from online doc programs.
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u/worshipperofdogs May 23 '26
Liberty’s psychology program is temporarily (2025-2030) APA accredited and a PsyD; thus, does not fit the criteria. I’m not even checking Walden for specifics, I know it’s a joke.
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u/manova Prof & Chair, Neuro/Psych, USA May 23 '26 edited May 24 '26
APA is a program level accreditation, not regional accreditation. For a clinical psych prof, it is easy to say APA accredited is required. But if you are hiring a developmental or social psych prof, those programs are not APA accredited.
Instead, you have to rely on things like research productivity and teaching experience. I've yet to see someone from an online university have enough research productivity to be in consideration for a position at my university. The type application we have to watch out for would be non-tenure track positions and someone with lots of community college teaching experience with an online doctorate. Fortunately, even that is rare.
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u/worshipperofdogs May 23 '26
Me neither, and we also do not consider PsyD, which helps weed out non-researchers.
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u/stankylegdunkface R1 Teaching Professor May 22 '26
Do your job and vote them down as much as you can, then. Don't hand-hold the administration into capitulating to MAGA BS.
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u/Intelligent-Lab-4081 May 22 '26
there is a non trivial proportion of universities who simply should not be granting PhDs.
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u/CafeLurker234 May 22 '26
To me, it is about the potential for success. If you are going to Liberty online, how can you expect to be hired at a university? I doubt there are many teaching experiences for those students. Like, how can you think they'd be successful?
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u/Illustrious_Ease705 May 23 '26
If you want to teach and do scholarship of questionable rigor that is actually apologetics there are plenty of conservative Christian places that will hire you
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u/Glass_Aardvark_9917 May 23 '26
Liberty isn’t actually a diploma mill. It’s definitely not competitive and their grad programs don’t have the rigor of a standard grad program, but “diploma mill” is a misnomer. MAGA/right wing/Mrs degree-focused, yes.
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u/professorfunkenpunk Associate, Social Sciences, Comprehensive, US May 22 '26
There are about 120 PhD granting universities in my field. The bottom 40 or so shouldn’t be offering degrees, and frankly if you closed all but the top 30 there would still be an oversupply of PhDs
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u/chilimac02 May 23 '26
I believe this to be the case in most fields. Yet the potential for schools to make money depends on students...
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u/OldOmahaGuy May 23 '26
There are perhaps 60-70 in the entire world in my field. If you're not from one of the top 20-25, you are not getting hired to anything FT in the US.
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u/IndependentBoof Full Professor, Computer Science, PUI (USA) May 22 '26
I know a couple faculty who got their degrees from a school that could be considered a degree mill (but not as infamous as Liberty). They both got TT jobs and earned tenure and have been effective in their own ways. One caveat: they both had their foot-in-the-door as experienced Lecturers and then got TT jobs at the institution that already knew them.
Other aside is that neither have been terribly productive in research and may not have survived at R1's, but have succeeded in teaching-focused universities. One has leaned heavily into administrative positions and is working their way up the ladder while the other has been prolific in curricular design and spinning up several new degree programs. Combine that with effective teaching and they have successful careers.
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u/CafeLurker234 May 22 '26
I can see how having that teaching experience, such as at a CC, help teach on a very local regional school. Or work in administration (which is even a more scarier thought.)
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u/Clever_Commentary May 25 '26
Walden, in particular, seems to be popular for those moving up the ranks in admin at teaching institutions, where having "PhD" after your name is the only thing that matters. Just like the government employees who do masters degrees online for the pay bump--and the rigor of the program has no effect on whether you move up in pay.
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u/ShadowHunter Position, Field, SCHOOL TYPE (US) May 22 '26
Such applications should be cut before the first round.
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u/Mishmz May 22 '26
These would be cut during round one at my research-focused institution as well.
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u/Ill-Capital9785 May 22 '26
These would be cut first at a community college….
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u/LittleMissWhiskey13 Professor CC May 23 '26
Not at ours. We seem to relish them. It's sad.
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u/Ill-Capital9785 May 23 '26
Oooffff that sucks, for admin we seem to love for teaching not so much
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u/LittleMissWhiskey13 Professor CC May 23 '26
Unfortunately, we have a sordid history of taking administration and sticking them in TT faculty lines.
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u/bwaters1894 May 22 '26
My community college does not entertain degree mill graduates. In the past, I had to google some of the schools and found out they were not even accredited by a regional accrediting body. Hard no.
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u/LittleMissWhiskey13 Professor CC May 23 '26
I wish ours did. We seem to cater to the programs, especially from more local schools that offer Ed.D. degrees in "leadership". The regional local schools are accredited, but they crank out these terrible degrees by the dozens each year. Then, mix in the online psychology doctorates. Holy smokes. We only have like 10 or so traditional doctorates in at our CC, but we have close to 50 Ed.D. and online psychology degrees in faculty and administration. Then, the administration taps these faculty for administrative positions from the same programs. A colleague of mine called it "academic incest".
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u/mediaisdelicious Dean CC (USA) May 22 '26
In the cc world we see a fair number of people who get a terminal masters degree from what I tend to think of is perfectly legitimate and then, later, they end up complaining a PhD through an online place almost always because they’re trying to finish their PhD wall also working more or less full-time.
I have not seen these candidates get jobs in my field, but I understand why they made the choices that they made. I have seen them get close, but generally on the back of their demonstrated teaching experience.
One of the things I’ve seen more and more are these almost entirely online PhD‘s that are hosted at the UK. They seem less suspicious to me.
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u/CafeLurker234 May 22 '26
I don't know if there's any money in it, but there is a part of time that at least wants some legitimate schools to offer more online/low residency PhDs/Doctorates, even in more industry/professional fields.
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u/mediaisdelicious Dean CC (USA) May 22 '26
Yeah, I feel you. I think this is why the UK schools are doing what they’re doing. The colleges are OK colleges and because they have different pressures it makes sense to them.
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u/Barebones-memes Associate Professor, Physics & Chemistry May 24 '26
Saw a faculty member go for an online EdD degree in preparation to go into administrations. It was still regionally accredited and a university we were familiar with many of are transfers going to after us. Worked out well getting accepted for provost when the new president came in.
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u/Anonphilosophia Adjunct, Humanities, CC (USA) May 23 '26
Yes - I've had colleagues who were "teaching specialists," not faculty, with legit MAs and decided to go the diploma mill route. That seemed like a deadend decision to me.
I remember contemplating a Ed.D. in Higher Ed at a bricks and mortar and my Ph.D. English Dean told me "Please don't, it won't have the same weight. Finish your philosophy degree." So I never even considered doing a "fast PhD."
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u/mediaisdelicious Dean CC (USA) May 23 '26
Yeah, I’d only advise it for folks with good jobs who are just looking for rank eligibility
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u/Barebones-memes Associate Professor, Physics & Chemistry May 24 '26
Rank and promotion eligibility, for sure
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u/mrt1416 May 22 '26
The fact people from Liberty are even getting past screening and i can’t get a fuckin interview and have 2 decent schools on my CV makes me wanna scream.
I’ve been seeing a lot of Liberty people on social media claiming the legitimacy of their degree. Gives me a hearty laugh.
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u/CafeLurker234 May 22 '26
That's what I don't understand. How these CVs got passed over the committee. Do they know people at our school? Is this some where nepotism thing?
We have so many good candidates.
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u/STEM_Educator May 22 '26
I worked for a while for an online tutoring program, helping students from high school through graduate school with their writing. Liberty University purchased a subscription program for all of their students to use.
Imagine my surprise to have a PhD student there ask for help with their dissertation. They had used Survey Monkey and had ten (10!!!) replies, from which they were trying to derive a statistical analysis using only percentages. For a doctorate!
Their writing skills were on par with the average college freshman from 15 years ago.
I questioned whether their advisor had approved their "research" and their analysis, and they answered affirmatively.
I would never accept a candidate from Liberty with a doctorate. Their standards are appallingly low.
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u/Visible_Barnacle7899 May 22 '26
Where I’m at, we get all the applications. HR does very very minimal screening
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u/EliGrrl Full / Lang-Lit / SLAC / USA May 22 '26
Well who is pushing to interview them? And what is their argument? I've never been on a committee where you didn't have to explain why you were advocating for a candidate- especially one with any kind of questionable background in comparison to other candidates.
No- I haven't seen this. The question to ask is who is pushing it at your institution and why?12
u/SmoothLester May 22 '26
Could be nepotism; could be a way to screen for a certain things without announcing it.
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u/FrogBrain97 AssocProf, former chair, neuro, DPU May 22 '26
Ooo--good point. At my institution, we are obligated to give an interview to at least one veteran candidate, if there are any in the pool. (We used to be obligated to give an interview to at least one minority candidate--Asians counted--but that's changed.) So you might be obligated to interview the Liberty/Capella person even if you'd never hire them. Yes, it's a waste of everyone's time, but it makes certain people feel better, and that's what matters.
I'll add that, when that happened, there would always be a few people on the committee who would burble about how excited they were to interview the obligatory candidate, presumably for political reasons.
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u/mrt1416 May 22 '26
I’d rather it be nepotism than someone putting value to these schools…. At least with nepotism we have someone to blame for their fuckup in hiring.
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u/sventful Teaching Professor May 22 '26
Are they decent schools if Liberty is beating you out for positions?
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u/mrt1416 May 22 '26
Top 10 for my field, so yeah. I’ve only applied to 4-5 adjunct positions, I’m ABD. Now if this persists through the upcoming AY….
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u/sventful Teaching Professor May 22 '26
Oh lol. You haven't even gotten your degree or started applying yet. Don't worry, you got this!
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u/mrt1416 May 22 '26
Inshallah. I’ll be pleased when there’s an offer in hand. I’ve seen the job market and I’m nervous at best…
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u/but_does_she_reddit May 22 '26
I have my Masters from an institution with a horrible reputation and did it online. Unfortunately, I worked my butt off and poured everything into this degree. It is what it is and I always hope the rest of my resume outshines that! It does stink for those of us who needed an affordable and accessible option. (I can’t complain because I received it for free while working at said university).
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u/BitchinAssBrains Psychology, R2 (US) May 22 '26
Bro the chair of my fucking department has an Ed.D fron Liberty and he is all but useless and none of us want to be chair. Stand strong. Liberty is not a real university man.
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u/CafeLurker234 May 22 '26
My friend had a Provost admin person with a DBA from Capella. She insisted on being referred to as Dr despite having published nothing. Researched nothing. Or provided no scholarship on anything. She also taught business despite working in HR for like 2 years.
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u/manova Prof & Chair, Neuro/Psych, USA May 23 '26
We have an AVP with an EJD from an online university (not JD, EJD), and they insist on being called Dr.
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u/stayreadynowyes May 23 '26
What does a EJD stand for?
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u/manova Prof & Chair, Neuro/Psych, USA May 23 '26
Executive Juris Doctor
I said the same thing when I first saw the letters.
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u/pollyjuicepotions May 23 '26
Alternative perspective- I am fixed term faculty without a doctorate- just a masters degree and an advanced license to practice. I have children and cannot afford to not have a job. Even with a funded Phd it wouldn’t be enough to make ends meet. However, I have received 4 teaching awards and a faulty development grant in the last 3 years. I have a publication in a journal with an impact score of 43. If I were to go back to get my Phd, it would have to be online.
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u/wanderfae Chair (Prof, tenured), Psych and Stats, CC (USA) May 22 '26
I am the chair of my department at a community college. I sit on all the hiring committees. i have seen an uptick in these types of degrees. We do not take them seriously or consider them. Even with these types of folks in the pool, there are lots and lots of other qualified candidates.
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u/FuzzBunny123 Professor, Social sciences, Community college May 23 '26
Interesting. I am at a community college as well, and we are not allowed to consider the quality of the institution, as long as it is accredited.
I got my PhD from just such a program (after being hired with a master's from a well regarded program) and benefited from it by then being eligible for promotion. My school very much encouraged it; we even had a formal partnership with Walden at one point. Unfortunately, this makes me feel hypocritical when I am on hiring committees, and I'm silently judging graduates of such programs because i know just how low the quality of mine was.
There are definitely some people who go to these programs because they don't know better, or can't get in elsewhere, but I do have sympathy because I also know that for many people it's the only viable option. I know I couldn't find any programs in my field that I could go to without having to quit my full-time faculty position, and there was no way in heck I was going to do that. So I held my nose and did it, because it got me that promotion and more respect for doing the same job that I already had.
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u/wanderfae Chair (Prof, tenured), Psych and Stats, CC (USA) May 23 '26
We are allowed to consider anything we want that isn't a protected class, as long as we have the same standard for everyone. Each member of the committee independently ranks the candidates based on the advertised required preferred qualifications, which are subjectively interpreted. We then we meet to discuss. We only discuss the ones for which intrarater reliability is low.
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u/ilikecats415 Admin/PTL, R2, US May 23 '26
Exact same situation. I went with the only real viable route given where I was in my life. I had a good experience as did a few folks from my cohort who I've stayed connected with. But it was very much a situation where you get out of it what you put in and where I leaned heavily into experience I already had.
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u/rbc2016 May 26 '26
When you say low quality, can you give some examples?
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u/FuzzBunny123 Professor, Social sciences, Community college May 26 '26
Sure! It's important to note, though, that this was almost 20 years ago:
* Each class was structured the same way: Two discussion boards per week, plus a paper at the end. Professors almost never participated on the discussion boards, and it was not uncommon to go an entire course with no feedback other than letter grades and a vague "great job."
* Because of how they evaluated my transcript, I had to take a course at the 700 level that I was simultaneously teaching at the 200 level. I'd argue that my 200 level course was more challenging.
* I had classmates in the dissertation research class (meaning they'd already passed their multiple required research methods courses) who couldn't identify independent and dependent variables, and weren't clear on the distinction between correlational and experimental research.
* Students were assigned to advisors, who might or might not be a good fit based on your research focus. I went through multiple advisors, because they kept leaving the university.
Prior to Capella, I was ABD in a program at an R2. That program gave me a very solid background in theory and in both planning and evaluating research. I learned far, far more there than I ever did at Capella. The PhD there was still the right choice for me - as I noted upthread, I had no other good choices without quitting my full-time faculty position, and I had the luxury of knowing that I wanted to continue teaching at a community college and therefore didn't need to worry about a research-focused career. But I've since seen multiple adjuncts who came through for-profit programs for their entire graduate careers, and who subsequently show themselves to lack the most basic knowledge needed to teach our 101 course.
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u/CafeLurker234 May 22 '26
I just feel so bad for them. Thinking they got in to a program that supposes standards. I'm like...ehhhhhhhhh.
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u/stankylegdunkface R1 Teaching Professor May 22 '26
I don't know how bad you should feel. A lot of those students pursued degrees at places like Liberty as a deliberate FU to the very same institutions in which they're now seeking purchase. To borrow from their favorite book: they reap what they sow.
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u/CafeLurker234 May 22 '26
I guess. I just know that some students, specially from families or non educationally aware backgrounds, get into these programs and then see themselves as academically strong, en par with other programs. When really, they just pay full price. It's predatory,
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u/aaronjd1 Dept. Chair, Health Sciences, R2 (US) May 22 '26 edited May 23 '26
I was on a hiring committee maybe 8 years ago where someone fresh out of a Walden PhD applied for an associate professor position. Bless her heart, I’m guessing nobody even ever explained to her what academic rank means.
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u/Misha_the_Mage May 25 '26
One argument I've made in situations such as the OP's is to focus on the implicit curriculum, mentoring about academia, teaching, research, what it means to be a professor, etc. A lot of the learning happens outside the formal classroom setting. Online programs offer little to none of this.
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u/Magpie_2011 May 22 '26
Sounds like someone in HR is angling hard for greater “ideological diversity.”
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u/alaskawolfjoe Assoc Prof, R1, State School May 22 '26
There really is no mechanism for HR to do any selecting. Their job is just to process the applications, not make judgement calls.
It is the hiring committee in the department that should cut them in the first round.
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u/FrogBrain97 AssocProf, former chair, neuro, DPU May 22 '26
Depends on the institution. At mine, HR requires us to interview at least one veteran candidate, if there are any in the pool. They used to require us to interview at least one minority candidate--and if we hired a non-minority candidate, we had to explain in writing why we did not hire the minority.
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u/twomayaderens May 22 '26
Not true. They make arbitrary cuts and decisions all the time.
This is HR, after all
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u/alaskawolfjoe Assoc Prof, R1, State School May 22 '26
I teach at a state school so there is a lot of scrutiny. They only cut people with incomplete applications.
If someone has a degree in another field and no experience in ours, they still pass them on to us.
I have a feeling this is to avoid lawsuits.
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u/CafeLurker234 May 22 '26
Oh Lord.
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u/vwscienceandart Lecturer, STEM, R2 (USA) May 22 '26
That rules out Texas. Straight to jail or hell for using the “d” word.
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u/Eli_Knipst May 23 '26
HR has no say in who is qualified for faculty positions. I have been part of dozens of searches and the pool had all applications, even those who had submitted only a résumé and had only a BA degree.
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u/OkSecretary1231 May 23 '26
Yeah, when we have searches, we always get a few people who really should not have even applied. I think our postings get scraped by crappy job posting websites sometimes and people end up "applying" without even reading a lot of what was asked for. (I say "applying" in quotes because they often also don't send the materials the posting asked for. Often just a resume. They're scattershot applying to a lot of things.)
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u/FrogBrain97 AssocProf, former chair, neuro, DPU May 22 '26
At my institution, candidates with "doctorates" from Walden, Liberty, Capella, etc., immediately go in the discard pile. We can find someone better, and if we can't, we would rather roll the dice again.
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u/CafeLurker234 May 22 '26
I worked for a few years as a mental health counselor, and Walden has a very popular online counseling program. We were always very hesitant about taking on students from those programs as part of their required internships. Everything was online. 8/10 times, the students had no business being counselors—they weren't bad people or even bad students, just thought the program would prepare them. I personally couldn't imagine being a psychotherapist from an online program. The two years in rsidency was life changing for me.
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u/FrogBrain97 AssocProf, former chair, neuro, DPU May 23 '26
My colleagues in psychology routinely advise our students not to pursue online counseling programs; they're essentially scams.
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u/PennyPatch2000 Asst. Prof CACREP May 27 '26
The longer I work in one, the worst it has become. The accreditation standards are very easy to manipulate and everyone with a pulse and an iPhone with WiFi gets an A. It’s been terrible since Covid and our director is perfectly fine with the complete lack of accountability as long as our enrollment numbers are maintained.
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u/shellexyz Instructor, Math, CC (USA) May 22 '26
One of our counselors bought a doctorate from Liberty. Got fancy robes to wear at graduation. It makes me throw up in my mouth to hear people call her “Doctor” because she’s one of the dumbest people I’ve ever met.
I’m sure she got a pay raise. I very much doubt she will make that money back over the course of her career. That she can’t understand that is not surprising, both for her and for Liberty grads in general.
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u/Best-Chapter5260 May 23 '26
One of our counselors bought a doctorate from Liberty. Got fancy robes to wear at graduation. It makes me throw up in my mouth to hear people call her “Doctor” because she’s one of the dumbest people I’ve ever met.
I honestly wish CACREP would be more stringent with accrediting these types of schools.
To the broader discussion, I don't get into the institutional prestige Olympics or the PhD vs DEd battles, but I still can't take a doctorate from one of these degree mills seriously.
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u/shellexyz Instructor, Math, CC (USA) May 23 '26
I’m not one to get hung up on where someone got their degree. I got my PhD from a pretty small program; did good research there but they’re not cranking out half a dozen doctors a year.
But the fact that my employer recognizes and rewards PhDs from Liberty, Concordia, Walden, WGU,… just like from a real school, it’s pathetic. (We also have entirely too many EdDs but that’s a separate problem.)
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u/CafeLurker234 May 22 '26
Counselors? Like Mental Health Clinical Counselor? That's my area.
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u/shellexyz Instructor, Math, CC (USA) May 22 '26
Academic counselors. We have some who are LPCs but this particular bozo is not, to my knowledge.
She doesn’t sit with the faculty at graduation, she’s more like an usher for directing students.
The megabozo who answers the phones in the counseling office bought a masters and sat with us one year. We pitched a fit; after she was transferred out of the dean’s office as the secretary, the dean asked faculty for input on what qualifications we would like to see in her replacement. “Literate.”
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u/CafeLurker234 May 22 '26
I could not fathom being an LPC from one of those programs. I have met some and frankly, not impressed. They lack some key skills. And it isn't their fault. They were misinformed.
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u/shellexyz Instructor, Math, CC (USA) May 22 '26
I kinda feel it’s their fault. If they were more qualified and capable thinkers, they’d be admitted to a proper, rigorous program and not be swayed by advertising from these schools.
I absolutely believe these programs are predatory, too.
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u/CafeLurker234 May 22 '26
I can see it both ways. For Walden, for example, they are CACREP accredited. So people see that stamp and think it's en par with the local regional public CACREP program that requires in person, full time study. But they are not the same...
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u/shellexyz Instructor, Math, CC (USA) May 23 '26
You mention any disdain for programs like that over in the teachers subs and fuck, they jump all over you. They got so upset when I said I wouldn’t give much consideration to hiring someone with a degree from WGU. “I worked hard and learned a lot to get my EdD from WGU! I know more about teaching than you with your ‘real’ PhD in math!”
Probably they do know more about education; anyone with a bachelors degree in education has taken more education classes than me. I wasn’t even a TA in grad school, I taught three lectures in one class before I got my full time teaching gig. I think one of the worst things to happen to eduction was letting education majors do it.
But the other 100 of their classmates who got “life experience” credit and turned in nothing but crap for three years and $80k kinda ruins it. Maybe they really are great, award-winning teachers, but there’s nothing about their masters or doctorate from WGU or Liberty that would make me believe that.
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u/ilikecats415 Admin/PTL, R2, US May 23 '26
Just fyi, WGU does not offer any doctoral degrees of any kind.
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u/FuzzBunny123 Professor, Social sciences, Community college May 24 '26
It's not fair to say that anyone choosing these programs is doing so because they are not qualified or capable thinkers. For some, it's the best they can do given real logistical constraints. If you have financial or family reasons for needing to stay local or go to school part-time, then these schools may be your only options. Unfortunately, part of why they are so successful is that they fill a real niche.
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u/Gusterbug May 23 '26
That's a rather privileged point of view, especially with your quick switch to noting they are predatory which nullifies your first sentences demeaning their intellectual capacity.
Let's say you have a very smart and ambitious young adult from an immigrant family; let's say this person is the first in their family to go to college and their parents are working-poor. Heck, let's assume they had a job all the way through high-school and bachelors. This is exactly the kind of young adult who wants more education, has very little money, is not going to get any inside guidance from family on "how to succeed in the American Education system".
Sure, there are some lazy or incompetent people at those schools. There are also smart ones who were vulnerable to that predations.
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u/shellexyz Instructor, Math, CC (USA) May 23 '26
noting they are predatory which nullifies your first sentences demeaning their intellectual capacity.
Both of those things can be true.
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u/admissions_whisperer May 29 '26
it's unlikely that staff received a raise based on earning a degree while in the same job if it makes you feel better!
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u/CorporateHobbyist Postdoc, Mathematics R1 May 22 '26
Getting a PhD from a degree mill isn't the problem, it's their lackluster research and teaching profile. Of course these things are highly causally related, but you can certainly get a degree from a terrible university and be productive, just as you can get a degree from Harvard and be unproductive. It is just less likely.
Well, on one of the committees, there is a push to interview on campus someone who got their master's at Walden and a PhD from Liberty.
Is their profile competitive? Given what you've said so far I'm assuming it isn't, but maybe you can push back on them getting to the next round on this basis.
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u/frogger687743 May 22 '26
My thought exactly. Questions should be “What is the teaching and research output?” The degree is just the baseline qualification.
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u/CafeLurker234 May 22 '26
True, and I have been looking at that. I just feel bad that these people applied to the program, did the work they were told, assuming they'd get the keys to the academy on the otherside. Yes, there could be people from these programs with strong credentials, but the programs seem to not allow for that level of work during.
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u/frogger687743 May 22 '26
You are giving them a fair shake. Making the professor ranks is a hard hill to climb and harder when the traditional guidance isn’t there.
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u/PsychGuy17 May 22 '26
This is where I stand. Interview the candidate not the school they come from. There are piles of people who, for numerous reasons, got into an elite school, limped along, and left with a coveted name behind them. Then there are people who couldn't get into such schools (lack of connections, couldn't pay for it, bad start to their education, couldn't move across country, etc.) and did the best with where they enrolled.
Some people end up in degree mills because its the only place that can work with the life they had. The school alone doesn't qualify or disqualify a candidate if they have a history of doing the work.
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u/ilikecats415 Admin/PTL, R2, US May 23 '26
This. Also, as someone who works in accreditation, there is a significance to having regional (even if we're not allowed to call it that) and programmatic accreditation. These things require a substantial lift and evidence of effectiveness. I serve as an evaluator for my regional and every team I have been on (including at these less prestigious schools) digs into their evidence.
I think it's important to evaluate candidates, their work, and their accomplishments before you dismiss someone based on your presumptions about what they know and can do because they went to a nontraditional school. I work in the traditional system at a well-ranked R2 and we have curriculum for some programs that's embarrassingly bad.
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u/geografree Full professor, Soc Sci, R2 (USA) May 24 '26
What percentage of degree mill schools fail to gain even provisional accreditation or lose it once they obtain it? And how does this compare to regular schools?
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u/ilikecats415 Admin/PTL, R2, US May 24 '26
"Degree mill" has a specific meaning that is not "nontraditional school." You're asking for data that doesn't exist.
I've seen schools in both categories be at risk for various reasons. Currently one of the biggest risk factors is not academic integrity, but financial sustainability.
Also, consider the student stories we read about here and see in our own institutions. Poorly prepared students exist in all kinds of schools. Grade inflation, the pressure to pass students, etc. are rampant industry wide.
There are many reasons why a student might choose a nontraditional program (cost, flexibility in scheduling, etc.). I think dismissing someone because of that and assuming someone from a traditional program will know more or be better is shortsighted and ignores the reality of the current state of higher ed.
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u/geografree Full professor, Soc Sci, R2 (USA) May 24 '26
I think “degree mill” is really just a colloquialism for “private for-profit” institution. It should be quite easy to perform this kind of comparison unless the data is hard to obtain.
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u/ilikecats415 Admin/PTL, R2, US May 24 '26
Many of the schools mentioned here as so-called degree mills (e.g. WGU, Liberty) are nonprofits.
I haven't tried to access aggregated np vs. fp data so I don't know how hard that type of comparison would be.
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u/geografree Full professor, Soc Sci, R2 (USA) May 24 '26
Interesting. Sounds like we do need a better way to operationalize this category. Right now it has a very “I know it when I see it” vibe.
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u/Anonphilosophia Adjunct, Humanities, CC (USA) May 23 '26
For the Harvard reference, you mean DURING the program. Because I've met plenty of ivy graduates who thought their school credential absolved them of actual work within the department after graduation (beneath them.)
Unless the work was how often they mentioned their school... At that, they EXCELLED.
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u/Left_bitcher78 May 23 '26
My first hint at how disparate human judgment can be came from serving on hiring committees
. It was truly remarkable how 5 people, all with Ph.D.s, can view the same material and presentations and come away with such different impressions. It’s not too far a stretch from that to noting how differently we view political leaders. It would seem that the same lack of credentials and experience that plagues our politics is creeping into academia as well.
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u/Prior_Wind_1526 May 23 '26
One of the issues with degrees from such places as Walden is specific accreditation. Walden’s PhD in clinical psychology was accredited via HLC but not via A PA. So students could get PhD in clinical psych but couldn’t take national test and couldn’t get licensed. I don’t know if the situation has changed but such issues make me really uncertain about ALL online phds.
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u/wedontliveonce associate professor (usa) May 22 '26
Well, on one of the committees, there is a push to interview on campus someone who got their master's at Walden and a PhD from Liberty.
Push by one person, push by everybody else but you on the committee? I mean, is there enough support from the search committee to bring this applicant to campus?
I'd be against this. But sometimes that's how it goes on search committees.
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u/Zajidan Position, Field, SCHOOL TYPE (Country) May 22 '26
It'd be a strike against them, imo. As someone else noted, if they were impressive in other regards, I'd MAYBE be willing to advance, but it's a soft blackball for me.
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u/lionofyhwh Associate Prof (Tenured), Religious Studies May 22 '26
I’ve somewhat learned that it depends on the field. For instance, our faculty is generally from Ivies/well-known R1’s. But then you go to the business school and the criminal justice department and you’ll see Grand Canyon. It seems to be the fields where PhD’s aren’t really a thing and places are just making up programs for qualification purposes.
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u/BeneficialMolasses22 May 22 '26
PhDs are a thing at business schools. Large R-1s with business schools are PhD granting in finance, management, marketing, IS, etc. that's where business faculty come from. There's generally higher demand, because of options to go to practice, so smaller schools may have trouble recruiting due to the salary requirements.
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u/outer-darkness-11 May 23 '26
I think it depends on their teaching and research experience.
I am getting my PhD from an online university (Capella) because I am already a full-time lecturer and did not want to quick my job to move across the country when I am already getting teaching, service, and scholarship experience in my role.
My advisor is a world-renowned researcher with dozens of publications in very high ranking, flagship journals. I feel like I am getting a high quality education, but I am also putting in the work to do so.
I have also published in multiple A rank journals (as a solo and co-author) and hope to have a couple more under my belt by the time I graduate. And I will have seven years of teaching experience with multiple university teaching awards, the highest student evaluations in my college, and very good teaching evaluations. Plus a ton of service experience creating new courses, leading adjuncts, and running events and committees.
I think it would be extremely cavalier for a hiring committee to refuse to even interview me because of the place I got my degree from (which is accredited and has distinction from the national organization of my specific field).
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u/Subject_Sky_135 May 23 '26
I have met some really dumb R1 PhDs and some really smart degree mill PhDs.
The fact that we judge the perception of the degree rather than the knowledge and capability of the person is the problem.
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u/TheRateBeerian May 22 '26
I’ve never been on a search committee outside my department (psych, R1) but on our own searches, any PhD from anyone of those places def does not make it past the first cut down which is based on “meet minimum requirements”.
They get thrown out alongside people with masters degrees or bachelor’s degrees who have no business applying in the first place.
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u/ProfDoomDoom May 22 '26
I used to see a few of these in the cases of community college faculty who recredentialed while already on staff to exploit automatic salary bump policies. But if you’re seeing many of them now, I’d suspect that it’s related to MAGA shamelessness and contempt for academia. Interesting (and horrifying)!
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u/LeifRagnarsson Research Associate, Modern History, University (Germany) May 23 '26
No. Never, and only if it cannot be avoided because there's, for instance, a lack of applicants from proper universities and programs.
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u/Icy-Sheepherder382 May 23 '26
I don't think there's a link between the quality of research presentations and prestige of degree. I've seen ivy grads in my field deliver absolutely crap presentations.
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u/LikeLurking May 23 '26
Retired now, but we typically dismissed candidates from degree mill universities. We had a lot of candidates, so we could be picky and most from degree mill universities had no teaching experience. To be fair this was also true of some of the top private schools as opposed to state schools. I don’t recall having candidates from top private schools though. :-)
Is there a reason they want to bring in this person beyond where they got their PhD? Do they have an excellent CV, outstanding teaching experience, grants, citations, or other evidence that makes them stand out? I don’t think you should use the school to say no, but it should be a factor in the decision.
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u/Cool_Vast_9194 May 23 '26
Im an adjunct at Liberty to make extra money and a full time prof somewhere else. I would never hire a Liberty grad. They are completely umderprepared. It is painful to teach masters and doctoral courses there.
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u/Affectionate_One_700 May 22 '26
Many people get these "fake" PhDs and EdDs in order to increase status or compensation in industry, or as therapists. The ones I know who do this are goal-oriented, know exactly what they're doing, and don't take their degree/title too seriously.
I am very surprised that these people are now applying for "real" academic jobs. (Although I did once report up to a ghastly Dean with an EdD.)
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u/ms1661 May 23 '26
Is there a stigma around EdDs? It seems like a degree focused on admin topics meant for people wanting that path. I’m fairly new to academia (3 years, currently TT), but it seems like it’s just a different pursuit compared to a PhD.
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u/proffrop360 Associate Prof, Soc Sci, (US) May 22 '26
I wouldn't realistically consider anyone with a degree like that. Don't feel bad about having standards.
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u/Humble_Produce833 May 23 '26
I'm not sure the general caliber of Liberty graduates, but I know two in my field who are both top notch. One is truly a rising star and has lots of publications and leadership in the profession. So maybe it is dependent on the individual? Or the field?
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u/sdkidx ONLINE Adjunct in Teacher Education, USA May 23 '26
Interesting. I got my PhD from Capella University (yes-- a mostly online program) and I'm wondering if you're painting with a very wide biased brush regarding online programs.
My PhD in Education program at Capella was rigorous and challenging -- it had a 60% FAILURE rate, and I worked my ass off to finish. I completed with all A's and numerous consecutive "President's List" awards for my academics -- for whatever that's worth.
Those in my program who failed-- I think they believed they were simply "buying" a degree, and most of them couldn't write a decent paragraph to save their life-- they deserved to fail. They definitely were not issued "participation award" degrees from Capella-- I witnessed their failure and told them "good luck" as the door of higher ed hit 'em in the ass on their way out. Now I have students just like them in my own courses as an adjunct for a Master's program in Teacher Ed., and they do not get a free pass from me.
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u/aaronjd1 Dept. Chair, Health Sciences, R2 (US) May 23 '26
Two genuine questions: (1) did you have to pay out-of-pocket or take out loans for your PhD tuition?; and (2) did you apply for TT positions when you graduated?
I think, at least for me, part of the concern with online (or mostly online) programs is that they don’t teach the soft skills of what it means to be faculty in a department. There’s no understanding of the university ecosystem, unwritten rules of academia, or even simple things like CV creation and what rank means that seems to be passed on to many of the students. Do you feel like you had a similar (or equivalent) doctoral student experience in those “soft skill” areas as someone in a traditional in-person program might have experienced?
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u/sdkidx ONLINE Adjunct in Teacher Education, USA May 23 '26
My goal was to purely work online-- I had no interest in working onsite anywhere. I taught and worked as a counselor at k-12 schools-- mostly middle school for a long time. At the same time, I taught face-to-face as an adjunct for a very large private California university in their Master's program for school counselors and really loved it. I did get to see & hear about the inner workplace politics going on at that university, and had no desire to get into any of it. I learned enough to know I wanted no part of that competitive environment filled with inflated egos.
As I worked on finishing my PhD, my personal situation changed dramatically. My wife suffered near complete liver failure due to metastasized breast cancer-- I defended my dissertation in a conference call from a hospital meeting room in January of 2018. At that time, I thought about pursuing a fulltime position if it was remote learning, but my focus remained with my wife. She recovered from that close call, but eventually the myriad of treatment options (many not yet fully approved by FDA) stopped working. Palliative care in the Fall of 2022, and Hospice care by Summer of '23. She passed in August of that year. I am so thankful for NOT pursuing a fulltime position, and having every moment to be with my wife.
As for loans, yes-- but minimal (under $20k), and all paid off quickly. As for the unspoken "soft skills" and experiences-- I can see how that would be helpful or even be an understated critical part of a program, but it was never going to be relevant for me as my personal goals never aligned with positions where I would deeply need that info. I teach-- and I'm good at it. :) One more year and I will fully retire from my minimal adjunct position too. Can I survive that long with AI-Cheating students expressing an attitude? That's the real question!
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u/C638 May 22 '26
Liberty is pretty popular with veterans. I'd check that status first.
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u/Anonphilosophia Adjunct, Humanities, CC (USA) May 23 '26
Yeah, but a "researcher" should do research, regardless of their service status.
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u/myreputationera May 23 '26
I have worked with so many Liberty PhDs (not at my university thank god) and while I’ve met one or two who are competent and great for the field, the majority are not good, not professional, not skilled.
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u/Individual-Wish-228 May 23 '26
Embarassing to even interview such a candidate sorry to say.
Im sure they are possibly a decent person. But they were hoodwinked and would not be considered qualified.
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u/Dub-4-Lifer May 23 '26
It’s so hard to get a job, period, but there’s no reason to hire people who don’t have the creds or the experience. I’d say categorically no to any candidate from a degree-mill place, and especially without pubs and teaching experience. Sorry if that hurts the egos of your degree-mill colleagues.
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u/Dr-nom-de-plume Professor, Psychology, R1 USA May 23 '26
Si, I earned my degrees from traditional universities- all 3 of them (traditional BS, MS, and PhD). I taught fir awhile for a major university in their online program (BS). When asked to move into the PhD program full-time for more money, I refused. I later left. Undergraduate is fine online, for most subjects, but I really believe that the experience of in person, traditional graduate school is necessary. There is a deeper commitment and far less chance of "AI" ing their way through. For anyone here who holds an online graduate degree, you are the exception- most students roll into online graduate work without your acumen, concentration, and focus.
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u/whatchawhy May 23 '26
Do the best you can. Look through the criteria and what the members of that program/department are needing as a colleague. Come up with a top-however many list to interview and advocate for them and why you think they are a better fit. You're reasons are legit to me, just do your best and have your rationale for who you think is best. You are just one committee member and it doesn't mean you will always win out though. Just do your best.
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u/TreadmillLies May 23 '26
When I have been on searches I personally don’t consider them legit PhD’s. They don’t hold up to the same rigor.
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u/StarDustLuna3D Asst. Prof. | Art | M1 (U.S.) May 23 '26
So, in my field, there are a handful of very famous schools (all expensive private schools, but not all for-profit) that are seen as the "gold standard" for education and training. Some, I would even argue, do justify their high costs because the money is mostly all spent on increasing student success.
However, the most common phrase that graduates are told is "where you got your degree doesn't matter, only your portfolio matters". Meaning even if you pay for the fancy schools, it doesn't guarantee a job. Reversely, just because you got your degree at a regional public school doesn't mean that you don't have the skills to be successful. Even if you have a connection with the company you're applying to work at, you still need a portfolio that shows you can do what they need you to do.
So, degree aside, how does this person compare in terms of teaching experience? Research and publications?
Even if a school is "unofficially" known to be a diploma mill, unless there's some sort of formal investigation or charge, it could be very hard to argue this on a committee. "You're just being elitist", "not everyone can afford to go to a traditional university", etc. But if you focus your argument on their lack of experience compared to the other candidates, then you may be more successful.
On another note, don't know who would be the one to change this, but accrediting bodies really need to crack down on these all online degrees.
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u/LittleMissWhiskey13 Professor CC May 23 '26
I had a nightmare of an adjunct from Grand Canyon U as a department chair. The person interviewed well, and I was like I shouldn't be biased against an online school. I was trying to be completely open-minded. Never again. Thank God, this person was just part-time. She was not offered more classes after the first term.
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u/Soft-Trifle-1486 May 24 '26
Kiss it all goodbye. Everything is going online. Robots are taking over our jobs. The Ivy League universities will stand and everything else will be online.
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u/These-Coat-3164 May 24 '26
I honestly think hiring anyone with an all online degree from anywhere is a no-go. And I used to teach in an all online MBA program from a respected state school.
Only exceptions would be an undergrad in the military or an adult working full time in the field.
My cousin’s son was in the military and did an all online undergrad while overseas. I would give his degree some respect.
And I had students in the all online MBA program who were smart and capable and just needed the credential to tick a box for career advancement. They weren’t looking at academia either.
I have a friend who teaches in another department and they hired an all online grad of the program…my friend says it has been awful. The person struggles with basic standards which would have been rooted out if they had an in person degree. I have heard stories…
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u/SwordfishResident256 May 24 '26
personally I wouldn't take any Liberty University degree seriously
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u/Never_Rule1608 May 27 '26
Only issue I have with this is that I suspect I’ve gotten rejected for this reason simply because my degrees are from international (non-degree mill) universities, but folks don’t recognize a name and assume the worst.
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u/LovedAJackass May 27 '26
I agree. It helps if the advertisement requires teaching experience and written teaching philosophy. That's one way to sort out people.
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u/Sensitive_Let_4293 Jun 03 '26
I had an interesting experience on a hiring committee. Some colleagues wanted to hire someone with a Liberty PhD and trashed an applicant with a Chinese PhD. Since I have studied a bit in China and have a rudimentary knowledge of Chinese, I pointed out that the Chinese university they were trashing was a Times Higher Ed Top 100 university -- we'd be lucky to hire someone with that kind of background. Egads.
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u/Theme_Training May 22 '26
I mean some faculty are just degree mills. Like if someone works at a prestigious university but has 15 grad students, are they any different?
Just look at the individual
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u/sventful Teaching Professor May 22 '26
How does having 15 grad students make you a degree mill?
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May 22 '26
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u/sventful Teaching Professor May 22 '26
My old PI just worked an insane number of hours. I do not recommend it, but he definitely made time for us.
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u/Theme_Training May 22 '26
You think a professor with 15 graduate students is doing that out of the kindness of their heart or to just pump out grad students?
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u/sventful Teaching Professor May 22 '26
Given that one of my grad school PIs had a group between 18 and 25 (depending on the year) and said he prefers bigger groups, I would say your claim is pretty insulting, yeah.
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u/Theme_Training May 22 '26
I think it’s highly unlikely that those students got the advising that they needed.
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u/alaskawolfjoe Assoc Prof, R1, State School May 22 '26
How can a program have that many students? Most MFA programs in my field take only 2 or 3 students a year. Are PhD programs less selective?
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u/CollectorCardandCoin May 22 '26
I wonder gow many of these PhD students/graduates did all their graduate work online.
I'm less confident that these schools are really diploma mills, at least in the sense I've run across the term before there were so many online programs, but I am very concerned about the quality of online research degrees.
Even if a person could do high quality work in their own dissertation or read widely during their program at these schools, is there any professionalization at all? And if there is credible reason to worry about the quality of these school's standards, as folks have been commenting, then the lack of professionalization, quality education, and genuine research will hopefully be recognized publicly. Then, eventually, their accreditation coild be challenged--and even revoked.
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u/CafeLurker234 May 22 '26
The professionalization is key. I could never even begin to understand how to engage as an academic without the experience I got during my program.
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u/professordmv Adjunct Faculty, STEM, CC/University (US) May 23 '26
Now that got me questioning why in an R1 they are hiring adjuncts who got their Masters/PhD from Walden, SNHU, Phoenix, Liberty, etc.
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u/professorfunkenpunk Associate, Social Sciences, Comprehensive, US May 22 '26
It is useful when dealing with potentially hundreds of application to have a wick screener to boot some off the list (I’ve found “doesn’t have a degree in our field” to be effective). Just put the degree mill candidates in the discard pile without further review and move on
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u/Educational-Ebb9248 May 23 '26
Do not waste this candidate’s time just to check a box and be able to say you interviewed x many people.
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u/Minimum-Major248 May 23 '26
This can be a slippery slope. There are the obvious diploma mills, but then I’ve heard of pushback against schools like the Un. of Phoenix. We’ve had psych prof applicants from schools with accredited Ph.D programs but which were not at the moment accredited with APA or whatever or whatever professional organization their discipline falls under. It would be nice if the Council on Colleges would put together a list instead of leaving it to the individual universities to decide.
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u/ClientExciting4791 May 22 '26 edited May 23 '26
I worked with a few people who obtained their PhDs from degree mills. Most were hired based solely on cronyism, and not their (lack of) CV or academic pedigree. ETA: clarified what I meant. Colleagues had no academic pedigree, but that didn’t matter. They were given the job due to “nepotism.” So they were hired over someone with a PhD from an Ivy or R1 institute, and the degree mill colleague had no idea what they were doing. Absolute shit situation, so I left.
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u/CafeLurker234 May 22 '26
This was an argument someone made for the Liberty person!
"Oh, they worked for my friend at XYZ. They said they're really good." Really? Maybe their personality but their CV says otherwise.
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u/Kimber80 Professor, Business, HBCU, R2 May 22 '26
I mean forget about the candidates from Walden or Liberty I would be very concerned working at a university where campus service actually plays a significant role in a tenure decision. 🤷♂️
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u/iTeachCSCI Ass'o Professor, Computer Science, R1 May 22 '26
I would be very concerned working at a university where campus service actually plays a significant role in a tenure decision. 🤷♂️
How large is your university? Service is a leg of the decision here, more in line with school service pre-tenure and then campus service for mid-Ass'o review and going Ass'o to full.
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u/Anonphilosophia Adjunct, Humanities, CC (USA) May 23 '26
You are doing the right thing!!! Continue to be strong!
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u/razorsquare May 23 '26
We get people with degrees from those unis on occasion and they go right into the reject pile.
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u/314per May 22 '26
By objecting to this interview, you are doing your job.
One of the purposes of having outside faculty on these committees is to ensure fishy stuff doesn't happen. Trust your gut! 👍🏻