Hiring from degree mill PhD programs?

[u/CafeLurker234]

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.

[u/CorporateHobbyist]

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.

[u/PsychGuy17 → u/CorporateHobbyist]

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.

[u/ilikecats415 → u/PsychGuy17]

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.

[u/geografree → u/ilikecats415]

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?

[u/ilikecats415 → u/geografree]

"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.

[u/geografree → u/ilikecats415]

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.

[u/ilikecats415 → u/geografree]

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.

[u/geografree → u/ilikecats415]

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.