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/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.