Novelty Degrees

Misuse of Novelty Degrees Continues as People Struggle to Find Jobs

The popularity of fake degrees isn’t a new phenomenon. As long as there have been legitimate ways to quantify and qualify one’s educational experience, there have been people faking them. And those providing the resources for sale have long used legal loopholes like offering novelty degrees to get away with it.

The reason the issue is becoming ever more widespread is related to the effects of the current economy on the job market. A few years ago, employers were talent hunting and willing to overlook educational shortcomings in potential hirees, if they offered other assets. Right now, however, the market is so competitive that employers can simply discard resumes that don’t have a degree listed.

So more and more people are turning to novelty degrees. It’s not so much a matter of faking the experience or practical education for the job–after all, there’s no way to “fake” competency. Novelty degrees offer, instead, a way to get past degree requirements in order to get an interview and make an impression.

Another use for novelty degrees is competing for promotions and pay raises in one’s established career. Once again, it’s not a matter of pretending to know more than one does, but simply a way to make one’s actual knowledge seem more official.

The use of novelty degrees to get jobs and get ahead causes numerous difficulties. As already implied, fake degrees being passed off as real by people who are obviously qualified for the jobs or promotions attained calls into question the actual, practical value of getting degrees at all. It undermines the hard work of those who dedicate themselves to achieving actual academic accomplishments.

Not only that, since fake degrees are often attached to bogus universities that advertise as being “distance learning” institutions, they undermine the efforts of real colleges and universities that reach out to non-traditional students.