Fake online universities are handing out degrees based on life experience. One of the recipients is a dog.

Ihadn’t seen much of Bob in recent weeks, so stopped in to see how he’s been holding up since a certain national broadcaster broke the story about fake university degrees last month.

If you recall, Bob runs Bob’s (hypothetical) Bait Shop and Pizzeria, providing a valuable (hypothetical) service to those stopping and waiting in the twice-daily traffic crush along a certain major highway in the area.

When we last checked in on March 5, he was considering expanding the (hypothetical) business.

Anticipating increased rush-hour traffic stoppages approaching the highway, he had been thinking about applying for accreditation for his latest — possibly last — business idea. His reasoning was that those tired of sitting in nearby traffic could wait it out by grabbing a bite, buying some red wrigglers, and starting and finishing a degree from Bob’s University, Bait Shop and Pizzeria.

“The idea was to offer degrees based on actual life and work experience,” he says. “After successfully completing the requirements, you could achieve an experiential degree” … whatever that means.

Although he was only toying with the idea of degrees in, say, fly-fishing, dough-twirling or pepperoni-cutting, Bob didn’t pursue the dream.

“At a certain point, time invested in paperwork outweighs any possible benefit to, well, anybody, in this case,” he says.

Having an establishment accredited as a university or even a private school in B.C. is no easy, pizza-in-thepark-while-fishing endeavour. It requires months of effort, evidence of standards applied, and reams of documentation duly recorded and passed along. Site visits, inspections and interviews also take place.

Even if his course model used the popular MOOC approach, it was too much to manage while manning pizza ovens and overseeing worm and maggot farms.

Many universities have started to offer MOOCs — massively open online courses — for both informal and some formal studies in recent years. Colwood’s Royal Roads University was one of the first post-secondary institutions in Canada to offer degree programs via both online coursework and onsite projects.

But it’s just as well Bob dropped that particular doughball. News broke last month that an overseas diploma mill is selling fake degrees to Canadians, Americans and who knows whom else. At least 800 Canadians are believed to have paid for and received bogus degrees in a range of fields.

Pakistan-based IT firm Axact was found to have been behind as many as 350 supposed schools selling degrees. It is likely not the only organization cranking out suspect credentials.

The schools come with names such as Almeda University, Ashwood University, King’s Lake University, Harvey University, Barkley University and the University of Renfrew. They operate only online, and although somebody might answer the phones and sound legit while guiding customers through the application process, none of the outed establishments has a physical address, real faculty members or accreditation.

The “schools” grant degrees based on life experience — for as little as a few hundred dollars or as many as several thousand. Associate, bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, as well as high school diplomas, can be had. Degrees are available in fields such as psychological counselling, computer science and theology, as well as regulated professions such as nursing, medicine, law and engineering. One recipient — a dog — received an associate degree in childhood development, based on the pet’s reallife “child-care responsibilities” and other experiences submitted by its owner, an investigative journalist.

Some recipients went on to work in those fields. Some used the degrees to defraud clients of money. Other recipients deny the degrees they obtained helped them get their jobs.

The internet’s ability to deliver customers, the challenges job-seekers face when corporate recruiters so often value degrees and certification over in-the-field experience, and even people’s desire to get something for a whole lot less time, effort and money than is required for a legitimate degree make fake diplomas a billiondollar industry.

As for Bob’s idea, he says: “If people want to learn to make or eat pizza or tie a fly, they don’t need a degree. They can take a MOOC. Me, I’ll stick to red wrigglers and pizza.”

The whole experience could be said to be a lesson in the School of Hard Knocks.