If you live in Mississippi and operate a diploma mill or other unaccredited “college”, you might want to find shelter.  It appears that the state of Mississippi is going to start cracking down on people doing just that.  What really caught my attention is the quote which pretty much acknowledges that Mississippi is a haven for such operations, and “virtually anyone who wanted to set up a college could…”

What’s more shocking is that the owner of the school in question in the article is unrepentant.  She claims that “the University of Oxford isn’t accredited.”  She conveniently leaves out that not only does Oxford not exist in the USA, Oxford is 912 years old and doesn’t operate from a mail drop in Mississippi.  Do these people have no shame?

I am very glad to see the state government cracking down on these people.  The subjects of this article seem to make a habit of moving from state to state until they aren’t hassled.  Now it appears that Mississippi (with some of the most lax laws in this area) is coming around.

In other diploma mill news, it looks like there may be some focus being placed on high schools that operate in the same way college diploma mills do.  Some college athletes are going to be affected by a crackdown in one particular high school diploma mill.  I certainly hope this is an isolated case.  It would be sad to see a “new breed” of diploma mill.

The bottom line is that it is going to take some real effort on the part of state governments to help eradicate our domain of these “institutions” that give a bad name to distance learning.  I am thrilled to see Mississippi doing just that.