One of the major fallouts of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the relaxation of the admission processes.&nbsp;During the pandemic, Universities around the world relaxed the requirements regarding the verification of documents by issuing institutions and third parties.&nbsp;&nbsp;These decisions were driven by the staff reductions in the admission offices and delays in visa processing, which put pressure to process international student applications rapidly to offset declines in revenues from domestic students.&nbsp;&nbsp;

The purpose of this article is to examine the regulations on credential verification and highlight the scope and the catalysts for the growing problem of fraudulent and fake credentials.&nbsp;The article analyzes the capacity for credential verification at the institutional and national levels and its limitations.&nbsp;&nbsp;Finally, the need and opportunity for a technological solution based on blockchain are outlined.

Regulations on Credential Verification

There are four sets of operating regulations on credential verification.&nbsp;

First, the regulations specific to international students and employees.&nbsp;US Immigration and Nationality Act § 274C make it unlawful to knowingly forge, counterfeit, alter, or falsely make any document in order to enter or remain in the United States and be eligible for various immigration-related benefits.&nbsp;&nbsp;Similarly, American International Recruitment Council (AIRC) has issued 2022 guidelines for international students that require admissions practices to be “based on academic performance.”&nbsp;Further decisions regarding admissions, including document translation and credit evaluation processes, are expected to have integrity and transparency of communication to the prospective students.&nbsp;

Second, the regulations specific to institutional and program-specific accreditation and quality standards.&nbsp;Academic integrity is the twin principle, along with academic freedom, guiding international accreditation and quality assurance standards and competitive rankings.&nbsp;&nbsp;The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.inqaahe.org/">International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies</a>&nbsp;underlines the “primacy of academic freedom and institutional integrity” in accreditation standards.&nbsp;Academic integrity furthers diversity and enhances access to education for all.&nbsp;&nbsp;Academic disintegrity includes tortious, fraudulent, or criminal acts or breaches of fiduciary duty in upholding values that are at the heart of the educational process.&nbsp;

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO] issued an advisory statement in 2016 for “Combatting Corruption and Enhancing Integrity: A Contemporary Challenge for the Quality and Credibility of Higher Education”.&nbsp;The Advisory statement sets an expectation for Higher Ed institutions to be accountable to the public in terms of transparency and integrity of their own activities.&nbsp;&nbsp;The accountability includes preparedness to challenge fraudulent practices and proactiveness in monitoring potential misconduct and academic corruption, such as countering degree and accreditation mills.&nbsp;

Program-specific accreditation bodies also set expectations for value-based admissions.&nbsp;&nbsp;For instance, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) expects appropriate policies and procedures that attest to ethical behavior, as well as a mechanism for identifying and remediating behavior.

Third, the regulations specific to diploma mills and fake credential providers.&nbsp;&nbsp;Under US federal law, these regulations are state-level responsibilities.&nbsp;However, only half-a-dozen states, including Oregon, North Dakota, Indiana, Wyoming, and New Jersey, have issued regulations on these matters.&nbsp;&nbsp;Oregon, for instance, requires institutions to clearly communicate their accreditation status.&nbsp;&nbsp;North Dakota makes it illegal for an institution to offer phony degrees.&nbsp;

Fourth, the regulations specific to diversity, inclusion, and equity.&nbsp;&nbsp;When the institutions are not vigilant about instances of academic fraud in the admission and hiring processes, they impede access for diverse groups of qualified students and divert resources to unqualified students.&nbsp;&nbsp;Under such conditions, the institutions suffer a loss of reputation and are also liable to lawsuits from those who suffer potential loss.

Scope of the Tainted Credentials Problem

There are two types of tainted credentials: fake, fabricated credentials from real institutions and faulty credentials from fake universities, known as the diploma or degree mills.&nbsp;In 2005, the faulty credential market was estimated at US$1 billion.&nbsp;&nbsp;With the growth in international student enrollments and inflation, that value has risen manifold since then.&nbsp;In 2016, for instance, the US government charged an individual for running a diploma mill that fraudulently collected US$140 million from students.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, in 2012, Dickinson State in North Dakota found through its internal audit that only 10 of its 400+ matriculated foreign students did not have questionable qualifications such as altered transcripts.&nbsp;&nbsp;After being sanctioned by its accreditor Higher Learning Commission, the university had to revamp its international admission process with an eye for integrity.&nbsp;&nbsp;Similarly, The New York Times reported that in 2016, Western Kentucky University had to suspend more than half of its graduate international students because of fraudulent credentials.&nbsp;In 2011, the University of Wales in the UK was forced to be liquidated due to the detrimental impact on its reputation.&nbsp;

The imperative for ensuring the academic integrity of credentials is relevant not only for the admission of students but also for the hiring of employees.&nbsp;&nbsp;In August 2022, the University of St. Thomas had to fire the dean of its business school two years into a contract for faking his undergraduate as well as graduate degree credentials after realizing that he did not know even the basics of quality assurance. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The institution from whom he claimed to have a bachelor’s degree offered only a high school diploma and the one from where he purported to have a doctoral degree did not offer any doctoral degrees.

Catalysts for Tainted Credentials

There are three major catalysts for tainted credentials.&nbsp;

First, technology is making it easier to secure fraudulent credentials online and fabricate credentials without being detected easily.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Second, most industrial nations are facing a decline in the college-going domestic population.&nbsp;Higher educational institutions are facing significant pressures of declining enrollments and escalating costs.&nbsp;&nbsp;There are strong incentives to grow the international student population, making the institutions vulnerable to fraud and manipulation.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Third, the educational and employment opportunities in emerging markets have become more constrained after COVID-19.&nbsp;The interest to secure admissions and pursue degrees from the industrialized nations remains strong and has become stronger.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Also, as work and education have transitioned online, it has become easier to fall behind fake diploma mills that have virtually no classes.&nbsp;&nbsp;Additionally, the rising costs of education and the employer's expectations for post-secondary education make it attractive to buy mid-level credentials for a few hundred dollars.

Capacity for Managing the Tainted Credentials

To ensure document authenticity, universities such as Wichita State contact the issuing institutions, spit tests signatures to see if they smear, and black lights document doctoring.&nbsp;&nbsp;However, manual integrity-assurance processes are prone to error and require a high degree of proficiency on part of the evaluators.

The national governments are being forced to invest in entrusting unqualified visa officers with the role of verifying credential authenticity.&nbsp;For instance,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/australian-visa-grants-indian-subcontinent-students-plummet">in Australia</a>, fewer than half of students from South Asia are issued vocational study visas, primarily because of fraudulent documents.&nbsp;&nbsp;In 2022, the issue rate in Australia for degree study visas from South Asia fell from the historical 80% to about 55% with the explosion of fraudulent documents post-COVID.&nbsp;However, the manual method for authentication of degrees has added to the visa processing times and costs and has pushed the students—both qualified and unqualified—to other nations.&nbsp;Some nations have decided to not bother about credential authentication given budget cuts and staff shortages in their immigration offices.&nbsp;Others have highly volatile enforcements, as they become stringent when their requests for staff additions are approved by the parliaments and lax when the budgets are cut.

In a 2020 survey of one-hundred admission officers in Canada,&nbsp;<a href="https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/113481">Jamie Carmichael and Sarah Eaton</a>&nbsp;found that fewer than half were confident in detecting fake documents and only two-thirds had received training on it.&nbsp;90% were constrained by workload issues in solving the issue, 80% by resources allocated to the admissions, and 84% by staff turnover in admission offices.&nbsp;Further, more than a third of their institutions did not verify the credentials of the employees at the time of hiring.&nbsp;

Calling for a Technological Solution

There is an urgent need for academic institutions to adopt a blockchain-based technological solution for ensuring the integrity of the admission processes.&nbsp;&nbsp;Such integrity is critical for the quality of the educational experience.&nbsp;&nbsp;Ill-prepared students force the faculty to dilute the quality of teaching and have a negative impact on the learning of their peers.&nbsp;&nbsp;They barely pass their programs, hiding behind the teamwork of motivated students and using fraudulent means to complete their assignments and exams.&nbsp;&nbsp;After graduation, they get into various professions where they put the health and safety of everyone at risk.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The universities are passports to success for everyone and will retain their credibility only if they ensure the credential integrity of their student body, staff, faculty, and administrators.&nbsp;