It was over a decade ago when a visionary team of corporate attorneys and military veterans took a clinical look at the legislation that governs degree granting institutions – and took the educational establishment by storm.
Why?
The team was frustrated by narrow minded attitudes and a wall of ignorance and flawed understandings which saw the résumés of highly capable individuals, especially veterans with priceless experience, automatically filtered out of the running for jobs for which they were amply suited. New technology had seen the ‘human’ element of ‘Human Resource Management’ replaced by OCR – Optical Character Recognition.
Résumés were read by soulless machines and those that did not contain the words ‘college degree’ or ‘university degree’ were automatically rejected and people with years of valuable experience did not even get to face an interview. This led to employers losing out as much as applicants did. Something had to be done.
Innovative Solution….
As corporate attorneys, the team looked at what legally constituted a degree. They ascertained that legislation varied widely and that there was ample legal scope for private colleges and universities to operate as legit degree granting bodies perfectly legally.
Legitimate college degrees can be granted according to privately agreed criteria.
Accreditation, a poorly understood area of legislation, which many erroneously believe is obligatory and guarantees program quality is in fact voluntary and its principle function is to allow access to public funding with little regard to educational quality. Private degree granting institutions that did not wish to access public funding, for instance Title IV Federal Funding in the US, were free to establish their own curriculum parameters and criteria for graduation. Private Accreditation allowed private degrees, granted by private colleges and universities to fulfill the legal definition of an ‘accredited degree’.
Soon a network of private colleges, schools and universities from across the globe had been recruited and had agreed to conform to broadly similar and compatible legal structures and educational programs. The term ‘loophole degree’ was coined: one that came from a private degree granting institution that was legally formed and operating in such a way as to make the granting of a degree legal, whereas it would otherwise be illegal. It is this definition which differentiates legit degrees from fake degrees.
Winning formula…
A powerful combination of airtight legality, confidentiality, low cost, generous credits for prior learning and life experience, dedicated professional customer care, simplicity and speed produced a winning formula.
Within six months, the team had launched www.instantdegrees.com.
Despite naysayers questioning the ethics of the project, denouncing it as a probable scam and predicting a short lifespan, the website has been in continuous operation for over a decade. This would have been an impossible feat had the site been a fraud. The service has succeeded because the corporate attorneys who manage it have clearly established the difference between a ‘fake degree’ and a legit college degree, obtained through clever use of applicable legislation. The service has spawned many copy-cat operations.
“The name ‘Instant Degrees’ has become generic to this industry.” explains Kit Anderson, the company’s Client Services Manager.
“Our business model has been emulated (often badly) and many of these sites have chosen names deliberately similar to ours.”
Contrary to misperceptions, it is not possible to simply ‘buy’ a college degree from Instantdegrees.com . However, applicants can legitimately trade prior learning, life and work experience for credits to be recognized as a degree in a process that is designed to be as simple, quick and economical as possible. It is physically and technically impossible to proceed with an application without formal and legally binding statements to that effect. Because of this the company is proud of its satisfaction rate of better than 99.9% which has been maintained into its 11th year of operation.
The system is finely tuned, with degree approval being obtained within 24 hours and the actual diploma being shipped within 5 working days by Registered Mail.
“We are not called ‘Instant Degrees’ for nothing!” Kit Anderson exclaims.
Website: www.instantdegrees.com
