Sheila Danzig

New York Times recently ran an article exposing the degree mill empire. These are companies that sell fraudulent college degrees to patrons. Axact, a Pakistani company with over 2,000 and a highly respected status was recently exposed as a degree mill empire with 370 fake college websites posing as legitimate schools offering legitimate degrees. Patrons can purchase degrees from these fake schools and present them falsely as authentic credentials. Businesses and companies that hire foreign employees are at particular risk of accidentally hiring someone with false credentials. This is because US employers don’t tend to be familiar with colleges and universities in other countries. Also, because of the vast discrepancies between educational systems across the world, it is hard for lay persons to tell whether something is simply different or actually fraudulent. For this reason, before hiring someone – be it a foreign employee or someone from the country your business is based in – have their credentials evaluated. There’s no point in missing out on skilled workers from around the world because of a few bad apples. Since you’ll need to get a credential evaluation for a visa petition anyway, it pays to do it early on before committing to the entire petition process. That way, you’ll have your employee’s credential evaluation ready when it comes time to submit your visa petition, and you’ll know right away whether or not their education is authentic. It’s international education experts who evaluate foreign degrees for US equivalence. These experts are familiar with colleges and universities in other countries and can discern the difference between something that’s just a different educational system or structure, and what’s actually fraud.]]>