Is the accredited life experience degree real?
Simply put, no, the “accredited life experience degree” is not a real certificate, which means that it is not issued by a recognized, physically-existing and reputable educational institution. The idea of selling such a phony degree, however, came from a real practice of online and traditional universities, who wanted to help experienced people graduate faster and who therefore took their achievements into account when calculating the number of credits they still need in order to graduate.
Who sells them?
Life experience degrees are usually sold by diploma mills impersonating real universities. Because the aim of such a diploma mill is to trick as many people as possible into buying a phony degree, they pretend to be an online educational institution that rewards mature individuals with diplomas for their “life experience”. To this end, the “students” must put together a portfolio of their experience, while perhaps also passing some basic-knowledge tests. Upon the completion of this process, the “graduates” receive their life experience degrees. The issue is that these degrees are just as useless as any fancy piece of paper you would print at home. They have no verification and no legal records supporting them, which means that they cannot be used in an employment situation without putting your career at great risk.
Why are they accredited?
If you thought that accreditation was the ultimate way to tell the difference between real schools and phony ones, think again. Diploma mills have gone so far into their business that they now establish accreditation mills as well, that is illegitimate organizations that pretend to hand out accreditation, but that represent no actual legal or social authority. This way, a diploma mill can claim that it holds accreditation and, if the student is naive enough not to check their claims, they can easily grow their profits. Especially considering the fact that employment market is becoming more and more competitive, earning a degree just for your experience is definitely a tempting option, and many people forget that it might cause more trouble than good in the long run.
How can you avoid them?
If, nonetheless, you understand that collaborating with a diploma mill can hinder the development of your career rather than aid it, there are ways to weed them out and to reach reliable degree providers instead. To begin with, you should avoid all websites that claim to be universities themselves, as a reliable provider will be forthcoming with the service they provide. Secondly, whenever you notice the option to purchase a “life experience degree”, be it accredited or not, you are most likely dealing with a diploma mill. Finally, you should also avoid websites that claim they can provide you with a degree from very well-established institutions such as Stanford or Harvard, since these schools would never agree to such an exchange. They are obviously trying to fool you and, if you buy their products, you will only waste your money on useless papers instead of receiving a real degree from a reputable, less known school.
In case you still need to purchase a degree fast but you would like to avoid diploma mills, you can always get in touch with a reliable provider such as ourselves and place an order for your preferred product.