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Hmm … So You Say You're a CardinalMay, 2003 At least since Jay Gatsby tried to impress Daisy by claiming to be an Oxford man, a few prominent Americans are disrobed each year when the world finds out they lied about having an impressive educational credential. Resume padding took on new financial seriousness last year, however, when the stock of Veritas Software lost more than $1 billion on news that its chief financial officer, Kenneth Lonchar, was resigning because he had claimed an accounting degree from Arizona State and an MBA from Stanford, neither of which he had earned. In an area like the Silicon Valley with many Stanford degree holders and where people often break the ice by discussing school ties, Slate magazine noted, the lie about the Stanford credential was particularly brazen. Yet, enough people falsify their educational credentials that some employers and employment agencies deem it worthwhile to verify degrees before making hires. The office of Stanford Registrar Roger Printup receives about a thousand verification requests a month, but double that in the weeks following commencement. The University recently made the chore easier by outsourcing credential verification to the national Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit association founded initially to track student loans and current enrollments. The automated online service makes it possible to verify a degree from any of 200 institutions at any hour of the day or night with a credit card. (Repeat corporate customers pay $5 per check; one-time checks cost $6.50 at www.degreeverify.org.) |
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