The legitimacy of Michael Hannigan's Ph.D. remains in question, but a new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office sheds new light on diploma mills and their easily obtained products.

Robert J. Cramer, managing director of the office's special investigations unit, presented his report to Congress on Thursday. The unit found that fraudulent diplomas were easy to purchase and sell, and that at least one senior-level Homeland Security official held such a degree.

Diploma mills are nontraditional, unaccredited post-secondary institutions offering cheap degrees. The schools often offer academic credit for life experience and have little or no classroom instruction.

Fake doctorates could be easily purchased, the office found, for about $1,500 over the Internet from a diploma mill called "Degrees-R-Us." Posing as a student an undercover investigator purchased from the company a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and a Master of Science degree in Medical Technology.

Both degrees were awarded by Lexington University, a school supposedly in Middletown, N.Y. For an extra fee, the company provided a "telephone verification service" that potential employers could use to verify Lexington awarded the degree.

Next, the GAO set up its own diploma mill, the Y'Hica Institute for the Visual Arts, a graduate school purportedly in London. With a bogus consulting firm, a Web site, a telephone number and a post office box, the school was accepted under the Federal Family Education Loan Program.

Finally, the accountability office investigated the possibility that diploma mills had awarded degrees to federal officials. After interviewing schools, students and government agencies, the office found that at least 450 employees had fake degrees, including senior-level officials at the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

Perhaps more disturbing, the GAO believes many agencies are unable to accurately determine how many of their employees have diploma mill degrees. Many agencies have faulty records with misspellings, and no verification process exists allowing them to receive accreditation information.

Another reason, the report suggests, could be that many diploma mills use names similar to legitimate institutions. For example, the unaccredited Hamilton University of Evanston, Wyo., has a name reminiscent of Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y.

The agencies, concluded Cramer, "likely understate the extent the federal government has paid for degrees from diploma mills and other unaccredited schools."

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