By El Sistema
Published: May 1, 2009
Updated: May 1, 2009
Print    Email

I've seen a few emails hitting my spam box from this company. Ashwood University claims to offer an accredited degree based on your work or life experience. If you visit their website you can then choose which degree you want. The choices are from High School Diploma to a Doctorate Degree, just as long as you pay the fee.

Speaking of fees, you can even choose which GPA to attach to your newly purchased degree. They proudly offer you a wide range of grades and transcripts for nominal fees. Ashwood University is now offering you degree packages. You can buy a Bachelors, Masters and Doctorates for about $1500, which includes all transcripts.

In visiting their site, I was in communication with one of their staff. They claimed that their degrees are fully accredited by both the WOEAC and the BOUA. I was also told that I could back-date my degree to a previous year, how convenient.

It's important to note that this company states that they will send your transcripts to your employer, which includes your GPA. Thus, "helping. (sic) you build a positive impression on your employer or institute that your degree and all other credentials have been obtained from an authentic and recognized university." You see at this point, they have crossed a line. If you use any purchased degree to protray yourself with a higher education, you've just commited fraud. You can face criminal charges stemming from mail fraud and face civil lawsuits as such.

It gets better. The company owning the name Ashwood University cringed at the bad publicity and purchased the domain http://www.ashwooduniversityscam.com around January 2009 with a friendly looking lady on the main page. The site was hastily put together with terrible sentence structure. They've included just four testimonials from people across the country. All praising the life they have now that they've been "awarded" their degrees. Since the company was generous with giving the full name and location of these people, I looked them up. Albeit, the internet is limited, but none of these people exist in any registery within their city. Would a diploma mill also fake their testimonials?

Here's an interesting coincidence, all of the links listed: ashwooduniversity.net - ashwooduniversityscam.com - woeac.org - boua.org, not only are missing the typical .edu names, recognized by the U.S. Department of Commerce, but are all listed under private names and addresses. Which means the average person will not be able to locate a real address or contact.

What does this mean for you? If you decide to purchase a degree from this company, be sure to consider it a novelty item. Like a prop in a movie, useless in reality. You can never be awarded a life experience degree according to the U.S. Department of Education. Read up on that link and then head back to Ashwood University to chat with one of their helpful staff.

Discuss this article in the Forum!

View Comments (0)