How to Detect a Fake College

It’s been said: “On the internet, noboby knows you are dog.” Students need simple tools to help them identify and avoid being trapped by the emerging fake colleges and university websites. The sole goal of those entities is to steal money from unsuspecting students. On August 14, 2025,  Inside Higher Education published an insightful article (“Inside a Network of Fake College Websites” by Josh Moody and Kathryn Palmer) highlighting how artificial intelligence is aiding the unscrupulous in creating fictional institutions. A college may look deceptively real, but is it a dog?

Today, let’s briefly explore tips for students to use in determining whether that website with a college name that sounds a bit like a place that I recognize is truly the path to a degree or the road to ruin. The focus will be on ‘institutions’ that claim to offer associates, bachelors, master’s, or doctoral degrees. Avoided will be the whole realm of entities that offer workforce certificates or credentials outside of the traditional degree structure. Unfortunately, those are less regulated and more confusing to navigate. That is a story for another day.

Check the Website Domain
In the United States, only accredited colleges and universities are eligible to use the .edu website domain. EDUCAUSE, a higher education non-profit, is in charge of who gets to use that web address and they jealously guard that responsibility. The Inside Higher Education article listed the URLs for several fake institutions that they found. Eight used the .university domain and 29 used .education. None of them use .edu. I checked and I can buy russpoulin.education for $47.99, the .university version for $85.99, and the .college version for the low, low price of $1.99 per year. The absence of a .edu domain is a simple red flag, but why would students know about higher education website naming conventions? 

Do a Web Search
I used AI to search for one of these colleges and my artificial intelligence agent told me that there was no such institution with that name. Some “institutions” were hard to find in a search, which indicates it is not a website with great traffic. Instead, the search presents the site for the institution being spoofed. Only 15 of the 37 listed in the Inside Higher Education had web addresses that are still operational. 

Search the College Scorecard
The U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard website is a great place to check for information about colleges and universities, such as if they even exist.

Look for Oddities on the Website
The Inside Higher Education article provided great examples of questionable content, such as the basketball player with obviously artificial superhero arms or text that is clunky,  repeated wording that was likely generated by artificial intelligence. Take time to explore the descriptions of the academic programs. A legitimate college has deep descriptions of each and every program. California Imperial University lists 70 majors, but provides no details beyond the title of each one. That same “institution” took the prize for odd wording by proclaiming on its accreditation page that it “Efficaciously Surpasses All of the Reviews and Examinations.” I have been in higher education a long time and never heard of anyone performing a task efficaciously. 

Examine Accreditation and State Approval Status
Students are vaguely conscious of a nebulous type of recognition given colleges and universities and that it is called “accreditation.” The fake colleges cite creatively-titled agencies. The New York University of Business and Technology lists a certification from CHE-A, which is a name very close to the actual accrediting body, but they rearrange the words in the name. To determine if an accrediting entity is real, check the Department of Education’s list of approved agencies. You can also search directly for accredited institutions on their site. The proliferation of references to international accrediting bodies probably indicates that a big target for these sites are international students who do not know how higher education works in the United States.

Beyond accreditation, a lesser-known barrier for institutions is that they must be approved by each state in which they operate or enroll students. There was no indication that such approval was obtained for these fake colleges. Actually, Durham University of North Carolina (do they pronounce it as “dunce”?) and Long Beach University California have links to “state registrations” that does not work. Finally, I was surprised to learn that Wikipedia has joined the fray and maintains a “List of Unaccredited Institutions of Higher Education.”

Avoid the Pressure
Fake colleges are always pressing students to sign up now or that they should sign up immediately to beat some arbitrary deadline. If the focus is on collecting money instead of furthering your education, then it is time to move on.

Request a Copy of Their Refund Policy
Years ago, when I worked in a system office, I learned that refund policies were a greater indicator of the intent of fly-by-night institutions. If their heads explode when you ask, if they do not have a policy, if they cannot cite a specific one, or the amount of time to obtain a refund is very short, then this is another indicator that capturing your money is their main objective.

Ask “Is this Too Good to Be True”?
This is an age-old axiom, but it holds true. If what they are offering a student it is too good to be true, then it probably is too good to be true. The Inside Higher Education article had a good example of a student being offered a 90% discount. That never happens. 

In Conclusion
There are more details behind each of these recommendations. The intent was to create a quick and handy guide. This information should be shared. For example, the institutional marketing teams will hate this, but colleges and universities should consider educating potential students about the fraudsters that are laying in wait for them.

In the early days of the internet, there was a proliferation of “diploma mills.” They were defeated by public education and state actions. Alan Contreras, then Oregon’s state higher education regulator, shared extensive information about the ne’er-do-well ‘institutions, which helped both students and other state regulators. Meanwhile, the states used legal means to stop illegal activities. Will that work in the new international and artificial-intelligence world? The only response is to try.

These sites seem to focus on fooling international students. As the Inside Higher Education article interviews showed, they will take anyone’s money.

Institutions, higher education professional organizations, granting agencies, and states can work together to do much more to protect students. The State of Colorado is an example of webpage providing excellent resources about the characteristics of a degree/diploma mill or an accreditation mill. They also provide a link for filing a complaint. 

The legal solutions will take time. Meanwhile, protect students by spreading these easy-to-follow tips.

–Russ Poulin
CEO
EduPolicy Insights, LLC