One of my favorite types of online universities, for entertainment sake, not for real purposes, is the mail order degrees.  You can literally get a PhD in “life experience” or become a certified minister by mailing in $50.  Now with the minister or other religious related ones, you actually are certified and legally okay to go.  That’s the funny part about it.  But of course your PhD in life experience doesn’t mean anything, and you just wasted $50. 

Part of why I bring this up is because of a recent rash of discoveries.  While you would think the government would put people through more strenuous evaluation than private companies, apparently they don’t.  I mean when my brother in law applied for a job with them, they screened supposedly the whole family to see if we were terrorists or something.  But apparently they don’t really screen that hard, because a guy who had one of those fake degrees that he paid $50 for was hired into a position that required a degree, and then he rose to one of the top positions in his area.  In fact, it was nationally recognized.  That’s how he got caught.  Someone did actual research on him when his name came out to be celebrated and found out the degree was bunk.  Now that is fun.  And they’ve estimated that thousands of government employees have gotten away with the same thing.  The only difference is they haven’t achieved that high a status in their job.