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Buying a degree
Buying a master's degree online costs more than the price tag
The price on the seller's page is only the deposit. Here are the instalments that follow, and the honest alternative: a real master's, paid in stages around your job.
Sunday night, one tab open
Say you have done the job for years. You train the graduates.
Then a promotion comes up. The advert says "master's degree required", and a graduate you trained is applying with one.
Around midnight, a website offers you an MBA in a fortnight, for one payment. No classes. Transcript included.
It feels like a shortcut past a box-ticking exercise. You know the work. The paper would only say so.
That payment is the deposit on a bill nobody shows you. The rest arrives later.
The full bill when you buy a master's degree online
The seller's order summary might read:
Master of Business Administration, with transcript
Accreditation: fully accredited
Awarded for: your life experience
Verification: guaranteed
Delivery: express, presentation folder
Total due: the price on the page
- "Fully accredited." By whom? A seller's accreditor can be a mill too. Look the accreditor up on the official warning lists.
- "Your life experience." The honest version is recognition of prior learning: a real university may credit what you learned at work, after assessing it.
- "Verification: guaranteed." The seller, vouching for its own paper. Employers ask the university or its service (Hedd, the US National Student Clearinghouse, My eQuals) and never reach that line. Check who really owns a seller's "verification" site.
- "Delivery: express." The one promise on the bill the seller can keep.
What the bill leaves off is the record: the entry a university makes when it awards a degree. No seller can make it, and every instalment below follows from that gap.
Instalment 1: the check
Falls due: whenever someone checks, often between "we'd like to offer you the role" and your first day.
Charge: the offer, or the job you already hold.
The honest bill: the university confirms it.
Not every employer checks at the offer stage, so this instalment has no end date: the check can come with a promotion, a new employer, a visa or a professional body.
Instalment 2: the repeat
Falls due: every application, promotion form and profile that lists the degree.
Charge: the same risk, signed for again on every form.
The honest bill: a line that's safe to list for life.
Each use is a new claim. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, dishonestly making a false representation, intending to gain from it, is fraud under the Fraud Act 2006.
Some US states go further: in Washington, knowingly using a false academic credential to get a job or promotion is a gross misdemeanor.
Instalment 3: the border
Falls due: any visa application that asks about your education.
Charge: the visa, and the one after it.
The honest bill: a recognised award.
Picture the form. Highest qualification? You add the MBA to look stronger, though this visa doesn't even need one.
Under the UK's Immigration Rules, false documents or information are grounds for refusal, "whether or not relevant to the application", and deception counts against later applications, even if it once worked.
Instalment 4: the next step up
Falls due: the day you apply for a doctorate or a professional qualification.
Charge: everything you meant to build on it.
The honest bill: an official transcript, sent for you.
For a fake master's degree, there is nothing to send.
Instalment 5: the lost time
Falls due: the next vacancy that asks for a master's.
Charge: the years.
The honest bill: credit from the first module.
Fast-forward to the next promotion round. A colleague who applied for a part-time course that same week has modules on a university's record. You have a certificate you cannot use, and the whole course ahead.
Total due: the offer, every form you sign, the next visa, the doctorate, the years.
The other bill: a part-time master's degree, paid in stages
There is an honest way to purchase a degree online. You pay for teaching and assessment, year by year or module by module, and every module you pass goes on the university's record.
That credit holds even if you stop early: with enough modules passed, a UK university can award a postgraduate certificate or diploma, at the same level as a master's.
Before you pay a first module fee, check the university is recognised: GOV.UK's guide for the UK, DAPIP for the US, or the official register in its own country.
- You may not need a first degree. The QAA notes that master's courses, MBAs among them, often attract entrants with work experience, and some of that experience may count as credit. Each university decides.
- There is help with the cost. If you normally live in England and meet the age and residency rules, a Postgraduate Master's Loan can help with a full master's, part-time included.
- Elsewhere in the UK, funding differs: see Student Finance Wales, Student Finance NI or, in Scotland, SAAS.
Our admissions service can help you apply to accredited universities that fit around work. The university always decides admission and any credit for experience.
The message that could get your employer paying
Some employers pay for study that makes you better at the job, if somebody asks.
In the UK, work-related training your employer pays for is free of tax and National Insurance. In Great Britain, in a larger organisation, once you've been there long enough, you can formally ask for time off to study, usually unpaid.
In the US, an employer's educational assistance program can cover graduate courses tax-free, up to a yearly limit.
Fill in the brackets and send this:
"Hi [name], I'd like to talk about a part-time [MSc / MBA / postgraduate certificate] in [subject] at [university]. It would help with [two parts of my role, such as the budgeting you've asked me to take on].
It runs [online / part-time] over [length], around my hours. Could the company help with the fees or study time, if I agree to stay on for a set period afterwards?
I've put the details on one page."
Then fill in the one-page plan, a line or two per row:
| On the page | What to write |
|---|---|
| What it covers that my role needs | Two modules, each tied to a task you do |
| Weekly hours and when I will study | The number, and which evenings or weekends |
| What I am asking the company for | Fees, study time or both, and how long you'd stay |
| What the team gets back | One job you could take off your manager's desk |
A manager can forward one page to finance. Enthusiasm is harder to forward.
Already paid? Cancel the remaining instalments
Most of the bill only falls due while you keep using the degree.
- The deposit: if the seller told you the degree was recognised or verifiable, ask your bank or card provider whether the payment can be disputed.
- The check and the border: if you have used it for a job or a visa, take legal advice first: a solicitor, a registered immigration adviser, or free help via Citizens Advice. See what lying about a degree can lead to.
- The repeat: take it off your CV, your profiles and every future application.
- The next step up: apply on what you really hold, and ask the university or professional body what your experience counts for.
- The lost time: the one instalment you can win back. Pick one part-time course and send your manager the message above.
For the next buyer, report the seller. In England, Citizens Advice explains how, through Trading Standards and Report Fraud; in the US, USAGov shows which agency to tell.
Sources
- Hedd (Higher Education Degree Datacheck)
- National Student Clearinghouse: Verify Now: degree verification
- My eQuals
- Fraud Act 2006, section 2: fraud by false representation
- UK Immigration Rules: Part Suitability: refusal for deception, and later applications
- GOV.UK: Check if your university or college can award a degree
- US Department of Education: DAPIP
- QAA: The Frameworks for Higher Education Qualifications of UK Degree-Awarding Bodies: postgraduate certificates and diplomas at master's level, and exit awards
- QAA: Master's Degree Characteristics Statement: entrants with experience from work
- GOV.UK: Master's Loan eligibility and overview (other UK nations)
- GOV.UK: Expenses and benefits, training payments and Training and study at work: your rights
- Revised Code of Washington 9A.60.070: false academic credentials
- IRS Publication 15-B: Educational Assistance: graduate courses included
- QAA: What is credit? A guide for students: recognition of prior learning
- Law Society: Find a Solicitor, GOV.UK: Find an immigration adviser and Citizens Advice: free or affordable legal help
- Citizens Advice: Reporting a scam and Check if you can get your money back after a scam (England)
- USAGov: Where to report a scam
Want a degree that holds up? Our admissions service helps working adults apply to university in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia, choosing only universities that are officially recognised. If no university on your shortlist offers you a place, we refund our fee in full.