Lohmann, Hawaii Pacific University's director of institutional advancement, told the captain his only option was three years of college work at an accredited university like HPU. "We told him he had to start over," he said.
For traditional universities such as HPU and the University of Hawaii, a flood of unaccredited degree-granting institutions here has reached alarming proportions. Drawn to Hawaii by weak state laws, these nontraditional institutions -- which the state consumer protection director says could number a hundred -- bypass the traditional method of higher education by awarding degrees based on course work, correspondence, credit for life experience, independent study and examinations.
While many are legitimate schools that offer alternatives for adults, others are scams. These diploma mills -- usually operating from the mainland using a Hawaii mail drop -- are driven by consumer demand to churn out degrees for a fee without requiring academic work, said David W. Stewart, co-author of "Diploma Mills: Degrees of Fraud" and retired director at the American Council on Education's Center for Adult Learning and Educational Credentials in Washington, D.C.
"I would say the rest of the country looks askance at Hawaii; at least, those of us in higher education do," Stewart said from his home in Nashville, N.C. "And we think you ought to tighten things up."
Hawaii law requires any unaccredited institution to disclose in promotional material that it is not accredited by any of the six regional accrediting agencies or associations recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. But John Bear of El Cerrito, Calif., an expert on nontraditional education who spent 13 years as a diploma mill consultant to the FBI, said that is not enough.
For example, Bear points out, while the law says the disclosure must be in boldface type, it doesn't specify the size, which means the school can make the notice "microscopically small" and still conform to law. Such weak regulation has made Hawaii the laughingstock in the world of higher education, he said.
"People say with a sneer, 'Oh, one of those Hawaii schools,'" Bear recalled.
Hawaii Consumer Protection Director Jo Ann Uchida acknowledges Hawaii has become the gathering place for unaccredited universities since other states, such as California, have tightened their laws in the past decade. Uchida agrees many operate without minimum educational standards for students to obtain a degree.
"Any person in any part of the world with a laser printer and a checking account can issue Hawaii degrees," Uchida said.
Uchida has been unsuccessful in compiling a master list of all the "questionable" institutions. In the past six months, her office sent letters to 100 registered companies, requesting catalogs of their educational material. So far, only 33 have responded, she said.
Just what creates the demand for these institutions?
Stewart and Bear agree the country's tightening job market places a strong emphasis on higher education for promotion, forcing many adults to pursue that bachelor's or master's degree as the only means to qualify for advancement.
Moreover, the demand by foreigners for degrees from American universities is often too lucrative for diploma mills to ignore. While some foreigners know exactly what they're getting, others discover their degree is useless in the United States.
The consumer protector's office has proposed legislation requiring all institutions that award academic degrees to be accredited. "We'd be really happy to see some kind of new law passed that would provide more teeth," Uchida said.
Rep. David Morihara (D-Puunene/Kula, Maui), chairman of the House Higher Education Committee, said lawmakers know of the proliferation of these businesses but that they need to get a handle on the players before they can regulate the game.
"While we feel we want to maintain some standard of quality, we can't just assume that accreditation is the only standard that we can put forward," said Morihara, adding that legitimate unaccredited schools as well as foreign schools wanting to teach in Hawaii would be affected.
It's an issue that has generated lively debate.
Colleen Sathre, University of Hawaii vice president for planning and policy, told lawmakers recently, "Relying on accreditation is not a perfect solution, but it is far better than Hawaii's current circumstance."
Hawaii Pacific's Lohmann added the state has a very marketable education industry with a reputation being harmed by diploma mills and for-profit educational institutions that invest nothing in the state. The University of Phoenix also favors accreditation.
Others schools, however, say it would mean their elimination.
Doug Capogrossi, president of Greenwich University in Hilo, said the 25-year-old school would be severely harmed by such a law. He explained Greenwich was granted candidacy for accreditation by the Pacific Association of Schools and Colleges in 1993 and 1994, but that the association changed its eligibility criteria to exclude correspondence schools from its membership. The move left Greenwich with no viable opportunities for accreditation, he said.
Mark Spengler of the University of the Nations in Kailua-Kona said the school favors a law that requires all educational institutions in Hawaii to have a "physical presence" that can be verified through documents of ownership, lease or rental of office space, and of general liability insurance.
Here are some warning signs of a diploma mill, according to the Better Business Bureau of Hawaii:
Mail is received only at a postal box number or at a mail forwarding service.