Education: Academic Racketeers

In a popular U.S. magazine, the young Colombian spied an ad that roused his dreams. The American correspondence school promised a radio and electronics course, equipment to study with. To raise tuition, the boy's father sold the family house. Off went his precious pesos—and the school was never heard from. In Bogotá, the U.S. consul nodded wearily as the victims denounced the "wicked and harmful" deception.†

Last week the American Council on Education made an angry, 100-page attack on U.S. "diploma mills," which have run a carefree con game around the globe for more than a century. Trouble is that the mills...