In short: before we assess anything, we check that the institution is legally recognized and verifiable. If it is not, it is not ranked, no matter how good its marketing looks.
Purpose
Diploma mills, accreditation mills and fictitious degrees harm students, employers and legitimate institutions. A ranking that lists unrecognized providers lends them credibility they have not earned. Our first step for every edition is therefore an eligibility gate. This policy explains how it works.
RankingLab is not an accreditor
RankingLab does not accredit, license or recognize institutions. A RankingLab ranking is not accreditation and does not replace it. Our aim is to support the work of accreditation bodies and regulators, not to compete with them.
The eligibility gate
An institution, and any program within it, is eligible only if all of the following are true:
- Recognition. The institution is recognized, licensed or accredited by the competent authority in the country where it is legally established, and where relevant is authorized to award the degree in question.
- Verification in an authoritative register. The recognition can be verified in at least one authoritative register (see the list below).
- Degree authority. The specific degree being ranked (for example MBA, DBA or PhD) falls within the institution's recognized authority.
- Real academic activity. There is verifiable evidence of faculty, students, curricula and graduates.
If recognition cannot be verified, the institution is not assessed.
Authoritative registers
We verify recognition in at least one of the following:
- The register or list maintained by the national ministry, regulator or quality assurance agency.
- The IAU World Higher Education Database (WHED).
- The EQAR Database of External Quality Assurance Results (DEQAR).
- The U.S. Department of Education Database of Accredited Postsecondary Institutions and Programs (DAPIP), or the CHEA database, for U.S. institutions.
Where registers disagree, the competent national authority's own record takes precedence.
Program-level accreditation
Program accreditations from bodies such as AACSB, EQUIS, AMBA, ABET, signatories of the Washington Accord or EUR-ACE, and the Seoul Accord are valuable evidence of quality. We record them and consider them in the relevant pillars. They are never a prerequisite: many excellent programs operate in systems where such accreditation is uncommon or unavailable, and requiring it would be unfair.
Special cases
Branch campuses
A branch campus must be verified in both the home jurisdiction (where the parent institution is recognized) and the host jurisdiction (where the campus operates), where the host jurisdiction regulates foreign providers. If either check fails, the branch campus is not eligible.
Online and distance programs
Online, blended and distance programs are held to the same standard as on-campus programs. The awarding institution must be recognized and the degree must be within its authority. Delivery mode does not lower the bar.
Partnerships and franchised programs
Where a degree is delivered by one organization and awarded by another, the awarding institution must pass the gate, and the arrangement must be permitted by the relevant authorities.
Red flags
During verification, assessors and staff watch for warning signs associated with diploma mills and accreditation mills, including:
- Degrees offered for a flat fee, or based mainly on "life experience" with little or no assessed work.
- Unrealistically short completion times.
- Accreditation claimed from bodies that are not recognized by any competent authority, or vague claims of "international" or "worldwide" accreditation.
- Names deliberately similar to well-known universities.
- No verifiable physical address, faculty list or governance information.
- Pressure selling, aggressive discounts or degrees backdated on request.
- Claims of listing in a register that cannot be confirmed in that register.
- Recognition documents that cannot be traced to the issuing authority.
A red flag is a reason to investigate, not an automatic conclusion.
Re-verification and suspension
- Eligibility is re-verified for every edition.
- If a competent authority withdraws, suspends or does not renew recognition, the institution or program is suspended from our rankings from the next update, or sooner if the change is significant.
- If we discover that a listed institution did not meet the gate when it was published, we remove it and record the correction on the Updates page.
Exclusion is not an accusation
Not appearing in a RankingLab ranking can have many reasons: the institution may be outside our current fields, below the evidence threshold, or still being verified. Exclusion is not a public accusation of anything. We do not publish allegations about institutions. Where we believe an entity may be a diploma or accreditation mill, we refer the matter to the competent authorities. We may publish only verifiable facts with cited sources, and only after legal review.
Reporting a suspected mill
If you have information about a suspected diploma mill, accreditation mill or fictitious degree, please write to hi@rankinglab.org. Include any sources you have. We treat reports confidentially and do not publish the identity of people who report. More information is available on the Verification page.