Credential Confidence: How Education Verification Helps Close the Fraud Gap

Welcome to the fourth and final installment of our Data Education series. We've journeyed through the foundational elements of more comprehensive background screening, starting with identity and location, diving deep into criminal justice data, and exploring the benefits of verified employment history.

Now, we turn to the final foundational pillar of a more comprehensive candidate picture: education data.

In a competitive job market, an academic degree or professional certification can often be the key differentiator for a candidate. Yet, the rise of sophisticated digital tools and "diploma mills" has made educational fraud increasingly common. Verifying a candidate’s credentials is an essential step in helping protect your organizational integrity, providing greater compliance, and helping confirm that an applicant possesses the necessary educational background and foundational knowledge for the role.

The Rising Threat of Education Fraud

Relying solely on self-reported academic credentials can be a significant risk. The ease with which documents can be altered or fabricated has turned education fraud into a prevalent problem for organizations across many industries. 

The data underscores this challenge:

• Falsified Information is Common: According to an Equifax study of 254 HR professionals and executives, 71% of HR professionals have encountered fake or misleading candidate details during the hiring process with a considerable portion of these misrepresentations concerning their educational qualifications. And according to a StandOutCV survey, education is what the majority of applicants lie about. 

• The Scale of Fraudulent Institutions: The proliferation of fraudulent institutions is alarming. Reports indicate that more than 3,200 unaccredited providers are active, awarding hundreds of thousands of fake degrees annually.

• HR Confidence is Low: The problem is compounded by a lack of confidence in internal detection methods. According to an Equifax survey, only 20% of HR professionals are “very confident” in their ability to detect fabricated information.

Educational fraud goes beyond simple resume exaggeration; it can include providing falsified transcripts, claiming degrees that were never completed, or presenting credentials from unaccredited providers. Failing to verify these claims can result in skill mismatches, regulatory risks, and potentially reputational damage if an unqualified employee is hired for a critical role. And that mistake can be a costly one with data showing the average cost of a new hire coming in at $4,683 while the cost of replacing a bad hire running at least as high as 30-40% of a C-level executive’s first-year salary. 

Top Industries With Most Frequency of Resume “Fibs”*

• 72% manufacturing

• 64% healthcare

• 63% arts and creative

• 58% business management and administration

• 58% education

• 56% science, engineering, and technology

The Power of Verified Education Data

A modern, data-driven approach helps replace the slow, manual process of calling registrars' offices with fast, centralized, and authoritative verification sources. This efficiency allows screeners to screen quicker and more accurately confirm a candidate's academic claims.

Verifying educational credentials helps employers to:mo

• Confirm Qualifications: Validate claimed degrees, certifications, majors, and dates of attendance, helping ensure the candidate meets the minimum educational requirements.

• Better Detect Fraud: Help identify fraudulent institutions or altered documentation, better protecting the integrity of the hiring process.

• Assess Foundational Knowledge: Confirming legitimate academic achievement can be a proxy for a candidate's ability to learn, apply themselves, and complete long-term goals.

• Regulatory Requirements: In regulated industries (like finance, healthcare, or engineering), verifying specific degrees or certifications is often a legal or professional requirement.

Core Data Sources for Verification

To help deliver these more accurate verifications, background screening relies on a hierarchy of high-quality data sources:

• National Student Clearinghouse (NSC): This is a leading, centralized source for academic verification. As a non-profit organization, NSC provides verification services for 96% of U.S. four-year degrees**, offering faster, more authoritative data on degrees, certifications, and enrollment.

• Direct Educational Institution Contact: In some cases where centralized data is not available (such as for smaller, specialized, or international institutions), direct outreach to universities, colleges, or high schools could remain a necessary verification method.

• Professional and Industry Certification Bodies: For licenses and certifications not handled by the NSC (such as those in finance, IT, healthcare, or trades), verification often involves contacting the official issuing body, board, or organization directly. Reputable background screening solutions should have established networks or access points for verifying credentials from groups like FINRA, specific state licensing boards, or industry-recognized certifiers

Leveraging resources that centralize access to these authoritative sources helps screeners deliver results with greater speed and confidence, reducing the window for potential credential fraud.

The Holistic Candidate Picture

As we've emphasized throughout this series, the true strength of a background check lies in the ability to combine diverse data sources. When criminal, employment, and education data can be accessed and analyzed together, screeners can often develop a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of each candidate.

This more holistic view contributes to:

• Enhanced Risk Mitigation: A multi-faceted approach allows for more effective identification of potential risks.

• Improved Efficiency: Centralized access to various data types helps streamline the screening process.

• More Confident Decision-Making: A richer data landscape can lead to better-informed hiring choices.

• Higher Data Quality and Better Accuracy: Relying on aggregated and consistently updated sources helps reduce inaccuracies and provide a clearer candidate picture.

A strategic approach to education verification, powered by more comprehensive and timely data, is a key to building a workforce based on greater trust and confidence. By understanding the data sources that underpin identity, criminal history, employment, and education, organizations can move beyond mere resume checking to make better informed, more secure, and quicker hiring decisions.

TotalVerify Data Education Series

Be sure to check out the previous installments of the our TotalVerify Data Education blog series below:

Decoding Background Checks: The Critical Role of Data

The Anatomy of a Background Check: Unpacking Criminal Justice Data

Beyond the Resume: A Deep Dive Into Employment Verification Data

*Source: Zippia
**Source: National Student Clearinghouse