You can’t really blame employers for looking down on online degrees, when there are so many creative cyber-criminals giving online education a bad reputation. In the news today is Marc Parry’s story about the latest cyber-crook to get caught gaming the federal financial aid system.

One Trenda L. Halton, a scammer whose entrepreneurial skills might have been better applied in a legal enterprise rather than cyber-crime, pled guilty to charges of fraud she committed by conning a legitimately accredited, and innocent, community college. The scheme involved fake students; the goal was to collect Pell Grant and federal student loan money awarded to FAFSA applicants after the college deducted tuition and the students “proved” they were attending class.

Before she got caught, the scam artist made a lot of money.

Fred B. Lokken, chair of the Instructional Technology Council, thinks it’s unfair to blame the success of this fraud specifically on online education. He points out that even campus schools rely on online admissions processes these days, and that online registration for classes is also common. Combine that with the fact that a 200-student introductory-level course at a big school will often include students that the instructor never gets a chance to know in person, and swindlers could pull off the same scam at a campus school.

Nevertheless, the reality is that this scam targeted online classes for a good reason (you can download a neat graphic from the article). A few bad apples shouldn’t spoil the online degree advantage for everyone, but stories like this unfortunately reinforce online education’s bad reputation. Is it deserved? This particular scammer was caught but elearning’s jury is probably still out.