Frequently Asked Questions

DegreeVerify^SM is the most trusted degree verification service in the U.S. This web-based system simplifies academic verifications for potential employers, background screening firms, colleges, search firms, and others who regularly screen applicants. Users can instantly confirm collegiate degrees and/or attendance for former students and graduates of any participating institution.

Yes. Our service operates 24/7; so, even when your office is closed, DegreeVerify is open, allowing employers and others to verify degrees instantly. By participating, you ensure that your graduates never wait for and/or lose job or graduate school offers due to delays in verifying their educational credentials.

Having the Clearinghouse handle your degree verifications enables you to regain valuable personnel resources. Colleges, on average, complete 1,000 degree verifications per year for every 5,000 enrolled students. This translates into hours of staff time lost each week through answering phone calls, returning messages, searching records, etc. Participating in DegreeVerify allows you to redirect your staff resources to more student-facing activities.

Yes. As a DegreeVerify participant, your school also has the opportunity to:

• Get Free Degree Verifications
  Your institution has free access to DegreeVerify for its own internal use in order to verify the degrees or attendance of job candidates.
  
  
• Earn Extra Income
  DegreeVerify institutions can add a surcharge to the verification fee, which the Clearinghouse collects and remits to you. This provides tight budgets with much needed additional revenue.
  
  
• Get FREE Student Self-Service^SM
  By participating in DegreeVerify and EnrollmentVerify^SM, you can qualify for free Student Self-Service and provide your students with the ability to perform a wide range of enrollment verification activities via the Web, at no charge.
  
  
• Receive Degree Data via StudentTracker^SM

  DegreeVerify institutions that participate in our StudentTracker research service will receive the following additional data:

  • Graduation indicator 
  • Degrees earned 
  • Major courses of study

   

No, DegreeVerify is free to collegiate institutions.

We will notify you whenever we receive requests to verify older degrees that are not in the electronic degree data file that you provided to us. You can securely add individual degree records to DegreeVerify's database with our easy-to-use electronic update system.

Yes. Like all Clearinghouse services, DegreeVerify is fully compliant with FERPA. Only directory information is confirmed. We also respect all participating institutions' policies governing the release of student data to third parties. To further protect privacy, we keep an audit trail of all verification requests and employ the latest encryption technologies.

Absolutely not! We verify information entered by the requestor using only the directory information that you provide to us. We do not confirm or release non-directory information.

It is estimated that up to half of all resumes contain fraudulent information*, including educational achievements. Those who falsify information count on the verification process being so difficult that employers and others will not attempt to verify educational claims. DegreeVerify makes educational verifications so accessible and affordable that thousands of employers, recruiters, and background screening firms use it each year, making it the preferred degree verification service in the U.S.

For more information on the cost of credentials fraud and how to fight it, ask your Clearinghouse regional director for a copy of our free paper, "Your Institution's Reputation on the Line: The Real Cost of Academic Fraud."

*ADP Hiring Index

Sign a DegreeVerify participation agreement and return it to the Clearinghouse. After we receive your signed agreement, we'll assign a service coordinator to guide you through implementation. Once your service is activated, we will notify the thousands of employers and background search firms using DegreeVerify that your degree information is available 24/7 via the Clearinghouse.

If you have further questions, please contact the Clearinghouse at service@studentclearinghouse.org.