Some States are considered to have low or doubtful standards. These are Idaho, Hawaii, Montana, Alabama, Wyoming, Mississippi and California. These states have either no meaningful standards, excessive loopholes or poor enforcement owing to local policy. Online degrees issued by unaccredited private colleges in Alabama, Idaho, Mississippi or Wyoming should be evaluated with great caution. For example, Mississippi has no oversight standards. It doesn’t mean that private colleges situated in these states are fraudulent or are diploma mills, but they should be treated with caution and need a double check.

A degree mill sells varying levels of online academic degrees, from bachelor's degrees to doctoral degrees. A degree mill also allows its customers to purchase academic honors (like summa cum laude) and needed GPA.

One of the diploma mills you can look at for example is Columbus University. The website of the university claims that it is accredited by the The Adult Higher Education Alliance. Although this is a fake accrediting agency.