I think historically it was not uncommon for people to just submit a thesis, but nowadays nearly everyone getting a PhD will do so while being at the University and in close collaboration with his Doctoral advisor.
I think that's the slippery slope that the Prof in question is worried about. Right now, a PhD from the University of Manitoba should hold more value than a purchased one from a diploma mill. If enough of the requirements are waived, this may no longer be the case.
Any specific examples of this? (In Germany or elsewhere?)
The common model is to take a job as an assistant researcher with the chair of your Professor, work on your PhD thesis and papers 50% of the time, and be treated like cheap slave labour by your professor the other 95% (sic!) of the time.
Not likely. To be fair, if I was to name and shame I may as well pack my bags and leave the country.
All I'll say is that these are red-brick Uni's in the UK.
A close friend highlighted the issue through a discovery he made whilst developing plagarism detection software for a private organisation that worked closely with a certain collective of Universities, I recognised one of the names of the people he mentioned and I know for a fact, due to my own personal connection with the individual that she never attended or would even come close to qualifying for the PhD she claims to have been awarded.
Another Swedish gentleman who I became very good friends with during my travels in NZ eventually disclosed how he achieved his PhD through certain 'investments' and has since used said qualification to leverage his residency application to stay in NZ permanently.
Of course, perfectly understandable.
> All I'll say is that these are red-brick Uni's in the UK.
Which are the 'redbrick' ones? Are they the ones which used to be polytechnics, or Oxbridge, or the ones in between like Bath and Glasgow?
Like this you mean, http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/degrees/honorary/ ?
>"I'm familiar with a handful of PhD holders who didn't even attend the University that granted it."
"Like this?" I asked. The parent comment was vague and my enquiry was, in part, to ascertain whether the commenter was referring to those who get degrees by being rich and|or famous or whether he was referring to direct purchase.
Now he has expanded on his point my question is largely moot but the comment stands to point out that there is another class of individuals given degrees that didn't earn them (by fulfilling _academic_ requirements).
I found it annoying at graduation that some people being given degrees by my Uni simply because those people were doing their [highly paid] job (being actors, sportsmen, politicians, company directors, etc.).
It's just cheap PR for the University.
Instead of handing out degree certs they should work out some other system to brown-nose "celebrities".
But they already have. They don't hand out "degree certs" to celebrities. They hand out something entirely different: Honorary Degrees. These are completely different, in look and meaning, from actual academic degrees. Celebrities are not being given real PhDs. A "Doctor of Laws, honoris causa" is not the same as J.S.D. You'd get laughed out of every meeting on the planet if you tried to pretend your honorary doctorate was even remotely the same thing as a real academic certificate.
In the same way that Monopoly Money doesn't devalue real money, Honorary Degrees do not devalue degree certificates, because they are an entirely different item that simply happen to share a word in common.