John Bear

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John Bjorn Bear, Ph.D. (born in 1938) is an expert on and proponent of distance education. [1] He holds a Bachelor's and a Master's from University of California, Berkeley and a doctorate from Michigan State University. ^[1] He is the author of Bears' Guide to Earning Degrees by Distance Learning and is considered an authority on which distance schools are reputable and which are not. He has been engaged by the FBI in their investigations into diploma mills for twenty years. [2]

Bear has previously been involved with several unaccredited start-up distance learning institutions. He lists these previous affiliations in Bears' Guide to Earning Degrees by Distance Learning.

In 2004, Bear was interviewed by CBS's 60 Minutes for an investigation involving Hamilton University. [3] He has also been the onscreen degree mill expert for shows like Good Morning America, Inside Edition, and American Journal. He has authored or co-authored 34 books (involving major publishers) on education, cooking, consumerism, humor, computers, and the world of publishing.

Dr. Bear has also written "The Blackmail Diet," a quasi-humorous but psychologically valid method of imparting motivation to lose weight by blackmailing oneself in varied ways. Essentially, one creates a contract that, once given to others, has hugely unacceptable consequences to the dieter which are out of his control.

Dr. Bear contributes to degreediscussion.com, which is a forum for discussion about institutions of higher learning.