An accreditation mill is an organization that purports to award educational accreditation to higher education institutions without having government authority or recognition from mainstream academia to operate as an accreditor.
The "accreditation" they supply has no legal or academic value but is used in diploma mill marketing to help attract students.
CHEA has published a list of attributes of accreditation mills to help consumers identify them.
[6] A proposal for legislation that was announced in the U.S. House of Representatives in January 2010 would have inserted a definition of "accreditation mill" into U.S. law.
The proposal, sponsored by Congressmen Timothy Bishop of New York and Michael Castle of Delaware, would have defined the term to mean "an education or corporate organization that offers a form of educational recognition or accreditation, for a fee or free of charge, that extend[s] a permanent recognition or accreditation status to an institution with few or no requirements for subsequent periodic reviews; (B) publish[es] a list of institutions and programs recognized or accredited by such organization that includes institutions and programs that did not apply for or otherwise request such recognition or accreditation by the organization; or (C) lack[s] national recognition by the Secretary of Education or the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.