History of Degree "Hacking"

[Tedium]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bear

"Bear's Guide..." He did a lot of work with distance education and exposing degree mills. I think his recommendation of TESC and alternative credits was a reaction to him exposing so many degree mills. Basically, "Here's what to avoid. Now, here's how you can achieve what you were trying to do with the diploma mill."

I would also look into Lawrie Miller's bain4weeks.com. It's all out of date now, but it was so many people's first introduction to degree hacking. I believe people still stumble in here from that website, if I'm not mistaken. Or they did in 2009, at least.

As far as I've been able to figure, degree hacking has had different phases or generations. Bear popularized it initially with, at the time, TESC. But, word could only spread as far as his book. Once things got online, the information was seen by many more people. To be honest though, it is still a relatively small and niche group. Not a lot of people even know about CLEP and that is, or at least was, advertised at the B&M schools I attended. Even a lot of school staff is unfamiliar.

Anyway, that should be a good start for you. It's all just connecting the dots from there. And others are way more knowledgeable about the history than me. If I got something wrong, you guys chime in.