Purchasing a degree just isn't academic.

Byline: George Schroeder The Regiater-Guard

The Web site is visually appealing. Its offering, at www.trinityeducation.com, is very enticing.

For $240, you can - cough - earn a degree `in any subject, except medicine,' based on your life experience. For $50 more, they'll super-size it, adding honors.

Registered in Delaware and based in Spain, The Trinity College and University features an educational `programme' that is diverse, almost free - and apparently, very easy.

We found the decision not to award medical degrees reassuring. But when he surfed over there the other day, Pat Kilkenny found the whole thing `troubling.'

This is what's known as a diploma mill. This is Dave Serrano's alma mater.

This is why Serrano will not become baseball coach at Oregon.

No one will say so. But no one needs to since Serrano, the highly successful coach at UC Irvine, has withdrawn his candidacy.

He cited family reasons for staying put, which is fine. And perhaps even true. But eventually, Serrano's `unusual degree,' as Kilkenny puts it, would have ended his chances.

And if nothing else, the almost-controversy should kickstart debate over the value of a degree.

($240? Really?)

Kilkenny doesn't have one. Oregon waived that requirement to make him athletic director.

And when you get right down to it, that's why there was no way the Ducks could have hired Baseball America's national coach of the year.

`I have to be held to a higher standard,' Kilkenny says, referring to the hires he makes.

They tried hard to hire Serrano. Kilkenny consulted three faculty members. They signed off on Serrano's academic credentials after considering the diploma with the rest of his educational background - he has plenty of credit hours at three schools - and positive reviews from current and former employers.

`He's one of those coaches,' says Paula Smith, UC Irvine's interim athletic director, `who takes the academic side very seriously."

Look, I can understand why Serrano did it. Those ads used to tempt me, too.

After a vagabond's journey through four colleges, I didn't have a degree when I started working full-time 17 years ago. And for many years, I didn't think I'd earn one. Hence the furtive glances toward diploma mills like Trinity.

Eventually, I enrolled in a fifth school (Oklahoma) and finished up. Maybe by then, you could have argued, it didn't matter so much. A sheet of paper didn't change the quality of my work (Editor's note: insert laugh track here).

A degree - a real one - was a requirement for this job. And for an earlier opportunity. An editor suggested it was a prerequisite to cover higher education.

How much more important should it be for someone working in higher education, rather than alongside it?

In case you're wondering, Kilkenny says he never considered a diploma mill. He regrets not graduating, and is `sensitive' to the criticism that has come since he took the UO job without one.

When Kilkenny was hired, Mike Bellotti tried to talk him into taking classes. Kilkenny's reply: `You need to try to explain to me when I'm going to have time to do anything.'

Considering he built a fortune of more than $100 million, it's hard to argue. `As it turns out, I'm blessed,' Kilkenny says. `It never became an impediment to my career.'

For Serrano and Oregon, this would have been.

To his credit, Serrano hasn't run from the issue. Way back when, he started coaching without a degree but with good intentions. He took classes along the way.

But life interrupted.

`I'm not going to point the finger at anyone,' he says. `It's my own fault I don't have a traditional degree. It's my own fault, I was lazy. ... I'm not embarrassed by it.'

Which is fine. But Oregon would have been.

Look for George Schroeder's blog at www.registerguard.com/blogs.