CHEYENNE - It all started with an investigation into Hamilton University, based in a former motel in Evanston.

A March 2004 report to the Legislature's Joint Education Committee said the Wyoming attorney general's office found that Hamilton students could get degrees within 30 days on average and were required to take only three steps:

* Complete the enrollment application and pay tuition of about $3,600.

* Take a one-day personal, business and professional ethics course.

* Write an academic paper on the degree subject at least 2,000 words long.

Hamilton was then operating under a religious exemption from the Wyoming Department of Education. It claimed affiliation with the Faith in the Order of Nature Fellowship Church, also in Evanston.

The previous year the Government Accountability Office investigated the educational credentials of a Hamilton University graduate and senior career employee in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The employee, Paula L. Callahan, received her bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in computer information systems from Hamilton.

The GAO and later Congress expanded the investigation into other federal agencies that paid thousands of federal dollars to diploma mills, or unaccredited schools.

After the Wyoming Legislature in 2004 passed a bill that tightened the requirements for a religious exemption, Hamilton moved its headquarters to the Bahamas, where it operates under the name Richardson University.

Last week, the Wyoming Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a 2006 law that stiffens the requirements for private, post-secondary, degree-granting education institutions.

The law requires the institutions to become accredited within five years, to be licensed and meet the department's minimum standards.

On Monday, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jim McBride announced that all degree-granting post-secondary private schools in Wyoming are now accredited or pursuing accreditation by nationally recognized accrediting agencies.

"The Legislature had the fortitude to pass a Private School Licensing Bill that required every post-secondary school to become regionally accredited or stop operations," McBride said in a news release.

"Wyoming's academic standing has improved in the nation," he added.

Schools that are currently registered and provide work force skills or academic training will enjoy new acceptance and improved credibility, McBride said.

"It's been a long journey with many speed bumps, but the result has been a genuine reform in the way we register and allow post-secondary schools to operate," McBride said.

After the 2006 law went into effect, many institutions voluntarily left Wyoming or were unable to meet the new statutory requirements, he said.

One of them, Preston University, which has students worldwide and formerly was headquartered in Cheyenne, moved to Montgomery, Ala., according to Preston's Web site.

Contact Joan Barron at joan.barron@trib.com or by phone at 307-632-1244.