Credential Verification
Checkr Education Verification Alternative: When the NSC Isn't Enough
Checkr is the most developer-friendly background check platform in the market, but its education verification has a known ceiling: it's built on the National Student Clearinghouse, which covers roughly 3,600 US institutions and stops there. Here's what to use when you need global coverage, diploma mill detection, or pre-screening before a background check is even ordered.
Bottom line
Checkr is an excellent choice for developer teams running full background checks on US candidates. For education-specific use cases — international degrees, diploma mill detection, pre-screening before a Checkr check is ordered, or high-volume institution validation — you'll need to supplement or replace Checkr's education check with a dedicated credential verification service.
What Checkr's education verification does
Checkr offers education verification as an add-on to its background check packages. For US institutions, it uses the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC), which is the standard data source across the background check industry — the same database HireRight, Sterling, and most other providers use.
The NSC confirms enrollment records and degree completion for approximately 3,600 US colleges and universities. When Checkr receives a request to verify a degree, it queries the NSC and returns a confirmation or non-confirmation based on what the institution has reported to the clearinghouse.
Checkr's platform strengths include:
- Clean REST API with good documentation for developers
- Transparent per-check pricing (published on their site for base packages)
- Fast turnaround for US criminal background and identity checks
- Candidate-facing status portal and webhook support
- Integrations with Greenhouse, Lever, Workday, and other major ATS platforms
Where education verification is concerned, Checkr is solid for US degrees at institutions that participate in the NSC. The gaps show up when you move outside that scope.
Where Checkr's education check falls short
Limited international coverage
The NSC covers US institutions. For international degrees — from universities in India, the UK, Canada, Nigeria, the Philippines, or anywhere outside the US — Checkr routes requests to manual research. This adds days to turnaround and introduces variability. Teams hiring internationally at volume will find Checkr's international education verification slow and inconsistent.
No diploma mill detection
Checkr confirms whether a claimed degree was granted at a real institution — it does not flag whether that institution is a diploma mill or an unaccredited degree mill. A candidate who lists a degree from a known diploma mill will pass a Checkr education verification if the diploma mill confirms the degree (which they typically do — that's their business model).
Catching diploma mills requires checking the institution itself against known lists of unaccredited or fraudulent schools. That's a different data problem from confirming a candidate's attendance record.
Cost structure for education-only use cases
Checkr's education verification is priced as an add-on to a full background check — not as a standalone product. If you only need to verify school legitimacy (not a full background check), you're paying for a full Checkr check plus the education add-on. For pre-screening workflows where you want to validate the institution before deciding whether to order a full background check, the cost per lookup is higher than a purpose-built credential verification API.
Not designed for pre-screening pipelines
Background checks are typically ordered late in the hiring funnel — after an offer is extended or conditionally accepted. If you want to catch fake or unaccredited degrees at the resume screening stage, Checkr's workflow isn't designed for that. It's built for post-offer verification, not top-of-funnel filtering.
Alternatives by use case
VerifyED — institution validation and diploma mill detection
VerifyED is a dedicated school lookup and credential verification API. It covers 912,000+ institutions across 180+ countries, with accreditation status for each, and a database of 2,592 known diploma mills. Responses are instant — there's no manual research queue and no candidate portal.
VerifyED answers the question "Is this school real and accredited?" — not "Did this specific candidate attend this school?" The latter still requires the NSC or registrar contact for US degrees. But VerifyED handles the earlier question cheaply and at scale, which is where Checkr's education check has the most gaps.
Common integration pattern
- Candidate submits application with education history
- ATS calls VerifyED API to validate institution name → gets accreditation status and diploma mill flag instantly
- If institution flags as suspicious: human review before proceeding
- If institution is legitimate: proceed to Checkr background check at offer stage
This pattern catches diploma mills before a full background check is ordered, reducing cost per verified hire.
Certn — international background checks
If your primary gap is international coverage for full background checks (not just education), Certn is built for global hiring and handles international credentials more natively than Checkr. It's a direct Checkr alternative for teams with significant international hiring volume.
National Student Clearinghouse — US-only, direct
For confirming US degrees without a full background check, the NSC's DegreeVerify service provides direct access to the same data Checkr uses. It's not API-friendly, but for point-in-time lookups it removes the middleman for US institutions.
Decision table
| Use case | Recommended |
|---|---|
| Full background check, US candidates, developer team | Checkr |
| Pre-screen school legitimacy at resume stage | VerifyED API |
| International degree verification at scale | VerifyED API + Certn for full checks |
| Diploma mill detection | VerifyED API |
| US degree confirmation only (no background check) | NSC DegreeVerify direct |
| Building an ATS plugin that flags suspicious credentials | VerifyED API |
Using Checkr and VerifyED together
Checkr and VerifyED serve different parts of the hiring verification problem and work well in combination. VerifyED handles upfront school legitimacy checks at the application or screening stage — fast, cheap, and global. Checkr handles the full background check (including US degree confirmation through NSC) at the offer stage, where its workflow and compliance tooling earn their keep.
Teams that run both report catching diploma mills earlier in the funnel, reducing the number of full background checks ordered on candidates who wouldn't have passed anyway. That reduces cost and shortens the average time-to-hire for legitimate candidates.
See the VerifyED API guide for integration patterns, or check the school database to verify coverage for your hiring markets.