Chemistry professor Luke Tolley sometimes likes to tell the story of two students who came up to him last fall, inquiring about forensic pathology.

Like many of the people who ask him about forensics, it seemed these students had been watching a little too much "CSI."

“And I asked them if they realized that in order to [be a forensic pathologist,] you need to first go through medical school, then get a pathology specialization, then do residency,” said Tolley, head of the Forensic Chemistry Program at Southern Illinois University.  “They were quite surprised that it required so much effort.”

Ever since "CSI" brought its own version of crime scene- investigating to TV seven years ago, students have been a little confused. 

On the show, good-looking investigators are one-man bands,  going out to crime scenes to collect evidence and then bringing it back to the lab where they do extensive testing.

In the real world of crime scene work, however, it doesn’t work that way.  For most police departments, it is blue-uniformed officers who gather evidence at the scene, not a special crew of white coat-wearing specialists. From there the evidence is sent to a lab, where scientists with  years of schooling perform tests on things like fingerprints, DNA and drug samples. 

Rarely do the two jobs overlap.  In fact, it’s better they don’t—Tolley said that having the same person who analyzes a sample try to solve the crime might lead to a biased analysis. 

The best path to CSI-like jobs, said Tolley, is to either become a police officer or get an advanced degree in a hard science. 

But that clear-cut distinction hasn’t stopped schools from  rushing to cash in on the confusion—and the demand—for forensic science programs anyway. 

Of the 160-some forensic and crime scene programs listed on crime-scene-investigator.net, 10 are online degrees, 27 are certificates, and 46 are two-year degrees.  Many offer a mixed bag of criminal justice and introductory chemistry courses that some experts worry don’t prepare people to do much of anything.

“You’re not going to get out of a certificate program and all of a sudden police agencies are going to beat your door down and say, ‘Oh will you come and work for me,' ” said    R.E. Gaensslen, head of the forensic science masters at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “That’s not happening.”

The murkier programs have varying names, from certificates in “crime scene investigation” and “forensic photography” to two-year degrees in “criminal investigations.”  Many claim to prepare students to be crime scene investigators, a real profession that involves gathering evidence and can be separate from police officers.

Still, said Gaensslen, getting a certificate in evidence-gathering may just be an expensive piece of paper. 

“You don’t need academic programs to train crime scene investigators,” he said.

Even the government seems to be confused by the difference between police officers, crime scene investigators and forensic scientists. 

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a "forensic science technician" is required to "collect, identify, classify, and analyze physical evidence related to criminal investigations." But just like the characters on "CSI," this definition conflates many job descriptions into one.

In effect, this job doesn't exist, because it combines the evidence-collecting of police officers and CSIs with the analysis of scientists.  But the numbers look good.  The bureau lists "forensic science technicians" as one of the fastest growing occupations in 2004, with numbers nationwide expected to jump from 9,800 in 2004 to 13,400 in 2014.

"It sounds like that’s an all-encompassing definition that includes crime scene investigators and forensic pathologists," said Sanford Angelos, a recently retired senior forensic chemist with the U.S. Department of Justice. "The question is, who are they talking about?"

Many of the programs are using these misleading numbers to further lure aspiring crime scene sleuths to their schools. Angelos said that's a big problem.

The 30-year veteran of the field said the worst offenders may be those offering online degrees in forensic science.  This is a branch of the hard sciences, he said, and there is no way to shortcut lab time with an instructor.

Gordon Larsom, online admission coordinator for a 2-year, online criminal investigations program in Florida, said that despite what people may say about online degrees, theirs is a valuable program.

“We offer a degree where you would be studying virtually the same curriculum as the campus students would, with the exception  that you don’t have to physically go to a classroom,” said Larsom, at Florida Metropolitan University.

Larsom said that in addition to requiring two years of online study, his students use a “forensic science kit”  to do live investigative practice outside of the classroom.  He said the program prepares students to become things like independent forensic science consultants, fingerprint technicians and  print examiners.

“The degree itself is going to get you in the door,” said Larsom.  “And there is additional class work that can be taken, like biology classes, that would assist you in specializing in an area.”

Still, Angelos, the retired forensic chemist, said that online programs and other short degrees just don’t cut it. When TV dictates academia, he said, it's hard to know what to expect.

“People are interested in forensics from TV, and they’re asking, ‘Do you have any forensic science courses,’ and the schools are responding,” he said. “The question is, are they responding well?”