In the media

Six officials at the Apex School of Theology orchestrated a scam to fraudulently claim $12 million in Federal student aid. The scheme involved recruiting fake students, forging fake applications for financial aid, as well as plagiarizing schoolwork and diplomas. FBI called the conspiracy a “blatant abuse of a Federally funded program” and “an insult to all taxpayers.

A researcher accused of making false statements about his employment in China while working at universities in the US has been charged for illegally using $4 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health to develop China's expertise in the areas of rheumatology and immunology. The FBI arrested another Cleveland Clinic researcher working on molecular medicine and a University of Arkansas scientist doing research for NASA. They were accused of committing fraud by concealing their participation in Chinese talent-recruitment programs while accepting Federal grants.

The University of California-Berkeley trusts its professors to design evaluation methods that balance concerns with the imperative of academic integrity during the pandemic. In the meantime, to ensure that students do not cheat during exams, a "browser lock" method will be introduced. This will prevent students from switching from one window or tab to another while taking online tests.

A 2019 report showed that $6.5 billion in foreign gifts to U.S. institutions were not reported. To hold colleges and universities accountable and ensure that their reporting is full, accurate, and transparent, the Department of Education enforces Section 117 of the Higher Education, which requires colleges to report all gifts and contracts involving foreign sources worth $250,000 or more.

The president of the Caribbean Maritime University (CMU) along with the former Minister of Education are being investigated for corruption matters. During a previous Public Administration and Appreciation Committee (PAAC) sitting, the CMU president admitted that over $600,000 were paid towards a yacht party for the minister of education. According to the documents, the east Kingston-based university paid two companies a total of $674,930 to rent and decorate the yacht.

A Stanford sailing team leader was sentenced to two years probation for facilitating the admission of students to the university. He received $610,000 in exchange for recommendations for high school students he allegedly claimed to have recruited for his teams. In order to get their daughter admitted to Stanford, a Chinese family also paid $6.5 million to this official.

The national Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) program revealed that Universities across Australia enroll hundreds of thousands of foreign students simply as ‘cash cows’, however unprepared to undertake degree courses. Academics told ABC they have seen record numbers of academic misconduct cases and more and more international students struggling, some using phone apps to translate lectures. Following the ABC broadcast, the National Tertiary Education Union called for greater public accountability for universities in dealing with international students.

A prominent Antarctic geologist has been accused of sexual harassment by two of his former students during research expeditions. In the online survey published in PLOS ONE and covered by Science in 2014, 71% of 512 female respondents reported being sexually harassed during fieldwork; 84% of them were trainees.

The Justice Department at Stanford University alleged that the head sailing coach accepted multiple donations in exchange for pushing through applications of prospective students. Three donations of $770,000 were received in the sailing program; two of them were from families of students who were never admitted to the school and the third one was expelled last week.

Thousands of female students are occupying facilities at Chilean universities up and down the country, demanding non-sexist education and an end to sexual harassment and abuse. The first of these protests was triggered several weeks ago at Universidad Austral de Chile (UACh) in Valdivia in southern Chile by the transfer to another post of a researcher at the Institute of Biochemistry and Microbiology, found guilty of gravely harassing a female administrator. Students are asking for him to be dismissed.