In the media

Counterfeiters are reportedly finding ways to foil China's new electronic registration system for university diplomas. According to government statistics, 600,000 fake diplomas are circulating in China, although many officials suspect that the actual number is much higher.

The auditor-general is investigating the financial office of the provincial government of the Eastern Cape, which gets $827,000 a year from the federal government for a scholarship fund that is supposed to benefit 650 to 700 students from the impoverished province. At least some of the scholarships have gone unpaid as far back as 1997.

A confidential list of students admitted to the prestigious Shanghai Communications University, along with information about their qualifications and the influential people who pushed for their admission, has been circulating on the Internet in China. The leaked list has renewed public debate over allegations of corruption in university admissions.

At a Congressional hearing in April, the department's inspector general revealed that the agency has lost track of at least $450-million in the past three years. Much of the money was lost in duplicate payments to grant recipients, states, and contractors. But some of it, she said, was stolen or improperly spent by department employees and contractors.

The Russian Federation will begin testing a system of state examinations this year, similar in format to the SAT in the United States and aimed at reducing corruption and creating equitable access to higher education. A single test is planned to be instituted nationwide in 2004.

For years, a Romanian degree mill sold fake diplomas all over the world. Every moth $ 2 million had been transferred into a bank account in Cyprus. On the March 5, however, a joint action of US authorities (FTC) and British authorities shut down all the dozen-or-so websites. However it will probably not put them out of business since their main tools are Email spams and clever telemarketing.

Eighteen parents and seven financial-aid advisers in the Chicago area have been charged with federal student-aid fraud for allegedly obtaining more than $2.6-million in funds by purposefully underreporting their income on financial-aid applications. Two of the aid advisers worked at colleges.

At the request of the Committee on Science and Education, several higher education institutions have been charged for forcing students to attend political meetings. School officials are thus accused of promising to pass students in return for their participation.