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Five universities in the United States agreed to settle a lawsuit accusing them of colluding on financial aid and admissions violations, according to new court filings. Yale, Columbia, Duke, Brown and Emory universities will pay a combined US$104.5 million to settle their portions of the case, which was brought by five former students against more than a dozen schools. The suit alleges the universities violated antitrust law when they ignored their pledge to not weigh a student’s ability to pay tuition fees when considering whether or not to accept, a practice referred to as ‘need-blind’ admission.

The UNDP and Saudi Arabia's Nazaha launched a global initiative to measure corruption during the 10th UN Convention Against Corruption session. Spanning 2023-2027, it aims to develop evidence-based indicators with a multi-stakeholder approach, supported by Saudi Arabia. The partnership seeks to track progress, offer policy recommendations, and assist countries in achieving anti-corruption goals linked to SDG 16. It addresses data gaps identified in the Global Progress Report on SDG 16.

The Fair College Admissions for Students Act aims to end legacy admissions in universities, removing preferential treatment for applicants with ties to the school. This move is seen as an effort to create fairer college admission practices by addressing the tradition's benefit to affluent white individuals and the elite school system's reliance on such practices. The bill's introduction follows the Supreme Court's recent decision to end affirmative action, which considered race among factors in student admissions.

The Justice Department has unsealed conspiracy and wire fraud charges against 25 people in the $114 million sale of 7,600 fake diplomas from three now-defunct South Florida nursing schools. According to an FBI agent, the investigation into the nursing certificates began in 2019. The certificates allowed untrained individuals to sit for national nursing board exams and at least 2,800 of them passed.

The central figure in the scam in which wealthy parents paid huge sums to cheat on standardised tests has been sentenced to three and a half years in Federal prison. The mastermind of the sprawling college admissions scam known as Operation Varsity Blues pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy, money laundering, and conspiracy

Three Georgia women and an Alabama man pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the US Department of Education’s Federal financial aid programs worth millions of dollars. According to the Justice Department, they admitted enrolling people who were not eligible to attend college and completing financial aid applications using fake students’ names; they also did fake students’ homework and exams and manipulated grade requirements to continue qualifying for Federal financial aid.

The Department of Justice reports that two education officials have been sentenced to jail after pleading guilty to fraudulently enrolling people in virtual schools and then claiming money from public funds on their behalf. The districts received payments from the Alabama Education Trust Fund as if the students were attending public schools while the defendants misappropriated state money through direct cash payments and payments to third-party contractors owned by various co-conspirators.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged the accounting firm, Ernst & Young, with cheating on ethics exams for Certified Public Accountant licensing and lying about it to investigators. Along with the $100 million fine, the firm will have to undertake extensive remedial measures to fix the firm’s ethical issues. Auditors say that SEC is investigating three other large public accounting firms for conflicts of interest.

The US Attorney’s Office arrested a nurse practitioner on federal charges of wire fraud, financial aid fraud and aggravated identity theft. She used doctors’ pedigree information and forged signatures to certify disability diagnoses that got more than $10.5 million in loans discharged for at least 125 people. She defrauded the federal Department of Education's Total and Permanent Disability discharge program, which relieves the student loans of those who suffer from permanent physical or mental disabilities.