According to the State Chancellor's Office, 20% of applications for California community colleges are fraudulent. A radiation oncologist at UC Davis is one of the thousands who have had their identity stolen to create fraudulent student applications with the intention to steal federal aid, a practice that has resulted in an unprecedented influx of ghost students. City College of San Francisco reported 59 fraudulent students and has identified 29 ghost students who have received $22,418 to date.

New Ontario legislation will ban non-disclosure agreements so professors cannot hide a history of sexual misconduct when applying to other universities or colleges. It will give schools rights to fire staff when they are found to have abused a student – and stop them from being rehired.

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 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.

A Statistics Canada study shows that one-third of women and nearly a quarter of men who teach and conduct research in Canadian university and college campuses face harassment. Data collected in late 2019 from 27,000 respondents about their experiences over the past year revealed five types of harassment: verbal abuse, humiliating behaviour, threats such as blackmail, threats to career or reputation, physical threats, physical violence, and unwanted sexual attention or sexual harassment.

According to an associate professor at the University of Calgary, the rate of academic misconduct during the pandemic rose from 38% to over 200%. Students who use the services of companies to write essays or complete assignments for them are often extorted. Companies continue to charge their credit cards, threatening to report them to their schools if they try to seek help.

The director of the Training Domain, an educational institution in Fort Meyers designed to improve students ‘employability skills, has been charged with 10 counts of wire fraud and one count of Federal Student Assistance (FSA) fraud. From July 2017 to April 2019, she assisted students in applying for financial aid but instead of using the loan and grant proceeds to hold classes and for other educational expenses, the director kept the FSA fund and split them with students. She also created false and fraudulent high school diplomas.

The Department of Justice arrested Texas A&M University (TAMU) engineering professor who allegedly conducted research for NASA hiding his affiliation and collaboration with a Chinese university and a Chinese-owned company for several years. He willingly accepted US funding and defrauded his university disregarding rules under NASA during his contract at TAMU.

A systemic study by Frontiers in Education in 2014-2018 found that 15.7% of university students commit contact cheating. In total, this potentially represents 31 million people. Meanwhile, the number of blackmail cases has increased as well. Research in the UK shows that 31% of the essay mills use misleading advertising and the majority do not guarantee content that meets the passing grade. To tackle contract cheating a joint effort is needed from legislatures, students, and professors.

11 preschool owners and workers stole millions of tax dollars through a variety of schemes, using it to pay for everything from diamonds and Costco shopping to home renovations and a family wedding, state documents show. Child advocacy groups have warned of a preschool special education crisis in New York and signed a letter to the governor urging increases in the reimbursement rate earlier this year.