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"Degree mills" are impeding the efforts to assure quality in higher education—a significant national issue for some time and now an international concern. In response, the US-based Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) recently joined with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to bring together an informal group of higher education and quality assurance/accreditation leaders to focus on degree mills. Issues on the traits and the perils of degree mills, and on the national and international policies to curb that phenomenon will be discussed.

In 2002, the Liberian embassy's deputy chief of mission began his fraudulent transactions with American owners of St Regis diploma mill. They agreed to sell Liberian university accreditation to "St Regis University" for $2,250. They then decide to create two other diploma mills: Robertstown and James Monroe. By the end of 2003, Liberian officials under their sway included senior diplomats in at least two embassies, a minister of justice, a foreign minister, two successive directors of Liberia's National Commission for Higher Education, and a number of other diplomats and government officials, including several at the Ministry of Education. The United States Secret Service finally unveiled their embezzlement.

From 1995 to 2001, Nigerian degree mills produced annually about 15 percent of total university graduates in the country. In the past 9 years, a flurry of activity has been directed at eradicating the degree mills. In 1999, the National Council on Education (NUC) directed the closure of all local and foreign satellite campuses. It also partnered with the Department of State Services (Nigeria's secret service) in locating, arresting, and prosecuting operators of unapproved universities and satellite campuses. Finally, it directed approved universities to make full disclosure of their programs, which have been listed in the Directory of Approved Programmes in the Nigerian University System.

Last week, the National Universities Commission (NUC) announced the existence of 33 illegal universities in the country. In May, the NUC had earlier declared that sixteen out of these institutions were illegal and warned Nigerians against patronizing them. Also declared illegal were unlicensed satellite campuses, outreach campuses and study centers countrywide. The universities' regulatory body also stated that it had not approved any offshore universities to operate in the country. The Commission said that five owners of such institutions had been arrested and were being prosecuted to dissuade others.

A leaked e-mail from Manchester Metropolitan University shows how university staff are being urged to increase the number of top degree grades to keep pace with competing universities. The leaking of the e-mail provides further evidence of the concern among academics over the pressure to manipulate degree awards to improve the public image of universities and to make them more attractive to applicants. The number of students achieving a first class degree at UK universities has more than doubled since the mid-1990s.

Since taking over the Kremlin last month, President Medvedev, has made it a priority to combat what he calls "legal nihilism" in Russia. A campaign has begun to clean the courts of bribe-taking judges and letters from members of the public, complaining about corruption, have been published on the Kremlin website. Reporting on the results at St. Petersburg, the daily Kommersant said that 83 out of 200 students in the law faculty had failed their state examinations. Some who had received grade 2, the lowest mark, had been expecting to leave with "red diplomas" or distinctions. Among those who failed were students who had paid fees.

Researchers investigating the number of cases of plagiarism in the UK's 168 universities and colleges found over 9,000 incidents recorded in the 100 institutions that responded to the survey. Overall, there were 9,229 cases of plagiarism reported by 93 institutions, which is equivalent to 7.2 cases for every 1,000 students. Some 83 institutions gave figures for cases of plagiarism by undergraduates. On average there were 6,312 cases, which equates to 6.7 cases per 1,000 students.

Fake degrees from every university in Wales are being sold on the internet for less than £40 a go, a Wales on Sunday investigation has found. The website, called the Fake Certificate Factory, offers degrees from all of Wales' top universities – including Cardiff, Swansea, Glamorgan, Aberystwyth and Bangor. Wales on Sunday was able to buy a degree in English literature bearing the crest of Cardiff University for just £39.95, which we received the next day by post. And for an extra £49.95 we were offered a fake transcript, which provides a detailed breakdown of exam marks supposedly achieved by a student in their final university exams.

In 1999, the Australian Federal Education Minister announced the establishment of the Australian Universities Quality Agency, or AUQA. AUQA has to audit universities as well as non-university institutions. There has been some criticism that AUQA "only looks at processes not outcomes" or that it "looks only at the processes intended to achieve quality and not at the quality itself". In 2006, AUQA commissioned an independent review of its activities.