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The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission’s investigation reveals that 10 national universities in South Korea allegedly misappropriated KRW9.4 billion of students’ tuition fees. The funds were intended to cover student guidance programmes and safety activities carried out by professors and staff during lunch hours, after work or on weekends. Employees at one of the national universities overstated the number of such activities by changing locations and clothes earning KRW1.2 billion.

Reports show that criminals exploit cash payments made by West African students to pay tuition and other service fees at United Kingdom universities. Private universities and cross-border foreign campuses in Africa are used as an investment and to integrate the proceeds of crime into the legitimate economy. When more than the tuition fee is paid, they request the university to refund the overpayment to a third party’s account such as the bank account of a drug supplier or a bribed official.

A recent report highlights risks of investment of funds into the UK education sector by African elites, including “politically exposed persons”, some of whom have been convicted of corruption or whose assets have been seized by the UK. According to the report, the gap between what west African PEPs pay for a UK education and what they can legitimately afford is a significant red flag. Relatively lax anti-money laundering rules in the British education sector mean that school administrators and admissions staff are potentially complicit in illegal flows of money.

Private universities in Yemen charge tuition fees in US dollars and create their own currency exchange rates, causing many students to drop out of school. Until 2017, the Central Bank of Yemen in Sanaa set the price of the dollar at 250 Yemeni rials. However, private universities in Taiz set the exchange rate at 400 rials for a dollar and the universities of Aden at 500. Other private universities require students in Aden to pay in dollars and do not accept rials. This forces students to resort to the black market, with an exchange rate of 820 rials per dollar.

Officials of a local education center and 200 Macau residents are accused of fraud, document forgery, and computer forgery. The Anti-Corruption Commission reported that residents enrolled in courses subsidized by the Education and Youth Bureau never attended the courses, simply providing their personal identification data to the education center and receiving, in exchange, 2,000 to 2,500 MOPs in cash.

To fill the gap between demand and constant increasing supply, many players in the higher education sector live by the saying that ‘fake it if you cannot make it’. South of Punjab has been hit by fake education. In Alipur, a branch of a known college chain claimed to be affiliated with GC University, Faisalabad. Many students paid fees to get registered, however, the university website doesn’t recognize it as an affiliated college. The robbed students moved administration and made complaints. But the institutions are supported by the feudal lords in the area.

Perth’s Murdoch University and other universities have become heavily reliant on foreign student fees to bolster their incomes. 50 professors from the Australian Research Council’s Laureate Fellowship condemned the decision to take legal action against an associate professor from the university. Deeply concerned about the integrity of academic teaching, the professor complained on television that the university was not only enrolling international students whose English was inadequate but also allow them to graduate.

Reports indicated that 14.6 million Iranians were expected to start school but the country was unprepared to accommodate them. A big number of dilapidated institutions have not received the necessary funding for reconstruction and furthermore, it was indicated that there was a shortage of around 100,000 teachers across the country. Students at the Amir Kabir University in Tehran participated in a demonstration against corrupt practices that are making their fees rise beyond all affordability.