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In the book "Corruption in Higher Education: Global Challenges and Responses," 34 experts shed light on various corruption issues in higher education: contract cheating and outsourcing assignments; ambivalent hiring processes; fake universities that take various forms, from profit-driven schemes to students buying degrees without fulfilling obligations; corruption research involves scholars, administrators, and agencies, united against academic corruption. Future steps include integrity theory development, examining secondary education's impact, leveraging technology, avoiding social group stigmatization, and fostering global cooperation.

A petitioner accused Adesh Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Bathinda of unethical practices and alleged employment of at least 12 ghost teachers. The employees would just come to the private institute and mark their presence and then return to their own institutes. The high court directed medical bodies to investigate the complaint and take appropriate action.

Academic corruption exists in doctoral education even though this should reflect the highest standards of academic integrity. Doctoral degrees have become especially popular among politicians, state bureaucrats, civil servants and people seeking employment in academia. An entire market has formed in Ukraine that offers ghostwritten dissertations to order. This market consists of not only individuals but also officially registered firms. If in 2009, there were 16 such firms, by 2016 the number tripled, reaching 46.

According to a report published by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation and the International Quality Group, corruption in higher education vary between countries but it highlights unethical, inappropriate, and illegal practices. Some examples include university leaders and professors with fake or undeserved doctoral degrees impacting on the governance of some Russian universities, ‘ghost advising’ or absenteeism by senior academics, delegating their responsibilities for teaching or supervision to junior colleagues or research students, is widespread in Kosovo, or students and teachers sexually harassing, threatening or harming academic teaching staff in Uganda.

The teacher-student ratio, a measure of quality of education, which is already abysmal at 1:21, is set to worsen after the discovery that nearly a tenth of teachers employed in higher education turned out to be ghost teachers. Around 130,000 teachers were found to be fake. India has about 1.4 million teachers in colleges and universities. While the good news is that this will lead to a focus on improving the quality of teaching, the bad news is that the country has just found out that understaffing in higher education institutes is far greater than what has been estimated so far.