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The need to sell more courses to foreign students is placing universities' reputations at risk and education is slowly being privatised. To replace the missing income due to fall in government funds, universities allow private students, particularly from overseas to buy university places. The fees overseas students pay can represent up to two-fifths of the budget of universities.

According to the study, "Fake Universities and Bogus Degrees – Sweden and the World", there has been an increase in the number of job seekers who have been caught trying to pass off fake degrees as genuine, with more than 30 cases reported in the last two years. According to the National Agency for Higher Education, there exists over 800 Web-based fake universities. The study recommends use of a digital database that employers can access to verify an applicant's qualifications, something into which Australia is already looking.

Students from the University of New England may have their degrees stripped from them if they're found guilty of cheating, and may also lose their Australian residency visa. The university has checked more than 200 master projects and found that a significant proportion of fee-paying foreign students had been involved in plagiarism.

Hundreds of WA University students have been caught cheating in exams and plagiarising course work. During the past three years, 545 students have been picked up for plagiarism at Curtin University, 304 at Murdoch, 270 at the University of WA and 182 at Edith Cowan University.

No es probable que el profesor universitario de Perth descubierto por amenazar a estudiantes chinas con suspenderlas si no mantenían relaciones sexuales con él sea el único académico que explote la vulnerabilidad de estudiantes atrapadas en el negocio de visados-por-títulos, según la Comisión contra el Crimen y Corrupción de Australia Occidental.

At the helm of the company embroiled in a large-scale academic cheating scandal is a Chinese-born businesswoman. The enterprising 30-year-old has used her accounting degree to build a lucrative ghostwriting service, called MyMaster. This pitch has seen the MyMaster company turn over at least $160,000 during 2014 and return more than 900 fraudulent assignments to students prepared to hand over up to $1,000 for the work.

Australia's leading universities, including the prestigious University of Sydney and the Australian National University, have engaged corrupt education agents who are falsifying the academic records of prospective international students to ensure their acceptance into the Australian tertiary system.

Australia has been gripped by a national debate over how to fund our university education. But perhaps there's a more important question: what is it worth? A Four Corners investigation has unearthed alarming new evidence of a decline in academic standards at institutions around the country. Lecturers and tutors are grappling with a tide of academic misconduct and pressure from faculty managers to pass weak students. Many say commercial imperatives are overtaking academic rigour.