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Corruption, funding shortages and an obsession with profit are plaguing the quality of university education in Cambodia, students say, driving them overseas in search of masters and PhD programmes.

A seven-month investigation revealed that a number of Chile's universities are illegally operating as profit-oriented businesses. According to a report conducted by a special investigation committee, eight universities violated anti-profiteering laws amidst findings of increased salaries among executives, circulation of finances between companies under the same private ownership and outsourcing of services as means of generating revenue.

The financial management of the elite Institute of Political Studies in Paris has been strongly criticized in an official report that found evidence of exorbitant bonuses, absence of controls and waste of public funds. The report revealed a chaotic management that consisted more of "little deals between friends than a serious administration of public funds".

Once comprehensively surveyed, the magnitude and reach of fraud is becoming clear. For example, research suggests that the majority of applications from a number of large student-sending countries are either significantly embellished or outright fraudulent. As a result, tens of thousands of international students, having passed through visa and admissions systems, are enrolled all over the world based on school transcripts, financial support statements, recommendation letters or test scores that are untrue.

Bar-Ilan University was fined by the Council of Higher Education for admitting students without bachelor's degrees to graduate programs. The panel ruled that Bar-Ilan will be responsible for financing the undergraduate degrees of students who were enrolled in violation of the Council of Higher Education's guidelines.

According to an in-depth study entitled Effective Delivery of Public Services in the Education Sector, the progress achieved in Mozambique's education system in the last twenty years are is being threatened by diversion of funds, fraud concerning school admission and the awarding of building contracts, as well as by sexual extortion for good grades. The authors of the inquiry underline the urgent necessity to implement an anti-corruption legislation.

Private and public universities in South Korea have engaged in creative accounting practices resulting in excessive hikes in tuition fees, the state audit agency said. Wrapping up an investigation into 35 randomly chosen universities, including nine public institutions, the Board of Audit and Inspection said the institutions had habitually manipulated their accounting books over the past five years to justify steep rises in tuition expenses.

A third of French universities are "illegally" charging students for services that should be covered by statutory fees, claims Unef, France's biggest student union.

The Minister for Higher Education, Universities, Regional University Centres and Scientific Research, has threatened to close the Ecole Polytechnique de Thiès if lecturers continue to ignore a government order banning them from teaching fee-paying courses during the day, according to press reports.

A new government report on recruiting techniques in the for-profit higher education industry finds instances of college officials urging applicants to invent children and to hide their savings as a way to leverage more federal aid.