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Australian universities have been hyperactive in tying up collaborations and research cooperation deals with universities and other organisations in China, including Chinese state-backed companies. But in the wake of a major political scandal in Australia involving Chinese donors who have also funded local institutions, universities have been advised to be alert about undue influence by donor organisations on research, including pressure to produce research for Chinese propaganda purposes.

China is warning its students to steer clear of fake universities. An information website has published a list of 30 such institutions following the annual college entry exam in June. This is the sixth such list in existence. Apparently, faking an entire educational institution isn’t all that difficult. And authorities say they’re becoming harder to spot. No less than a dozen provinces and regions – including Beijing and Shanghai - were mentioned in a list by sdaxue.com, an education information website, according to Xinhua. Some 30 fake universities were mentioned, compounding an already fat list of 400 since 2013.

This is what is provided in a law passed last autumn to combat endemic levels of cheating during the gaokao, china’s national exam which determines the future career of its candidates. Following the adoption of the law, student caught or accused of cheating can face seven years imprisonment in a state gaol. A law voted in last autumn, also makes cheating a crime. This is why, last Tuesday 7 June, the day of the goakao, the Chinese authorities ordered the deployment of 768 police officers, tasked with supervising the country’s 96 exam centres.

The University of Iowa suspects at least 30 Chinese students of having used ringers to take their exams. The case offers a look inside a thriving underground economy of cheating services aimed at the hundreds of thousands of Chinese kids applying to and attending foreign colleges. Coaching services author essays for clients. Handle their homework. Even take their exams. All for about a $1,000 a course.

Twenty-one people have been arrested after US authorities set up a fake university to expose immigration fraud. Officials said the accused knew that the University of Northern New Jersey did not exist, but they were unaware it was a ruse run by immigration agents. The defendants acted as brokers for more than 1,000 foreigners who sought to maintain student and work visas, prosecutors said. Most foreign nationals involved in the scheme came from China and India.

Universities in Shanghai have been taken to task for inflating graduate employment figures as the Shanghai City administration, in cooperation with higher education institutions, recently published its first report on the destination of recent graduates. While some have lauded the report for increasing transparency on employment prospects for graduates, others have said the Shanghai government was colluding with universities to “entice” students to enrol in these universities.

The United States firm that owns the SAT, a college entrance exam accepted by many US colleges and universities, cancelled plans to administer the test this weekend at centres in China and Macau following concerns that some students may have obtained information about questions in advance. Tests scheduled to be administered Saturday in Bahrain and Kazakhstan also were cancelled. Students in Hong Kong sat for the test Saturday as scheduled.

As a record number of Chinese students stream into American universities, verification companies have sprouted up to help combat doctored transcripts, falsified essays, and surrogate test-takers. They vie against another set of Chinese companies, which turn out false applications and seek to profit off the frenzy for a US degree. Verification companies such as InitialView test College-bound Chinese students by filming a video interview to prove their speaking abilities match their applications.

In one week at the end of 2015, five presidents or senior vice-presidents of four of Beijing’s most prestigious universities were punished or penalised for violating laws and Communist Party regulations on embezzlement and corruption. In 2015, a total of 52 members of senior management at universities and scholars were reprimanded on similar charges by the Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, or CCDI, as part of an anti-corruption campaign in universities that started in 2013.