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The Institute of Business Economics’ rector and deputy are charged with fraud, forging of documents and their sale, commercial bribery, and mediation. One of the Institute applicants said that the admissions office offered her to pay 450 thousand rubles ($7,054) for three years of study. The fact that the university was deprived of its license two years earlier did not prevent the rector from concluding contracts with candidates for paid higher education.

In December 2015, a prominent member of Russia’s ruling party was accused of plagiarising a large portion of his economic dissertation. But the strangest thing about the alleged plagiarism is not the accused’s lack of defence—it's that the Russian public didn't really seem to care. In fact, the Chairman of the State is one of more than 1,000 high achieving Russians who have been caught plagiarising. The accused include politicians, judges, prosecutors, police officials and even heads of universities.

The rector of the Moscow State University of Culture and the Arts is alleged to have handed out 130 "false" law degrees between 2001 and 2004 in exchange for bribes worth RUR300,000. Estimates of how much students pay teachers and academics in bribes every year range from RUR250m to RUR300m.