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Several universities are being threatened with tough penalties for allegedly providing data that would artificially boost their performance on prestigious research rankings used to allocate government funding. The Australian Research Council has written stern letters to several universities warning them they face punishments for providing misleading data for their research excellence assessments, including prosecution under Commonwealth law.

Education Minister wants to make universities more accountable for how they spend their money after it was revealed billions of dollars a year are redirected from teaching to research. A report by the Grattan Institute found that universities report the $26 billion they spend each year in an "opaque" way, concluding: "Australia needs a more transparent system for reporting how universities spend their money."

A Sydney businessman accused of ripping off foreign students is continuing to run his operation despite facing 22 charges of fraud and misconduct. According to a former employee, the company, posing as the client, sets up fake email accounts to try and obtain visas, in direct infringement of The Migration Act.

The medical faculty at the University of Sydney will review one of its study units after an academic scandal which involved students falsifying records and interviewing dead patients. A spokeswoman for the university announced it would review its year-long Integrated Population Medicine (IPM), after it was revealed students had falsified reports that were supposed to document the experience of patients living with chronic diseases.

Macquarie University has revoked the degrees of two students and prevented a further 10 from graduating after an independent investigation revealed the students used an online ghost-writing service to complete their assignments. The Northern Sydney University is the latest institution to finalise its internal investigations into the MyMaster cheating racket, in which up to 1,000 students from 16 universities hired the online company MyMaster to write their assignments and sit for online tests.

The boss of the Education Institute at the Royal Children’s Hospital has quit in the wake of evidence given during an anti-corruption inquiry. The RCH told the Herald Sun that it appeared to have been caught up in what is alleged to have been misuse of public funds distributed to various organisations via a network of “banker schools”.

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.

A high-ranking Victorian education department official accused of running a corrupt scheme to siphon off money from school funding has been sacked. Former education department financial management general manager is the first scalp to be claimed by the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption (IBAC) hearings.

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.

Australian universities are paying more than an estimated $250 million each year to unregulated middlemen for the recruitment of international students, despite widespread acknowledgement that a number of these agents are corrupt and deal in fraudulent documents.