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Australia's most powerful universities have fallen into line over university admissions standards, recommending wholesale changes in the wake of a Fairfax Media investigation that brought the sector's integrity into question. Up to 99% of applicants for some NSW university degrees have been admitted despite failing to meet the minimum ATAR score advertised for the course.

A NSW government minister has launched a blistering attack on the federal government's administration of the scandal-ridden private vocational education sector. The sector has been plagued by allegations of dodgy private providers recruiting tens of thousands of students through free laptops and targeting illiterate, disabled students to sign them up to tens of thousands of dollars worth of taxpayer-funded student debt through the federal government's HECS-style VET-FEE help program.

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.

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.