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.

Cheating by students who use essay mills is “virtually undetectable”, according to a study that found that many ghost-written papers would receive good marks if they were submitted. An associate lecturer in history at the University of New South Wales, conducted an experiment in which she ordered essays from 13 ghostwriting websites and then had them graded by leading academics who believed that they were looking at genuine student submissions. The results were “alarming”, with the quality of purchased essays being “higher than expected”; The use of essay mills might therefore be “much, much higher” than previously thought.

The Chinese government is buying influence over Australian universities by donating libraries and funds for institutes as part of a broader push to strengthen its soft power in the country, two Australian journalists have argued. The debate in Australia echoes concerns in the US, where the Chinese government has been accused of seeking to exert control over the academy by funding Confucius Institutes on university campuses.

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 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.

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.

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.