Search Page

The University of California system inappropriately admitted 64 wealthy and well-connected students as favors to donors, family, and friends and denied applicants that are more qualified an equal opportunity to education. 55 people were charged with bribery and fraud to secure admission included faking credentials of student-athletes.

Between 1999 and 2006, 242 graduates in the Eastern Shandong province enrolled at universities using other people’s identities and college entrance scores. According to reports, dozens of people have been punished, but under existing laws, students cannot be charged with a crime. The National People’s Congress has received a proposal to criminalize exam fraud, and the Ministry of Education will work with authorities to investigate and hold students accountable.

Reports indicate that not only do Chinese students cheat on their college applications, but many continue even after they have arrived in the U.S. An admissions official at the University of Southern California recognized that he earned $40,000 from clients over the years by providing “false college transcripts with inflated grades,” “fraudulent personal statements,” and “phony letters of recommendation” for the applications of his Chinese clients.

The Court convicted officials of the Ministry of Education and Public Security for involvement in fraud over the 2018 high school national exams, where over 200 students from three northern provinces of Hoa Binh, had their results modified in the high school exam. Two other people were jailed for paying bribes to alter exam scores. After the fraud was exposed, dozens of students dropped out of top universities and others were expelled after their marks were corrected.

Officials of a local education center and 200 Macau residents are accused of fraud, document forgery, and computer forgery. The Anti-Corruption Commission reported that residents enrolled in courses subsidized by the Education and Youth Bureau never attended the courses, simply providing their personal identification data to the education center and receiving, in exchange, 2,000 to 2,500 MOPs in cash.

There is a massive fraud going on in Vietnam with education agents charging $5,000-10,000 upfront from the families for scholarships to US institutions. Larger agencies are more specialized in helping students gain admission to “highly selective colleges and universities”, with packages that include assistance with writing essays, completing them on behalf of students and other services, including creating extracurricular activities that their clients can add to their application.

The Livingston High School Academy fired a lead teacher and a principal had resigned after allegations of cheating and fraud. A recent audit revealed admission and academic policy violations. The accused teacher cultivated academic dishonesty in her classroom by providing binders with test questions and answers for students to use when completing assignments and examinations.

In spite of ongoing accusations of academic fraud and financial crimes against his family, a former law professor was nominated as the new justice minister. His wife, also a professor, was accused of allegedly falsifying material that would have helped their daughter enter university and obtain scholarships. In a protest against the government, opposition leaders shave their heads.

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.

Cheating among students has reached unprecedented levels worldwide from academic misconduct among Britain's Russell Group universities from 2014 to 2017; ongoing cheating among student-athletes to enter or to stay at universities in the United States; unauthorized exam assignment sharing in Switzerland; contract cheating in Australia to plagiarism in many Eastern European countries. If universities just declare their integrity but do not practice it, they might not be able to expect it from students.