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Diploma-mill owners are an elusive bunch. They flood e-mail boxes with offers of cheap college degrees, and collect payment through Web sites, then filter that money into overseas bank accounts. When the police try to shut one of the businesses down, the owners just set up shop elsewhere, often in a poor country with weak fraud laws. Unable to snuff out these illegal businesses, many states have changed their strategy: if you can't catch the dealers, go after the consumers. A handful, like Illinois, Indiana, and New Jersey, have recently criminalized the use of fake degrees.

In the US, the government is not directly implemented in the procedure of accreditation. Private agencies are taking care of this. The Education Department is recognizing some agencies. However, they do not do much to stop the activities from less honest ones. Several education institutes are not accredited due to the high procedure costs.

A report released by the department says a project called the Distance Education Demonstration Program has shown that waiving financial-aid restrictions on distance-education providers did not lead to any problems. The rules were designed to prevent fraudulent correspondence programs from gaining access to federal student-aid money. But the report leaves out details about one instance in which an institution closed down after it took advantage of a rule waiver and was then found to be riddled with fraud.

The professoriate is a gatekeeper, determining a student's first exposure to ethical standards, traditions. Many observers of contemporary academic culture have documented cases if irresponsible and unethical behavior within the professoriate. Examples include lateness for class, use of vulgarity in scholarly forums, showing favouritism among students, improper use of campus funds, plagiarism, sexual liaisons with students, failure to properly perform administrative duties, and, most basic, unwillingness to uphold the value of truth in teaching and research.

Japan. Kenya. Mexico. United Kingdom. USA: People from the Kenyan Ministry of Education participated in selling fake diplomas. In the USA and Mexico, students buy term papers and admissions essays online. People propose to take tests for others in China.