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Higher-education authorities in Britain, China, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States have sounded the alarm about the increase in incidents of attempted admissions fraud. Authorities say cases of fraud typically involve students from developing countries who are desperate to get degrees from universities in developed countries, including those in Western Europe and the United States. A handful of countries seem to have the most offenders, including China, Colombia, Iraq, Nigeria and several former Soviet republics, particularly Armenia.

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.

Admissions, courses, grades and diplomas are for sale in high profile higher institutions. Admissions officers offer expensive private lessons. Reforms should include an accreditation system, an entrance exam and an increase in financing.

In 1998, the education watchdog group from Bombay, the Forum for Fairness in Education, won a landmark case that clamped down on secretive admissions practices. The court ruled that all colleges and universities must make entrance-examination scores public, to ensure that admissions are based on merit, and not money passed under the table.

Ten weeks in charge of Belgrade's most unruly high school killed its Director's passion for education. Few of the staff members were willing to cooperate with her efforts to stop a system of bribery for good grades. When the police caught one math teacher accepting a marked 50-euros note from a student and the problem came out into the open, the teachers rebelled against her with a vote of no confidence in her authority.

Israel grants government workers 10 to 20% pay increases for every advanced degree they earn; and as a result, dozens of civil servants, including top education officials, have been put under investigation for obtaining fake degrees.

Counterfeiters are reportedly finding ways to foil China's new electronic registration system for university diplomas. According to government statistics, 600,000 fake diplomas are circulating in China, although many officials suspect that the actual number is much higher.

A confidential list of students admitted to the prestigious Shanghai Communications University, along with information about their qualifications and the influential people who pushed for their admission, has been circulating on the Internet in China. The leaked list has renewed public debate over allegations of corruption in university admissions.

For years, a Romanian degree mill sold fake diplomas all over the world. Every moth $ 2 million had been transferred into a bank account in Cyprus. On the March 5, however, a joint action of US authorities (FTC) and British authorities shut down all the dozen-or-so websites. However it will probably not put them out of business since their main tools are Email spams and clever telemarketing.