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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.

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.

At the request of the Committee on Science and Education, several higher education institutions have been charged for forcing students to attend political meetings. School officials are thus accused of promising to pass students in return for their participation.

Eighteen parents and seven financial-aid advisers in the Chicago area have been charged with federal student-aid fraud for allegedly obtaining more than $2.6-million in funds by purposefully underreporting their income on financial-aid applications. Two of the aid advisers worked at colleges.

The U.S. Education Department last week proposed new rules that would loosen a ban on incentive compensation for college recruiters and get rid of a financial-aid regulation. The proposal to eliminate the 12-hour rule follows years of debate. Distance-education providers have pushed the department and Congress to throw out the regulation, but others have cited fears that relaxing the rule would lead to fraud.

The chairman of the University of Zimbabwe's council has been implicated in corruption at the institution. A report of a parliamentary committee on education that has been investigating rampant corruption at the university should be held accountable for approving shady deals in which the university lost money. The report said the deputy vice chancellor had irresponsibly allowed the signing of a series of high-priced contracts to companies without following the correct procedure.