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A Los Angeles politician and a former dean at the University of Southern California (USC) were indicted on federal corruption charges. The case involves a bribery scheme in which a relative of the dean received substantial benefits from the university in exchange for the politician supporting county contracts while he served on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

The Macao Public Prosecutor's Office is investigating a University of Macao administrative official and two other partners on corruption charges. They helped a contractor bid for the construction of residential colleges and falsified documents. The main suspect received bribes for projects valued at MOP 220 million (US$27.4 million).

Reports show that criminals exploit cash payments made by West African students to pay tuition and other service fees at United Kingdom universities. Private universities and cross-border foreign campuses in Africa are used as an investment and to integrate the proceeds of crime into the legitimate economy. When more than the tuition fee is paid, they request the university to refund the overpayment to a third party’s account such as the bank account of a drug supplier or a bribed official.

Examination standards are virtually impossible to reinforce in a distance-learning environment where hundreds of students are simultaneously online. The Dean of the University of Crete’s literature department reports that it is easy for students to Google exam answers even under the eye of supervisors on camera. A 20- year-old student said that one of her friends gave 100 euros to a teacher to sit for her math exam. Similarly, a 20-year-old psychology student took exams on behalf of 2 of her friends and nobody realized.

A former administrator from Houston Independent School District was sentenced to one year of probation for her involvement in the admission scandal that ensnared wealthy parents across the country. She was accused of taking bribes from the admission consultant at the center of the scheme in exchange for allowing someone to sit exams on behalf of their clients ‘children or correct their answers. 50 more people were arrested last year in the scheme, in which authorities say undeserving kids were admitted to top universities with bogus athletic credentials or fake test scores.

A former Harvard coach accepted $1.5m in bribes in exchange for helping a businessperson get his two sons into the Ivy League school as fencers. They face charges with conspiracy to take bribes under federal programmes. The coach was fired in July 2019 for violating Harvard’s conflict-of-interest policy.

Ten out of 15 students in Tanzania admitted they had plagiarized on a regular basis without being noticed by their supervisor. They used fraudulent ways to graduate because professors either did not have the time to critically look at the students work or may notice it was plagiarized but took it as an opportunity to get bribes. According to a lecturer at Tumaini University Makumira, some of his colleagues assign or approve projects that already exist in the institution’s libraries.