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According to a report published by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation and the International Quality Group, corruption in higher education vary between countries but it highlights unethical, inappropriate, and illegal practices. Some examples include university leaders and professors with fake or undeserved doctoral degrees impacting on the governance of some Russian universities, ‘ghost advising’ or absenteeism by senior academics, delegating their responsibilities for teaching or supervision to junior colleagues or research students, is widespread in Kosovo, or students and teachers sexually harassing, threatening or harming academic teaching staff in Uganda.

Diploma mills have been on the United States radar screen as far back as 1876. Today, credential fraud in higher education is a billion-dollar industry, by some accounts. It has spiralled into a major threat for employers and university admissions offices. And it spans the globe. The United States is home to the largest number of diploma mills, with more than 1,000 known operations in 2011, according to Verifile, a UK-based pre-employment screening company.

Although Chinese students have been going to America to study for decades, their numbers have grown dramatically in the past few years. Many of them have only a basic knowledge of foreign universities and difficulty making sense of complicated applications. As a result, a huge industry of education agents has arisen in the country to help guide them — and, in some cases, to do whatever it takes to ensure that they are accepted.