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A major Chinese education company has paid thousands of dollars in perks or cash to admissions officers at top U.S. universities to help students apply to American schools. According to eight former employees the company’s services didn’t end there. Employees engaged in practices such as writing application essays for students, altering recommendation letters and modifying grades on high school transcripts. The company’s success in gaining access to leading American colleges underscores how people on both sides of the Pacific are hungry to capitalize on Chinese students’ desire to study in the United States.

The University of Iowa suspects at least 30 Chinese students of having used ringers to take their exams. The case offers a look inside a thriving underground economy of cheating services aimed at the hundreds of thousands of Chinese kids applying to and attending foreign colleges. Coaching services author essays for clients. Handle their homework. Even take their exams. All for about a $1,000 a course.

As tens of thousands of Chinese students prepare to study in the U.S., they might reflect on the experience of some of those who went before them. According to an estimate by a U.S. education company, some 8,000 Chinese students were expelled from American universities last year alone – and the main reasons were poor grades and cheating.

Phony diploma mills that use “slick websites” and claim to be “nationally accredited” to lure honest students looking to improve themselves through education only offer certificates costing hundreds of dollars that “are not worth the paper they are printed on”, according to a report from ABC Action News WFTS in Florida.

An unusually high number of students at Stanford University are suspected of cheating during the most recent term, putting faculty members and administrators of the prestigious institution on alert. University spokeswoman says that in the 2013-2014 academic year, 83 students violated the honor code. In the most recent term, the newspaper reported that one instructor believes that 20 percent of students in a large introductory course may have cheated.

It’s raining As in America’s higher education system, and not necessarily because students are particularly smart. In fact, many of them probably don’t deserve the high marks they’re getting. They have grade inflation to thank. That inflation is rapidly spreading to higher education institutions across the country. Despite stagnant academic performance, more students than ever before receive higher grades than they should.

An eight-month investigation by former federal prosecutor Kenneth L. Wainstein has found that more than 3100 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students – almost half of them athletes — were given credit for "irregular" (read: nonexistent) classes over an 18-year period from 1993-2011 as part of a organized scheme that allowed many to remain sports-eligible.