The omertà on rampant cheating by overseas students can’t hold forever

Once it becomes common knowledge that a UK master’s degree is worthless, the sector will be in trouble, says an anonymous academic

八月 3, 2023
Montage of a hand with an envelope of money and a hand with a folder to illustrate The omertà on rampant cheating by international students can’t hold forever
Source: Getty images montage (edited)

Between 2018-19 and 2021-22, the number of non-European Union international students pursuing full-time postgraduate degrees in the UK doubled from 161,975 to 320,160, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency – growth achieved in the midst of the Covid pandemic and which will certainly have continued for the current academic year.

This has been widely lauded as good news. It reassures us of the enduring appeal and cachet of UK universities even in the aftermath of Brexit. Intangibly, many provincial universities and further education providers have benefited from becoming more globalised and outward-looking. Tangibly, without the tuition fees that non-EU students pay, it is doubtful if university incomes could have been sustained in real terms without broaching the politically contentious matter of fee levels for home undergraduates.


Campus views: Professors, stop pretending that you never cheat


And universities have responded to these incentives with gusto. They have aggressively recruited non-EU students to postgraduate programmes, particularly business and management, which are cheap to deliver and can be quickly scaled to accommodate hundreds of students. However, in the process, there has been a corresponding disregard for the preparedness or potential of the students being recruited.

For instance, international students are required as a condition of acceptance to provide evidence of English proficiency, most commonly scores in the IELTS (International English Language Testing System). But these can be secured with the simple expedient of bribery or paying an agent to take the test (scroll through “IELTS cheating” on Google). Consequently, most academics teaching on a postgraduate programme will have encountered students unable to converse or write in English.

Perhaps a student’s English will improve during the programme, such that they might be able to complete the assessments? Conceivably, although there is little an instructor can do to help given that there are hundreds of students on core modules. Some universities have abandoned seminar instruction on oversubscribed master’s programmes because they do not have the staff available for anything but large-group lectures. The problem is exacerbated when enrolment remains open for months after instruction has started.

And so, given that many students have no chance of passing assessments on their own merits, it is an open secret that cheating on assessed work is now endemic. On a relatively small, optional module (dozens of students rather than hundreds) that I delivered for a business master’s programme at a mid-ranking UK university recently, half the students admitted to having had their assessed essays ghostwritten – and this was before AI-generated text became freely available.

The problem only gets worse as one moves down the university rankings and into private providers. As a sessional lecturer for a private business school, I supervised nine master’s students for their dissertation. Eight had their work ghosted.

Moving beyond circumstantial evidence to assess the overall scale of the problem is difficult, admittedly. First, it relies on detection by the (usually junior) academics who teach on these programmes. But this is much easier said than done. Given the number of students involved, it is vanishingly unlikely that an instructor would be sufficiently familiar with an individual’s previous work to detect ghosting. Nor is there any incentive to engage in the time-consuming, morale-sapping work of detecting student cheating. Promotion and tenure are contingent on other tasks. Indeed, a high incidence of cheating on your module might be taken as evidence of your poor tuition rather than your integrity.

Universities have similar fears for their own reputations, which is another reason why collection and reporting of accurate numbers on cheating is not realistic. Which university executive in their right mind would want to advertise egregious rates of dishonesty on their programmes?

For illustration, my university charges international students in excess of £20,000 for a one-year master’s in business. By the end of June, we had more than 300 confirmed to start in September. With registration remaining open until November, the final figure will be nearer to 500. That is roughly £10 million for a programme that, relative to engineering or medicine, is extremely cheap to deliver. Why jeopardise the cash cow by acknowledging widespread cheating? Much better to engage in head-burying and maintain plausible deniability.

Ultimately, the best evidence of the scale of cheating comes from the multiplicity of essay mills. And, certainly at my university, cheating on assessed work has become endemic on postgraduate degrees, while the chances of a student’s being detected and sanctioned are minimal. We now graduate a significant share of students who have never done any work, cheating legitimate students who have often made great personal sacrifices to study here.

A partial solution would include more stringent enforcement of entry requirements, closing registration before programmes begin, and improving staff-to-student ratios (which would, in turn, enable more creative modes of assessment, curtailing the opportunities for ghostwriting and AI assistance).

This would require universities to prioritise the scholarly imperative over the financial one, which is not on the horizon. However, the sector is in danger of cannibalising itself once it becomes common knowledge that a master’s degree from a UK university is worthless.

The author is a UK academic.

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Reader's comments (9)

Introduce oral exams to test the high scores on assessments. Might solve the problem.
A flaw with this approach is that if you look only, or disproportionately, at high marks the strategy becomes only cheat sufficiently to pass. What you arguably should ask as a commissioner is what grade do I need to get and not attract attention? Of course the temptation is, especially when paying for am answer to overreach. Randomised or 100% oral might work but that probably becomes a very costly option.
I too teach masters progs in a business school at a mid tier UK university and can confirm that every word the author says is true. I've been predicting this will be the next scandal to hit UK academia and have raised concerns about suspicions of contract cheating among our PGT cohort for years repeatedly to little apparent interest from on high at my university. At least, I comforted myself, I'd be able to say I fought the good fight when the merde finally, and publicly, hits the fan. This piece suggests that day may be fast approaching.
I've been involved with Finance MScs at a Russell Group University for many years and can confirm all of this is true. The cynical disregard for English proficiency, both at BSc and MSc level, makes me particularly angry. Because over half our intake is Chinese (let's be honest, for the benefit of the general reader), we can no longer require BSc students, both home and international, to write answers in grammatically correct complete sentences. This is to the detriment of home students and devalues our degrees in the eyes of UK employers. The MSc fees are now over £30k a year, equivalent to more than three home ug students. Universities will continue with this unless they are stopped; and they won't be stopped because of the massive job losses which would ensue. Remember the fuss they kicked up when it was proposed that visa regulations be tightened?
Surely this item must attract immediate fierce denials and refutations from UK HEI Vice-Chancellors? They can't stay silent, can they?
Hi Darris, Unfortunately I very much doubt there will be any refutation and denial, fierce or meek. They are perfectly aware of this noxious exercise in corruption and dissembly. They are also perfectly happy to partake of the financial bounty. All parties are aware and I believe those involved in running the countries from which most overseas students are drawn, are also aware of the issue. In the UK, there is a clear awareness of the lack of integrity in many parts of the UKHE sector, yet the problem only seems to get worse. I could add more from my own experience but it would be a longer and rather glum read.
I teach on and course direct an MSc at a mid-tier university where the percentage of international students enrolled on the course has reached 90%. Contract cheating, collusion and plagiarism are endemic and like other commenters here, the senior management of my university are disinterested in even acknowledging the problem, let alone addressing it. I've successfully changed all assignments to be extremely difficult to cheat on, too expensive for tailored contract cheaters to address, and 'Chat GPT-proof', and this has seem the pass rate for international students on most modules nosedive as students are no longer able to easily cheat. This now has myself and my teaching team in the crosshairs of various elements in the university blaming us for the low pass rate (despite ample support being provided and assessment difficulty being the same as previous assessments). I feel like currently we're damned either way, I will not be sending my children to a UK university; they are largely diploma mills now. UK degrees no longer mean much.
To further add to my comment (above), as the original article outlines, I also have a number of students enrolled within every course intake at PG level who cannot speak or write in coherent English. Often they cannot understand even very simple spoken instructions, yet I'm expected to have good pass rates at MSc level. MSc level study is challenging even for native British speakers and when dealing with English language speakers that do not meet even B2 level of spoken / written English, it is almost impossible. I have zero faith in IELTs; students who supposedly hold IELTs scores of 6.5+ are barely able to understand the most basic of questions, nor are they able to speak / write in basic, coherent English. Very often I genuinely cannot understand emails sent to me by international students because their English language ability is so poor.
I wholeheartedly agree with the author’s comments.