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“Around 250,000 overseas students were studying in the UK last year in a business said to be worth more than £3bn to the UK economy.”

And there it is. That’s just it. Selling degrees, as all diploma mills know, is incredibly easy and incredibly lucrative; and it’s always possible for this or that legit university to realize that two can play that game. Most of the three billion up there is legitimate work at legitimate UK universities; but a chunk of it involves trading on your university’s name for cash.

Things got so bad at the venerable University of Wales that they’ve shut the place down entirely.

The university has been hit with a series of scandals involving affiliated foreign colleges that award University of Wales degrees. Last year, Malaysian singing star Fazley Yaakob, who headed an affiliate in his homeland, turned out to have faked his qualifications, and a Bangkok affiliate turned out to be illegal.

The latest scandal involves Rayat London College. A report last week said foreign students there were sold the answers to exams that allowed them to enter a University of Wales MBA program with a British visa.

Here’s an administrator who needs a little public relations help. You see how he keeps defensively smiling and pretending everything is just peachy, peachy, peachy. The name University of Wales at the moment is trashy — hopelessly associated with either rampant negligence or a willingness to prostitute itself for money. No doubt gradually the newly constituted group of universities there will recover; but you only look like a fool when you deny the obvious.

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UD thanks Edmund.

Margaret Soltan, October 25, 2011 11:09AM
Posted in: diploma mill

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3 Responses to ““Around 250,000 overseas students were studying in the UK last year in a business said to be worth more than £3bn to the UK economy.””

  1. Mr Punch Says:

    British universities have been skirting the slippery slope for a long time of course – although even with the Internet the University of London has actually limited its “distance learning” offerings compared to what was once available. What’s the story with all these “taught MA” programs? Are they designed exclusively for overseas students?

  2. Tony Says:

    …but you only look like a fool when you deny the obvious.

    But it’s only a flesh wound!

  3. Peter Says:

    Taught MA programmes were pretty much created simply because the UK research councils insisted on them. I suspect the councils were annoyed at funding people who failed to finish Ph.Ds in three years (four years being seen as routine) or failed their funded PhDs altogether.

    Insisting that research institutions offer taught MAs and making them a prerequisite for doctoral funding meant that people had the chance to prepare better for doctoral study and also the option to bow out early if it didn’t work for them. Having said that, some MA courses seem to have become cashcows for universities to recruit overseas students and charge them extra so as to subsidise other activities.

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