Dive Brief:
- Reuters reveals a potential fraud case involving consulting firms who purport to recruit Chinese students for American universities, but which may have been involved in falsifying applications and documents to expedite admission into the institutions.
- New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc enrolled more than 10,000 students at U.S. institutions this year and charges more than $7,000 to help non-English speakers prepare application materials for consideration.
- Chinese students represent 9% of more than a record 1 million international students studying at American schools counted in the 2015-16 academic year.
Dive Insight:
Institutions are not in the business of verifying the identity of applying students and credentials, but perhaps they should be, given the influx of scrutiny of these students seeking degrees at all levels. While federal and state statutes may soon dictate new standards for international admission, there is still the potential of false documentation in the application processes, which may create problems for campuses looking to bolster revenues from admitting foreign-born students.
This news may create a new sub-industry in higher education for verifying student identities and credentials. And if that is a possibility, it will stretch budgets even thinner for institutions and raise costs even more for students.