Cash-strapped British universities "are awarding degrees to students, who should be failed, in return for lucrative fees," claimed a leading British daily on Sunday.
"The 'degrees-for-sale' scandal stretches from the most prestigious institutions to the former polytechnics and includes undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, foreign and home students.
In the most extreme case, The Observer has evidence of a professor ordering staff to mark up students at risk of failing in order to keep the money coming in," claimed the British daily in an article.
"Lecturers at institutions across the country, including Oxford, London and Swansea, told The Observer the scandal is undermining academic standards, but they cannot speak publicly for fear of losing their jobs."
The British daily claimed: "In the most blatant example of the financial pressure to pass failing students, Professor Richard Wynne, head of Bournemouth University's design, engineering and computing department, e-mailed staff telling them to 'minimise' the number of failures because of a drop in applications.
" 'I would urge all academic staff involved in marking examinations etc to look very carefully at those students gaining marks in the 30s. If the mark is 38/9, just below the pass mark, then please, where possible, look for the extra 1/2 mark if appropriate and not leave it to the exam board to make this decision,' " The Observer quoted the professor as saying.
The daily said a foreign student can pay $30,000 a year to study for a business degree--six times the income received from a UK undergraduate. Even Masters' degrees in traditional academic subjects can cost as much as $7,000 for foreign students. Universities make a loss of about $5,000 on each UK student.
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