Student Union
- By Will Schick
Buying Fake Term Papers Could Hurt Career
What would happen if you found out your dentist had hired someone to take the test on molars for them? Or if the city engineer never took a bridge building class and was responsible for testing their structural integrity?
Today, an internet search for “buy a college paper” will yield a half a billion results, and pages upon pages of websites offering anything from personal essays and lab reports, to nursing papers and academic dissertations.
Marketed as original content, written by native-English-speaking professionals, and seemingly plagiarism proof, websites with names like essay shark, fab editors, pay for essay, papers owl, and my paper writer promise to deliver everything to desperate students with a money back guarantee.
Alison Thomas, a lecturer at American University in Washington whose research focuses on information literacy, finds this development to be troubling. She said she believes the online college paper industry has the potential to wreak serious damage to the overall public good.
“The public has placed its trust in universities. There’s a certification that’s happening there. They’re saying ‘yes, this person is capable of doing all the things the degree suggests they’re capable of doing,’” she said.
Overwhelmed
Many supporters and patrons of these services, however, say they provide much needed support to students overwhelmed with school work. They characterize universities as degree mills that neglect to teach students real-world skills. Since most students never write another academic paper after graduation, they argue, why should they bother to write them in school?
Thomas concedes that many students, particularly those not accustomed to writing in English, may struggle with their college writing assignments. But paper-writing skills, she said, are important because they develop the kinds of “habits of mind” academic institutions and universities widely regard as crucial.
“These are life skills, these are professional skills,” she said, adding that “to think critically, to communicate clearly, to process information, to do something with ideas” are competences that “transcend specific fields of study.”
On a recent online forum, one student admitted to using a writing service for two college papers. Despite receiving a B on both assignments, the student advised others against buying papers. It was best to “do your own work, cuz it just gets harder,” they said, meaning skipping lessons might come back in upper-level classes to haunt them.
In the Medium article “How to Cheat Your Way Through School,” writer J. Naran concurred. He claimed to have used the “global online marketplace” to cheat his way through one semester of college.
As a scholarship recipient, Naran said he needed to maintain a 3.75 GPA, but found himself struggling to keep his grades up after a romantic breakup and a friend’s calamity.
Naran said cheating will catch up with the cheater. Aside from the costs of paying others for work, students might find themselves working twice as hard later to catch up. Naran did not respond to requests for comment about his article.
Ghostwriter for hire
Victor, a college drop-out and published poet, said he found himself in desperate financial trouble a few years ago. He needed money to pay his rent and for his groceries. He started a website marketing himself as a ghostwriter for hire.
He was approached by a student who asked him to write a first-year psychology paper for her. After she received an A, word spread, and Victor said he soon started to average 10 papers per week.
In an interview, Victor admitted to feeling guilt and shame about this work, calling it “wrong.” He said the most he ever earned was $700 for half of a student’s academic dissertation. Victor spoke only if his name were not disclosed, fearing damage to his reputation. He also said he worried it would impact a pending book contract.
There are thousands of ghostwriters for hire online, many who claim to have advanced degrees. One academic who also feared being fired if their identity were revealed admitted to writing papers for money. They said they needed the money.
Unlike traditional freelance writing, ghostwriting college papers can be quite lucrative, and knowledgeable writers can pocket hundreds of dollars for minimal work.
The college paper site Edusson claims their “expert” writers earn an average of $1,500 to $2,000 a month. The website writerbay.com offers writers the opportunity to choose from posted “jobs” and make anywhere from $75 for a 4,000-word nursing paper to $439 for a 1,100-word marketing paper.
Victor says he no longer writes college papers for money. After writing so much on so many topics, he now considers himself to be somewhat of a renaissance man. Writing papers, he said, has helped to educate him.
Justine Zapin, an adjunct professor who teaches first-year composition at American University in Washington said in an interview that it is common for non-native English speaking students to feel pressure to hire someone to write their essays for them.
Easily identified as false
But according to Zapin, professors at colleges across the U.S. can easily identify a falsified admissions essay by simply comparing it to the language used in assigned classroom work.
“The difference is really obvious,” she said.
This type of cheating may be the reason many universities are turning to third party interviewing services as part of their admissions process. Today, companies such as Initial View, based in China, videotapes interviews with prospective students in part, to verify and showcase their English speaking skills.
In any case, students who opt to intentionally cheat the system run the risk of being found out.
Like many universities, the academic integrity office at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) explicitly states on their webpage that students who are caught using online college paper writing services “almost always” end up suspended or dismissed from their universities. In 2017-2018, there were a total of 845 academic integrity allegation cases at UCSD.
Students, they argue, should strive to be truthful in their work because “society relies on the UCSD degree to mean something,” namely, “that a graduate has the requisite knowledge and abilities to perform in a professional role.”
See all News Updates of the Day
- By VOA News
International students discuss US campus culture shock
International students at De Anza College in Cupertino, California, talked about culture shock in an article in La Voz News, the student newspaper.
"It felt like a major culture shock. Everything was so different, from academics to mannerism," said a student from Mexico.
Read the full story here.
These are the most expensive schools in the US
High tuition costs along with housing and food expenses can add up for students at U.S. colleges and universities.
MSNBC looked at the most expensive schools in the country, with one costing more than $500,000 for a bachelor’s degree. (June 2024)
Uzbekistan students admitted into top US universities
Students from Uzbekistan are among the international students admitted to top colleges and universities in recent years.
Gazata.uz profiled some of the Uzbekistan students attending Harvard, Brown, Princeton and other U.S. universities. (June 2024)
- By Stella Hsu
Reports of visa checks, deportations worry Chinese STEM students in US
Geopolitical tensions and growing competition in tech between the United States and China appear to be spilling over into academia despite commitments from the world’s two biggest economies to boost people-to-people exchanges.
The United States remains the top choice for Chinese students seeking to study abroad with nearly 300,000 studying in American colleges and universities during the 2022-2023 school year. But reports of some cases that students and professors are facing extra scrutiny while passing through immigration and the deportation of others are raising concerns.
For Chen Xiaojin, a doctoral student studying semiconductor materials at a university in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, it has been six years since she returned to her hometown of Beijing.
At first, it was the COVID-19 pandemic that kept her from going home. But over the past two years, she has been deterred by accounts of Chinese students majoring in science and engineering being required to reapply for their visas upon returning to China.
She also says she is worried by reports over the past six months of Chinese students being deported, even at nearby Dulles Airport.
"My current research is relatively sensitive, and my boss [adviser] is getting funds from the U.S. Department of Defense, making it even more sensitive,” she told VOA. "I am afraid that I won't be able to return after I go back [to China]."
Chen says that if she did return to China, she would have to apply for a new visa.
In a report late last month, Bloomberg said it had found at least 20 Chinese students and scholars with valid visas who were deported at U.S. Customs since November and barred from reentry. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency does not release relevant data.
Immigration attorney Dan Berger represented one Chinese student who was deported late last year. He tells VOA Mandarin that the student studied biological sciences at Yale University and was about to complete her doctorate.
She visited her family in China and got a new visa but was deported by customs at Dulles Airport and barred from reentering the country for five years. Berger said he did not see anything suspicious in the transcript of the conversation between the student and the customs officer.
"We have seen what seems like a pattern over the last six months of Chinese PhD students being turned around…. more than I've seen in quite a while," he said.
Matthew Brazil, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, said neither country seems willing to explain the situation. However, he believes that in most cases, the United States must have valid reasons for blocking visa holders from entering the country.
In some cases, the student’s background may not match what is written on the visa application. In other cases, customs agents may also find something that the State Department missed, and once they see it, they are responsible for taking action.
"I wish the Chinese side would be specific about their students who were refused entry,” he said. “The fact that both sides are mum on details and that the Chinese side is engaged with the usual angry rhetoric means that each has security concerns. And that says to me that there was good reason for the U.S. to stop these particular applicants."
Brazil also sees a connection between the entry denials and export control regulations issued by the United States in October 2022 that restrict China's ability to obtain advanced computing chips, develop and maintain supercomputers, and manufacture advanced semiconductors.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is one of the law enforcement agencies authorized to investigate violations of export control regulations, he said.
"Beijing's intelligence agencies are known to focus attention on PRC [People's Republic of China] students and scientists headed abroad who study or work on dual-use technologies controlled under the Export Administration Act — compelling Chinese students and scientists to report on what they've learned when they return to China on holiday,” he said. “This has been true for decades."
Bill Drexel, a fellow for the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, said the U.S. government did find some cases where students tried to steal strategic technology for China.
"I think it would both not be surprising that they found some really questionable or incriminating evidence for some students,” he said. “It would also not be surprising if, in their hunt for really solid evidence, they also may have made some mistakes on other students.”
Drexel adds that “it’s just kind of an unfortunate fact of the time that we live in and the tactics that the CCP uses when it comes to these measures."
In a post on X in early May, U.S. ambassador to China Nicholas Burns tried to dispel concerns about visas and entry to the United States for students and scholars. In the post, he said "99.9% of Chinese students holding visas encounter no issues upon entering the United States.”
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Monday, Burns said it is China that is making it impossible to promote people-to-people ties. Burns told the Journal that students attending events sponsored by the United States in China have been interrogated and intimidated.
He also said that since U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s leader Xi Jinping held their summit in San Francisco last year, China’s Ministry of State Security and other agencies had interfered with Chinese citizens’ participation at some 61 events.
At a regular briefing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning dismissed those accusations, saying that they did not “reflect reality" and that went against key understandings reached by both countries’ presidents in San Francisco.
“The United States, under the pretext of 'national security,' unjustifiably harasses, interrogates, and deports Chinese students in the U.S., causing them significant harm and creating a severe chilling effect,” Mao said. “The image of the United States in the minds of the Chinese people fundamentally depends on the actions of the United States itself.”
Drexel said he believes Burns’ comments about visas and students' willingness to study in the U.S. still ring true.
“On balance, it's still the case that American universities are overwhelmingly warm towards Chinese students and want them in large numbers," he said.
However, Berger, the immigration lawyer, is concerned about the chilling effect recent cases involving Chinese students could have.
"In general, we are being more careful about advising Chinese graduate students in STEM fields about traveling and letting them know that there is some small risk,” he said.
Even though the risk is small, it does seem to be real at the moment, he said.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
US federal judge blocks new regulation targeting for-profit colleges
A federal judge in Texas has blocked a regulatory provision targeting for-profit colleges that was scheduled to take effect in July 2024.
Times Higher Education reports that the rule, which would affect student loans, was challenged by for-profit institutions. (June 2024)
