For the last 15 years, I have used my knowledge as a barrister and former university lecturer to advise students on their academic appeals and misconduct cases.
In that time, I have seen the best and worst of student behaviour. I have dealt with students who paid others to write their entire PhDs and who recruited stand-ins to attend clinical placements.
I have encountered countless methods of cheating, from tiny notes hidden in pockets, to phones concealed in toilets, to modified ear protectors.
Only recently, a law student told me she had seen classmates slip earphones beneath their hijab during exams, whispering questions and receiving answers from a distant accomplice.
The ethics of representation
Occasionally, students ask me to act unethically on their behalf. I recall one student who had failed a resit exam and been withdrawn from his course.
In a moment of panic, he told the university that his parents had been killed in a terrible accident shortly before his exam. He begged me to repeat the lie in my formal appeal statement to the university. I refused.
As barristers, we will fight tooth and nail for our clients, whatever they have done, but only within the confines of the truth.
I remember one Russian client who had paid someone to write every single essay and eventually been caught. I explained that the evidence against him was strong, that the prospects of success were slim, and that I could not advise him to lie to the university.
He shook his head in disgust:
What is wrong with this country? In Russia, we pay the professor and everything is okay!
Recently, I had a conversation with a person – a non-lawyer – who had set up a university appeals business abroad. Like me, he had seen the underside of higher education.
He told me that students regularly cheat in the English language proficiency tests required by universities as a condition of entry. These tests ensure that students have sufficient command of English to cope with academic study.
According to him, cheating on these tests is widespread, with some companies approaching him directly with answers to the language tests.
He explained that there were several “university appeal services” in his home country offering forged medical certificates. They also provide fabricated “essay notes” for students wishing to convince their universities they had worked on an assignment.
With a plausible medical note or a set of backdated essay drafts, a dishonest student can present a convincing case for leniency or mitigation.
Despite many years in the business, I was horrified by these revelations. I searched online and quickly found websites that sell fake tests. Thus, Legit Certify states:
We help you legally obtain an official, verifiable TOEFL certificate without taking the test…The certificate is identical to one earned through exams, fully accepted by universities…
And DoctorsNoteStore.com offers, or £10.99:
…fake/replica sick notes in the United Kingdom and Australia.
Are universities aware of this? Do they know that some of their international students gain admission, or overturn decisions, on the basis of falsified or manipulated documents? What checks do they make to ensure the authenticity of medical and other documentary evidence?
Conflicts of interest
With 40 per cent of English universities in financial deficit, there is also the uncomfortable question of money. The revenue from international students is so significant that many institutions may struggle to survive without it.
This financial dependence creates a conflict of interest. If a university uncovers widespread cheating in English language tests, or if it learns that students gained entry or remained on a course with false credentials, how should it react? If it investigates properly, the findings may threaten the much-needed flow of income.
Handling the growing number of cases of misconduct and appeals is itself resource-intensive and costly. A professor friend of mine, who examines PhDs, told me that he never fails a PhD student because, in his words, “it’s not worth the hassle of an inevitable appeal”.
A university that turns a blind eye may preserve the balance sheet but corrodes academic standards.
Some universities take the issue seriously. They invest in resources to detect cheating, run hundreds of misconduct panel hearings, and occasionally expel students. However, I doubt all institutions appreciate the scale of the problem or the sophistication of the cheating industry.
There is an international trade in dishonesty that exploits the pressure on students to succeed and the reluctance of universities to jeopardise their financial health and reputation.
If universities are not already alive to this reality, they need to wake up. Every forged medical letter that passes unchecked, every essay or thesis written by a ghostwriter, every fraudulent placement report that slips through the net, undermines the credibility of the institution and the degree it awards.
Paying the price
The harm is not limited to universities themselves. Employers, patients, clients and the public at large may pay the price if unqualified or dishonest graduates enter professional roles. Who wants to hire a lawyer or engineer who cheated in their exams, or be treated by a doctor who paid someone to attend clinical placements for them?
The purpose of higher education is not simply to hand out degrees in exchange for fees but to cultivate knowledge and skill, to educate. If universities fail to address the growing industry of deception, they risk betraying that purpose.
The question is not whether students cheat – they plainly do and probably more than ever before with the advent of generative AI – but whether universities have the courage to confront it, even at the cost of short-term financial loss and reputational damage.
The dark and depressing underside of UK HE indeed – and will get worse courtesy of AI. One can only hope that such cheating does not go on in subject areas that are life & death – training doctors who will kill their patients or engineers whose bridges will fall down!
They do, sadly. It reminds me of the story that broke after that terrible air crash in Pakistan in 2020. The airline grounded 150 pilots suspected of cheating on their exams. Some pilots reportedly got others to take their exams for them: https://apnews.com/article/airlines-pakistan-asia-pacific-karachi-ap-top-news-3b9899d6f9d674fdb7b2debb1b7dbdf7
A very interesting and necessary piece. One thing I would pick up on:
“…the English language proficiency tests required by universities as a condition of entry. These tests ensure that students have sufficient command of English to cope with academic study.”
Although they are widely understood to fulfill such a function, that is not the understanding of the test providers or anyone who gives the matter closer thought; see:
https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/04/28/thinking-about-the-support-of-chinese-students-a-response-to-the-hepi-and-uoffer-global-report/
If anything this only goes to strengthen Mr Sokol’s points here.
While being somewhat wary of raising my head above the parapet on this one, I do find articles such as this to be damaging and prone to generalisation – leading to an “all students are cheats” rhetoric which can be particularly focused on international students and serves chiefly to support further “degrees have no value” discussions.
Yes, dealing with issues of academic honesty is a complex matter (one I have been engaged with for well over 30 years). However, when we are at the “sharp end” of disciplinary processes we see only those who are accused of issues, who are the minority in all but exceptional circumstances. Most students don’t want to cheat and want to gain value from their studies. There is a tiny minority who may be out to cheat from the very start (and we all have our stories to tell on that front) but there are far more who run into trouble out of ignorance, or through panic. My approach has always been “education before punishment” and good counselling, positive advocation of good academic practice and careful advice and guidance are of most importance.
As we continue through the minefield of Generative AI I am finding it even more important to support the promotion of good practice and a shared developmental approach to understanding the balance between support and the development of independent critical thought. There was something of this challenge when students first had access to the internet, but the opportunities are far greater now.
We cannot simply police academic standards (although that is still a necessity) we must encourage mature reflection on those standards and the value that a final award has – in personal as well as professional respects. Students need to value their work and we need to support them to fully understand that.
Not everyone embraces the ‘education before punishment’ view. Some prefer the ‘punishment *is* education’ view. What is striking from my perspective as a lawyer representing students across the country is the wide variation in the way universities respond to academic misconduct. At Leeds Beckett, for example, ‘cheating’ – which includes using notes in the exam or obtaining an exam paper in advance – is listed under the category of ‘minor offence’. Yet, next door at Leeds University, the official guidance warns: ‘Rule-breaking in exams or online tests is a very serious breach of academic integrity. The normal penalty is permanent exclusion from the university.’
A timely article as I am seeing a significant uptick in bogus evidence. For all the discourse around AI this is the big issue for my team at present and in comparison with AI this is not an issue that is getting as much media attention. My view from the inside:
1) The forged medical evidence that I am seeing at my institution is disproportionately coming from an Asian country that my institution is worryingly dependent upon for fee income. If expel 10 contract cheaters each paying £30,000 per year I could cost the institution £300,000. Even if nobody is saying it aloud I think it would be naïve to ignore the fact that money surely becomes a consideration at some point.
2) These cases typically involve students who have failed out of a programme and as such they feel there is little to lose. It is not as though I can revoke a degree that has yet to be earnt. These cases typically involve incredibly serious ECs given that the bar on raising ECs after results is understandably very high.
3) The similarities in evidence I am seeing suggest specialist agencies that produce the evidence. The individuals are smart and know the buttons to press to get a positive response from the OIA – Bipolar, termination of pregnancies, even HIV/AIDs are becoming more commonplace in the appeals. The agencies learn what works and doesn’t work and so the quality improves over time. If they make a mistake like leaving something stupid in metadata that mistake isn’t made again.
4) There is risk to getting this wrong. Nobody wants a headline in Pink News reading ‘University accuses HIV positive student of fabricating diagnosis’. To accuse someone of fabricating a serious medical condition risks significant negative media interest.
5) There is an institutional cost to doing the right thing both in terms of cost and staff wellbeing. Every contract cheater my institution catches can appeal, escalate to the OIA, get their MP involved, put in letters before claim/threaten judicial review, and bombard my senior management team with emails. Post-Abrahart I am seeing far more suicide threats from those caught cheating. Invariably all of these cases are challenged on Equality Act grounds. I can understand why some institutions might prefer to turn a blind eye.
6) I consider myself a robust caseworker, but I had to visit my GP during the covid years with blood pressure issues due to a particularly challenging case where an OIA caseworker decided there was insufficient evidence of contract cheating where a student had written to the Department apologising for the offence of uploading our assessment questions to a homework help style website. I digress but how often do people apologise for an action they didn’t commit?! Even if we do the right thing our academic standards can be ultimately be debased by the Ombudsman.
Waltzing Matilda, thank you for your insights. It is rare to get such a candid response from someone ‘in the trenches’.
I have been reliably informed that several chinese companies offer fraudulent document services, including fake medical letters. I do not know whether current digital forensics can authenticate those and, if so, whether universities have access to, or can afford, suitably trained forensics analysts. Whenever I have had to instruct one, it has cost thousands of pounds.
You mention contract cheating. In my experience, institutions still treat this more seriously than other forms of academic misconduct. There has been an interesting shift here. Two or three years ago, some institutions considered AI use to be a form of contract cheating, with equivalent sanctions. After all, what is the moral difference between Student A paying for an AI subscription to produce an essay, and Student B paying a tutor to write it? In both cases, the student has paid a third party to do all the work.
Today, fewer institutions make this equivalence, distinguishing between unauthorised AI use and contract cheating as separate forms of academic misconduct. Bristol University retains the older view, classifying ‘Using AI to chatbots to complete all or part of an assessment’ as contract cheating, just like hiring a private tutor to write part or all of it.
You also mention the risk of appeals, complaints and litigation. Universities tend to involve lawyers at the litigation stage but rarely at the appeals or complaint stage. That is regrettable because early legal input could avoid many errors and produce decisions that are more appeal/complaint-proof. Some cases are complex, even for those with legal training, and it would help caseworkers to have easy and rapid access to legal advice on anything from assessing evidence to refining the wording in an outcome letter or responding to arguments advanced by a student’s lawyer. Too often, we see an obviously legally sound argument rejected again and again at the internal stage, only for the university’s external lawyer to accept it a year or two later.
Intitutions should not fear students’ lawyers if their investigation and decision-making processes are thorough and fair. In fact, I would be more concerned by those unrepresented students who believe, wrongly, that they will triumph at court. I have acted for universities in such cases which, even if struck out early for being without merit, are a terrible waste of everyone’s time and money. Good lawyers advise their clients about the strengths and weaknesses of the case, and the dangers of litigation. I have dissuaded countless students from pursuing hopeless claims against their universities.
Thank you again for taking the trouble to comment. I hope you have the institutional support you need to continue this important work, and please do not hesitate to reach out in the future.
This article implies that there is cheating at an industrial scale, and this leans into a demonisation of students and the HE system, and particularly those from overseas (and more specifically ‘some countries’, which is ick). This is not to say that cheating isn’t an issue; it always has been and always will be, but it’s a minority. Most students want to learn, and do, research overwhelmingly shows this. As Phil Cardew points out, breaking the rules often falls into students hitting problems around time pressures, stress, and poor practice; it’s sometimes about insufficient or misread guidance. Universities have generally robust procedures for cases such as this, but simply don’t (and shouldn’t) have the capacity to check up on the veracity of doctor’s notes and so on. Arguably someone who cheats all the way through their degree will be found out, we’d hope, in the workplace, at interview, and so on. Hopefully they’d feel bad about it, too…
The fact that there’s a conflict of interest around student fees is a bit of a red herring. There is clearly a major funding issue in HE, and one that the government appears unwilling to address. The solution to the issue at hand is actually a more fundamental one, with a university system where support for all students is appropriate, testing is diverse and not high stakes, and there is a culture of honesty, forgiveness, and collaboration, not distrust, antagonism and compliance. HE can change, but it needs better resources and more space for pedagogies that encourage, enable, and assess growth, reflection, and making mistakes that we learn from. If we were able to teach and evaluate student development in more holistic ways, the attraction of/need for cheating would be hugely reduced.
It is a minority, but it is important not to underestimate the prevalence of cheating. In July 2022, Alpha Academic Appeals commissioned an independent study of 900 undergraduate students in the UK. Around 16% of students had, by their own admission, cheated in online exams that academic year. Of those, fewer than 5% had been caught (http://www.academicappeals.co.uk/news/05072022201747-press-release-on-prevalence-of-cheating-in-online-assessment–july-2022/). Many of my student clients protest “This is very unfair. All my friends have cheated but I’m the only one who was caught!” Hardly a compelling defence, but it suggests that cheating is not confined to a tiny minority.
Earlier this year, a YouGov survey of more than 1000 home students at UK universities showed that 15% of students engaged in ‘potentially cheating behaviour’ with AI (i.e., creating with AI and submitting part or all of a graded essay, with or without editing) (https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/52855-how-are-uk-students-really-using-ai). When one adds other forms of cheating, the true scale is likely to be greater.
Cheating may be an unsavoury, even embarrassing, topic for universities but, for those of us who care about fairness and the value of a degree, it should not be dismissed as a fringe issue but confronted head on.
Very interesting article, thank you…and we haven’t touched the issues highlighted in the recent FT article “The shadow economy behind the international student boom” … shame it’s hidden behind the subscription wall.
https://www.ft.com/content/3f496166-4292-46af-b690-114a4d2b3fd0
The shadow economy behind the international student boom
A lucrative revenue stream for universities has led to an industry of unregulated agents now under scrutiny for making lofty promises
Thank you for this article. I to have been on the receiving end of parents and grandparents dying, threats of suicide if the assessment offence is ‘confirmed’ and the assessment given a mark of 0, made up crime reference numbers (the criminal lawyer in me spotted that immediately). For those that are enrolled on a law degree (as is my experience) and many having ambitions of practice, those who blatantly try to deceive in this manner leave serious questions in regards to their integrity.