Who is Scamming Whom?

More U.S. campuses pay agents commissions to find foreign students—illegal when recruiting most Americans—but sometimes get phony applications, ghostwritten essays.

Source: American Colleges Pay Agents to Woo Foreigners, Despite Fraud Risk

I wrote the following.

“Risk of Fraud“? Who is defrauding whom?

If higher education wasn’t such a serious matter, it would be funny that U.S. institutes of “higher learning” were afraid of being scammed themselves.  It is so much more fun being the scammer, not the scammed.

Just listen to David Riesman.

“…advantage can…be taken of [students] by unscrupulous instructors and institutions…like any other interest group, the student estate often does not grasp its own interests, and those who speak in its name are not always its friends…”

That was 1980.

It is much worse and much more widespread now.

I am a former math professor and I know of what I speak.

Anyone interested in the details can read my blog, inside-higher-ed.com, especially the documented tale of my experience at Washington University in St. Louis, where I taught for many years. (See A Tale Out of School.)

Oh, and about Wichita State.  According to Brookings,They add almost zero value to their graduates salary. (A link is on my blog.)