BRITS LEFT BEHIND:

'Degrees for sale' at UK universities: Failing students passed to keep funds flowing · Lecturers fear academic standards are slipping (Martin Bright, August 1, 2004, The Observer)

Cash-strapped British universities are awarding degrees to students who should be failed, in return for lucrative fees, The Observer can reveal.

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.

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.

Their society is dying anyway--what would they do with a real education.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 1, 2004 10:26 AM