Degree mills on rise

MADAM Xiao Weihong was eager to get her son a place at a good university, despite his poor grades. So she jumped at the chance when a friend suggested a way he could get backdoor admission into a Beijing university.

After a year in an affiliated preparatory school, he could be transferred to the main campus, the friend said. But this was a secret arrangement that Madam Xiao must keep to herself. “We believed our friend because his nephew was in on the same plan. And because we were told it was a secret, that even the university would not admit it existed, it was hard for us to verify the information,” she told The Straits Times.