Over 400 fake educational institutions cheat students in China

China is grappling with big increase in fake and phony universities, colleges and schools whose numbers have gone up to over 400 as they use names of real institutions by slightly altering them to confuse and dupe prospective students, state media reported today.
A list of fake universities, colleges and schools was last week released on sdaxue.Com website that helps students choose higher educational institutions.
It exposed 73 Chinese universities or colleges as unaccredited diploma mills. The website has been publishing its annual list of fake schools since 2013.
The list pushes the total number of phony colleges exposed to over 400, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

On the list are 23 schools in Beijing where many of the country's top universities are located. Shandong was second, with eight fake colleges, while Shanghai has seven.
Names of institutions are usually slightly altered versions of the names of real universities and colleges to confuse prospective students. Accreditation is usually fabricated or out of date.

According to the website, 66 of the 73 bogus colleges were not on the college list published by the Ministry of Education (MOE), while six used old names of legal colleges.
One used an alternative name of a Party school in Beijing. These colleges usually woo and swindle high school graduates through slick recruitment sites, it said.

Xinhua reporters contacted a dozen of them, all supposedly located in Beijing, but none of their phone numbers were available. Most of the addresses are in the suburbs, making them tough to find.
Some, such as the address of 'Beijing Normal University of Science and Technology' simply do not exist, the report said.
One college claimed of having more than 16,500 graduates and excellent teaching facilities. Reporters could not locate the college although a vocational school was found.
One of the school staff confirmed that no other college is located there, and that the vocational school was the only education institution in the vicinity.

The college's name has been hijacked from Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture. Newsletters and campus pictures were likewise copied from the website.
An employee of a nearby hotel said he has never heard of
the college in 40 years. Many of these fictitious colleges have their own websites where their fake certification can be found and verified, the report said.
Chen Jiangping, formerly a content supervisor of daxue.Com website, said many scammers use names of students they have "recruited" which are very similar to names on approved MOE documentation for verification.
"Over the years, we have received many reports from students who were cheated by fake websites," Chen said.

One student claimed to have spent more than 10,000 yuan (USD 1,500) on online courses from a college in Shanghai, but could not find his diploma on the official MOE site.
Chen said even though fake colleges are exposed each year, it is very difficult to eradicate them because a fake college website is cheap and simple to make. Many have foreign IP addresses, so it is hard to supervise them.
Chu Zhaohui, a research fellow with the National Institute of Educational Sciences, said that fake colleges which claim to be in first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai prey on students from smaller, distant cities, making on-site verification difficult.

The government identify fake colleges and stop the spread of their recruitment materials, with high schools doing more to advise graduates properly. Students with low gaokao scores are easy targets, Chu said.
Wang Jinhai of Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics believes that only when police, education authorities and industry work together will the problem be solved.
"China should also work with other countries to close down fake websites," he said.
Education authorities in Beijing are coordinating with police to investigate and close the fake colleges.