Rich US college students buying papers from poor writers abroad

[mainer]

If only we could kick out these rich, lazy American students and enroll some talented immigrants from Kenya instead. Our country would be a lot better off.

Cheating, Inc.: How Writing Papers for American College Students Has Become a Lucrative Profession Overseas
Cheating in college is nothing new, but the internet now makes it possible on a global, industrial scale. Sleek websites — with names like Ace-MyHomework and EssayShark — have sprung up that allow people in developing countries to bid on and complete American homework assignments.

Although such businesses have existed for more than a decade, experts say demand has grown in recent years as the sites have become more sophisticated, with customer service hotlines and money-back guarantees. The result? Millions of essays ordered annually in a vast, worldwide industry that provides enough income for some writers to make it a full-time job.

The essay-for-hire industry has expanded significantly in developing countries with many English speakers, fast internet connections and more college graduates than jobs, especially Kenya, India and Ukraine. A Facebook group for academic writers in Kenya has over 50,000 members.

After a month of training, Ms. Mbugua began producing essays about everything from whether humans should colonize space (“it is not worth the struggle,” she wrote) to euthanasia (it amounts to taking “the place of God,” she wrote). During her best month, she earned $320, more money than she had ever made in her life. The New York Times is identifying Ms. Mbugua by only part of her name because she feared that the attention would prevent her from getting future work.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/us/college-cheating-papers.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

[Snake Plissken]

1. Those are the future Presidents and Senators of our country

They just need set up a Youtube channel and land a spot on a dysfunctional reality TV show after they graduate from college, and they're pretty much guaranteed to win any election they run in.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. Yeah, but there's software that goes through those papers and finds

the ones that have come from writers for hire.

[Snake Plissken]

4. The software can only check to see if the paper is copy of one that was previously submitted

there is no way of telling who wrote an original paper

[mainer]

7. There's software for plagiarism, thankfully. But not for original papers.

It would take pretty sophisticated software to ferret out something written by a native Kenyan with good English skills.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

8. REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE-STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

I am Dr. Bakare Tunde, the cousin of Kenyan Astronaut, Air Force Major Abacha Tunde. He was the first African in space when he made a secret flight to the Salyut 6 space station in 1979. He was on a later Soviet spaceflight, Soyuz T-16Z to the secret Soviet military space station Salyut 8T in 1989. He was stranded there in 1990 when the Soviet Union was dissolved. His other Soviet crew members returned to earth on the Soyuz T-16Z, but his place was taken up by return cargo. There have been occasional Progrez supply flights to keep him going since that time. He is in good humor, but wants to come home.

{snip}

Adapted from:

Here's the Best Nigerian Prince Email Scam in the Galaxy

Katharine Trendacosta
2/12/16 4:06pm

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. The professors should require students

submit a first draft, and also turn in all of their notes. When I was first in college in the mid-60's we had to do that.

And they should also search each paper to make sure it can't be bought on-line. Make it crystal clear at the beginning of the term that those things will happen.

[mainer]

6. Lots more work for the professor, and then --

even when they uncover fraud and try to fail the student, they're undermined by universities who don't want to lose the precious dollars paid by rich parents.

It makes me sick.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

12. More work, yes, but if professors 50 years ago somehow

found the time, ones today need to do so. Or maybe just give the kids the web addresses of the best places to buy papers.

[DFW]

5. Had I only known

And there I was, working my ass off in college, writing all those damned papers on my own.

On the other hand, as many of my papers had to be written in Spanish, Swedish and Russian, I'm not sure how heavily I would have wanted to rely on someone in Kenya in the first place.

Fun note: at the final exam for my course in Medieval Spanish (don't ask), the professor, who had given the whole course in Spanish, said we could write the exam in English or Spanish. Since he had spoken only Spanish in class, it would be instantly clear whether or not we had understood him. He said he used to say he didn't care in what language the students wrote their final exam until one year, when he was handed a final exam written in Classical Arabic. He said he had learned his lesson, and specified either English or Spanish from then on.

[treestar]

9. People are hard to understand at times

I would feel incompetent when I got a job knowing I hadn't really earned the degree for it. Or are we so cynical we don't think it matters?

[mainer]

10. Donald Trump has proved it doesn't matters.

And unfortunately, he's serving as a role model for the next generation.

[PoliticAverse]

13. Some people need knowledge/skills, others just need a diploma.

[DFW]

14. I have wondered about that, although my degree didn't help me get my job

Ironically enough, the fact that I had a college degree impressed exactly no one at the place where I ended up working. The questions that mattered were "what can you bring to the table?" and "what languages are you comfortable speaking?"

My degree was only a factor in proving that I could "stick it out." I just started my 45th year with my outfit, so I guess I have passed that test, at least. There is even some talk about making my position permanent

(I hit the ground running, almost literally, and we never got around to me signing anything)

[WillowTree]

16. "I would feel incompetent when I got a job knowing I hadn't really earned the degree for it."

Oh, how I wish my last boss had felt that way.

[Hortensis]

11. Not just rich students, and only thing new is going overseas for them.

After I started tutoring English composition and economics while a student in SoCal, I started getting calls from students at colleges and universities all over the area, most to write papers but also to take tests. Someone wanted me to take her econ final at UCLA (if I'd accepted I'd have had to insist on being paid up front). Back in those days, though, the schools didn't have the resources they do now to uncover these cheats.

On the plus side, after telling a friend about this eye-opening development, she introduced me to someone she knew who wrote undergrad papers for a living. A good one -- a lot of these students really were rich and she charged what the market would bear. That was a plus because I learned I'd been taking my own papers way too seriously and working much too hard at them. They weren't dissertations being polished for committee review. She wrote both off-the-shelf papers for common assignments and custom orders. She chose her topics strictly based on what materials were available -- on the shelf -- in the closest library stacks (and demonstrated it to me while pulling material in our college library for a couple of them) and other efficiency criteria I don't remember now. Then she'd sit down and knock them out.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

15. It's not just the students:

Experts: VCU president's ghostwritten Coliseum column raises ethics, academic integrity concerns.

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