Meet the homework guns for hire helping international students cheat at their university degrees
- An underground industry has writers at the ready to do essays for those prepared to pay a price
- And research says that as many as one in seven students around the world have done just that
In Hong Kong, 24-year-old entrepreneur “Jay” was brainstorming ideas to make some money.
On the other side of the world in Britain, his friend and former Hong Kong schoolmate “Nick” was at university in central England struggling to get his homework done.
In a moment a deal was struck. Nick paid Jay HK$500 (US$64) to do his statistics homework and Jay earned Nick top marks.
But Jay’s talents didn’t stop at maths problems – soon he was writing essays for other students in Britain. Nick helped to find clients for Jay, and as the orders for assignments grew, Jay began to loop in a few other friends as writers for their expanding business.
In the less than three years since that first transaction, Nick and Jay have developed a thriving sideline, completing more than 90 essays for around 40 students from over six universities in Britain.
But their operation is just the tip of the iceberg of a borderless industry of homework guns for hire.
Research suggests that this kind of cheating is on the rise, with as many as one in seven graduates having paid someone else to do a university assignment for them, according to Chris Havergal, news editor of weekly magazine Times Higher Education.