Talking of scams, someone I know does Architecture studies in Europe with some Chinese people. There's a couple who speak very little English, too little to be able to properly participate in group projects. Which is surprising at first, because there's a selection process there, which should filter that out. Apparently, in China, there's a thriving industry for fabricating portfolios and ghost writing motivation letters, and it's a common way of climbing the diploma ladder. I'm not sure how those people manage to not fail their exams though, because from the stories I heard they can understand very little and express very little.

That’s a bit much. I’ve worked with many international students that were just as good as anyone, and enrich university life and the academic community immensely. Social and traditional media get on the howler about this issue, but it isn’t fair to cast it as a problem that only exists with international students.

> That’s a bit much. I’ve worked with many international students that were just as good as anyone

They get screwed over more than anyone by the lax standards when their resumes get dropped in the international student bin.

> Social and traditional media get on the howler about this issue,

This is from personal experience working with graduates and managing our intern program, which I wasted a great deal of my personal time on. Social media is more focused on the abuses of the student visa that is also rampant.

> but it isn’t fair to cast it as a problem that only exists with international students.

It's certainly not exclusive to international students, but they pay a lot more and universities have a financial incentive to keep them studying regardless of the grades.