Cheating American College Students Are Paying Kenyans to Complete Schoolwork & Asking them to Dumb it Down

In a problem that shows no sign of abating as education increasingly is being conducted remotely, a recent CBS investigation has uncovered that American college students are outsourcing schoolwork to Kenyans overseas who are paid thousands of dollars a month to do anything from write essays to complete entire college degrees for Americans studying at universities. The essay-for-hire scheme has been going on for years. Known as “contract cheating,” it has only expanded as online education becomes more commonplace.

Contract cheating has been defined as a form of academic dishonesty in which students employ a third-party to complete their assignments. The practice is illegal in 17 states but has not been outlawed on the federal level. Although 50,000 people graduate from public and private universities in Kenya each year, many remain unemployed due to underdeveloped economic infrastructure and the country’s relative sidelining from global industry sectors like technology, manufacturing, and finance. As a result, Kenyan graduates often turn to the contract cheating industry to cover their expenses.

Americans will pay between $20 and $50 per page to have their essays completed by Kenyan writers who sometimes subcontract the work out to other writers, paying them as little as $5 a page. The writers complete schoolwork in courses like engineering, history, and psychology. READ MORE