Students are paying people to write their assignments for them

THERE is an underground ring of people advertising themselves on Gumtree and offering to do assignments for uni students for a fee.

UNIVERSITY students are writing assessments for undergraduates and charging them to make a quick buck.

And while those who do the assignments remain unknown, the students who pay are being punished and this week about 13 undergraduates were investigated and kicked out of Deakin University for handing in work they purchased.

But how exactly does this whole underground cheating ring work?

Kayne, not his real name, has been offering his services to struggling students for about a year.

“I’d say in busy semesters you can do about 10 assignments a week,” he said.

“For normal business papers it might take 40 hours to do all of them — you get used to it after a while.”

Kayne, like many, advertises himself on classifieds site Gumtree and says he will do assignments for pretty much any subject.

“I won’t touch nursing or medical subjects, I think that’s unethical,” he said.

Kayne said cheating wasn’t uncommon, and it was usually students themselves offering to do assignments for their classmates in exchange for cash.

“I know some of the bigger players in the game and the business is huge,” he said.

University students will do assignments for others if they get paid. Source: Supplied

Kayne said his friends got him into the business and he charges a standard rate, about $120 per 1000 words — pretty easy cash for a university student.

Kayne said it was predominantly international students who were desperate for help and he believed it was because they didn’t get enough support when learning in English.

“This is where the demand has come from,” he said.

“I don’t think I’ve had an Australian client at all, they are mostly Chinese.”

An advertisement on Gumtree encouraging students to cheat.

While Kayne has only been selling essays for a short time, he said he got the feeling the students had been using this cheating method for a while.

“The vibe I get is it’s all part of the routine,” he said.

“As an international student, you go to class and get the five per cent you need from there and then you get somebody else to do the work.

“I was surprised by the clientele.”

Kayne hesitated when asked whether he believed paying for essays was cheating.

“I’d say it was cheating,” he said.

“It depends though — they have to do their exams so at some point they have to assimilate the material and put it down on paper.”

International students are the main people cheating. Source: iStock

The 13 students kicked out of Deakin University were undergraduates studying engineering.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) Professor Beverley Oliver said the university did not tolerate cheating of any kind and had rigorous systems in place to seek out and monitor breaches of academic integrity and respond with appropriate action.

“Our vigilant detection methods led to the recent discovery of students requesting and paying for assignments via contract cheating websites,” Professor Oliver said.

“The university is taking this matter extremely seriously.

“Academic misconduct is a constant challenge which affects all universities.

“Deakin will continue to address this challenge through rigorous monitoring. These student exclusions show that Deakin does not tolerate cheating.”

The latest expulsions come after more than 70 students faced suspension from five of NSW’s top universities in March last year for cheating through MyMaster.