I don't really know what to say about this, other than that it is interesting:

Midland universities are being targeted by fraudsters who falsify application forms to get foreign students on to courses in return for cash.

At least seven overseas students have already been expelled so far this term in the region after their applications were found to claim they had qualifications they did not possess.

Nationally 1,000 students have been caught during 2004 using false addresses, names and faked qualifications to get into prestigious British universities – twice the normal rate, according to the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service.

Yesterday, it was reported that an agent for Chinese students had claimed to have fixed places for hundreds of unqualified students over the past three years at universities including Birmingham.

Candidates were reported to be paying thousands of pounds to agents operating in China and Pakistan to cheat their way to a highly-prized UK university education.

Well, maybe there's this to say. How well would these cheats have done if they had been allowed to continue with their studies? How well do they do, if not caught? They sound rather highly motivated to me. Or would they have just tried (do they just try?) to make further educational progress with yet more payments?

The end of the article does supply an answer:

Warwick University described people who tried to falsify qualifications to get in "idiots".

I guess they meant "as" idiots there.

"There is a demand for British higher education around the world. It is one of the things we do well. In a sense it is the jewel in our crown," said Peter Dunn, head of communications.

"We occasionally get idiots who try to forge qualifications but 99 per cent of the time they are easy to spot."

But what if these fraudsters are only easy to spot if they are, you know, easy to spot? Is Warwick University behaving like those dumbos who say, with perfect confidence: "I can always spot a hairpiece."

It is hardly surprising that they've never yet spotted a fraudulent student that they couldn't spot.