The Cost of Corruption in Higher Education

A scholarly article from Comparative Education Review focusing on corruption and the perception of corruption in higher education on a country's learning institutions and system with special emphasis on (but not limited to) countries which were formerly part of the Soviet Union: There are many mechanisms that a country or a university needs to adopt to lessen the possibility of corruption and to lower the perception that it is corrupt. These include codes of conduct for faculty, administrators, and students; statements of honesty on public Web sites; university “courts” to hear cases of misconduct; and annual reports to the public on changes in the number and types of incidents. These mechanisms may well be requirements for universities in those parts of the world hoping to have their degrees declared equivalent to those of universities in the European Union or having the support of international development assistance agencies.

However, the first step to effective policy intervention is to acquire information about the experience and cost of corruption. We recommend regular surveys of students such as those reported here.34 In one country, with surveys at two points in time, the decline in corruption was significant, suggesting that when the possibility of exposure and professional embarrassment is real, the propensity to engage in corruption declines.