Ghost writers at universities: black market of academic degrees in Hungary

Following a recent scandal about the questioned authenticity of the Hungarian President’s dissertation paper from years ago,  atlatszo.hu examined the black market of degrees and university papers in the country. Writing various university papers for money for others is a widely used way of increasing their incomes for some more talented students, and there seems to be plenty of those -to some extent well off students – who are lazy, unable or short of time to write their own papers.

The price of an MA or BA degree papers on the black, „ghost writer” market is  around 150,000 HuF, and for a PhD dissertation you have to pay some 300,000 HuF. A degree paper written in English can be purchased from 1000 Euros. Promotion of these services is done by word of mouth and online, some of the hired authors even offer a guarantee and only charge for papers after they are accepted and graded by their customers’ teachers. There are students from well connected families who pass their exams regardless their performance while some universities use a special software to filter stolen content.

Proceed to the full article in Hungarian.