‘The Shadow Scholars’: inside the essay mills serving students

Cheating is cheating, quite unacceptable. Don't glorify or make excuses for people who facilitate it by writing essays, etc., for pay - they are perpetrating academic fraud. Sob stories about how they cannot get work in academia don't excuse their fraud, and make it even less likely that they'd be acceptable members of the academic community.

Cheats steal rewards from others. This study adds the fake essay authors to the list - but they are also accessories to cheating so sympathies are limited. Maybe Uk universities could hire some of them for student support services?

The 'violence' referred to in this article done unto the frustrated would be academics in Kenya extends well beyond its physical borders. It crosses the physical boundaries and abstract intellectual boundaries of countries aligned with the fading Enlightenment project. As the other commenters say, cheats defraud the diligent honest student of reward. Down the line they defraud those receiving service from a fraudulent degree holder of confidence in the quality and integrity of the service or skills offered. The HE sector across the West has jumped with alacrity into accepting the above and other species of fraud and dissembly to enable the churning of money that the system is now a slave to.