UK University Encouraged Essay Mills, AI

Earlier today, the United Kingdom’s Office for Students (OfS), the nation’s higher education regulator, released a damning report about Regent College London (RCL), saying that the school’s staff failed to give students adequate instruction and even encouraged them to cheat on assessments.

According to the report, students at RCL received grades that were “excessive and not justified by their performance.” In some cases, “staff directed students towards the use of artificial intelligence tools and essay mills, in ways which seriously undermined academic integrity.”

In addition to the academic integrity issue, the report also highlighted that the school had severe staffing issues, a lack of physical resources, including no library, and generally did not deliver the quality of education expected of an institute of higher learning.

This report isn’t the first time the OfS has raised issues about the school. As the report states, it began its heightened evaluation of the school during the 2022-2023 school year following student complaints. In an October 2024 report, the OfS highlighted a slew of issues that included instructors receiving a bonus if more than 85% of their class passed.

At that time, RCL said that they had been making improvements and that the issues at the time were tied directly to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Though OfS said RCL is cooperating with them in their investigation, the regulator is placing the school and one of its partners under enhanced monitoring. Another partner was cited for similar issues but had already ended its relationship with RCL, thus escaping any further intervention.

The story is a stark reminder that, though academic integrity often focuses exclusively on students, there’s a need to remember that it is always a two-way street.

The Problem with Perverse Incentives

RCL is owned and operated by RTC Education Ltd., a for-profit company that has been in operation since 2002 (though the school opened in 2010). The school charges £9,535 ($13,000) per year in fees, which is equal to the cap on tuition fees in the UK.

While this is nowhere near the cost of many schools in the United States, it is still a lot of money. Students, rightfully, expect to get something of value for that money.

On paper, that is supposed to be a valuable education provided by qualified teachers. The degree is intended to be a representation of the student receiving that education and then demonstrating their understanding of the material.

Some students, unfortunately, don’t see it that way. They place less value on the education and the work that goes with it and more on the outcome, namely the degree. They feel that they want or need a degree for various reasons, but put less value on the process of obtaining it.

What RCL is accused of, is encouraging that exact devaluation. The incentives described in the report that RCL placed on its staff wasn’t to ensure that students learned, but that they passed. According to the OfS report, instructors taught students how to bypass plagiarism-detection software through paraphrasing, offered feedback on full drafts of assignments and provided “excessive assessment support” to students.

In short, learning was secondary to passing. 

To be clear, many for-profit institutions navigate these issues relatively well. However, that doesn’t mean that the perverse incentives aren’t there. For students who just want to tick a box on a job application, buying a degree is better than earning an education.

However, that’s a shortsighted viewpoint for both school and student alike.

Who This Hurts

In the long run, a story like this hurts just about everyone.

The most directly impacted are the students who went to the school for a legitimate education and to earn a degree ethically. Not only is the education they are getting sub-par, but the university is strongly mistrusted. It’s possible to invest all the time and money to get a degree and have it be worth almost nothing after graduation.

That, in turn, brings us to the school itself. Though the school does have a perverse incentive to ensure everyone passes, that only works in the short term. If a school develops a reputation for not being a serious academic institution, the value of its degrees goes down dramatically.

Finally, the general public is hurt. One of the functions of a degree is to certify that the holder has completed the necessary work and has the required knowledge to hold it. When someone has the degree but doesn’t meet the requirements, it not only hurts those who completed the work legitimately, but it means they may be in spaces that they are unqualified to be in.

Just as you wouldn’t want a doctor or engineer who didn’t earn their degree, all degrees carry some expectation. When you fail to meet that expectation, you can find yourself at a dead end.

In the long run, everyone loses when degrees aren’t earned. It’s a fabrication that puts short-term gain ahead of long-term consequences.

Bottom Line

To be clear, problems like this one aren’t easy to fix and much of the problem isn’t (solely) with higher education. There is a perception that one needs a degree to get a well-paying and respected job. Many kids are encouraged to go to college to tick that box for that reason.

The simple truth is that there are many jobs that require a degree to apply that really shouldn’t need one. Education is important and is always a positive thing, but there are more ways to learn than going to a university or college. 

College shouldn’t be a requirement to get on the bottom rung of a ladder, it should be an institution that’s available for those who want to advance their learning and pursue opportunities that actually require it.

As long as that perception exists, we will not only have students who put a degree ahead of learning, but we will have schools that will be happy to do the same, especially for pay.

As bad as RCL looks in this report, it’s a symptom of a much bigger problem. For all that’s wrong with it, one can argue that it’s just meeting a demand that shouldn’t exist in the first place.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t just harm those who exploit it. It harms the legitimate students who go there and the public at large. Building trust in higher education is already a struggle and stories like this one do nothing to help.