Inside the Booming World Where Students Buy Custom Term Papers

It’s easier than ever to hire someone to write your school or college paper for you.

That’s thanks to a booming group of companies known as the “contract cheating industry.”

Many paper-writing companies try to project an air of legitimacy, with offerings free robux web like responsive customer service that let users chat right away with a live person to ask about things like prices. And those prices are pretty consistent—about $10 to $12 per page if you allow the companies a week or more to write your paper. That’s an average of $182 per paper, which in the scheme of college costs, may not seem like that much to a student.

Those are some of the takeaways from a new book, “The Complete Guide to Contract Cheating in Higher Education.” It’s written by someone who spent about 10 years actually doing this work, making a living writing papers for cheating students. His name is Dave Tomar, and these days, he advises educators on how to combat cheating.

Of course, turning in someone else’s work as your own is ethically wrong and a clear violation of every school and college’s conduct codes. (The paper-writing companies get around legal trouble by posting disclaimers and policies that say that students shouldn’t turn in the work as their own.) And a student who does lean on surrogate writers misses out on the whole point of school or college, since learning comes in the process of doing the homework and writing the papers.

So why is this type of cheating so common? What does it say about our education system? And what could be done to curb this contract cheating industry?

On this week’s EdSurge Podcast, we’re exploring these questions and going inside this world of assignment-writers for hire.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts, or use the player on this page. Or read a partial transcript below, lightly edited for clarity.