118 fake universities exposed by education website

The screenshot shows the official website of Sdaxue.com, a Chinese university information website, which has identified and released a list of 118 fake universities from China's 25 provinces and regions including Beijing, Shanghai and Jiangsu. [Photo/ sdaxue.com]

A Chinese university information website has identified and released a list of 118 fake universities from China's 25 provinces and regions including Beijing, Shanghai and Jiangsu.

This is the 4th such list released by Sdaxue.com.

The alleged fake universities are exposed following the announcement of the test results for China's annual college entrance exam or "Gaokao".

All the universities listed are not registered with China's Ministry of Education and thus have no licenses to either accept students or award college degrees.

39 of all the 118 alleged fake universities listed have the word "Beijing" in their names.

The exposed schools have used deceptive names and official websites that are similar to real, well-known universities. Many of them also copied photos and website information such as school introductions, majors, department, enrollment and career plan from real accredited universities.

Shen Jiangping, the director of web content of sdaxue.com said that the list was compiled based data collected by the company or information reported by netizens. They also verified the list by checking the data base of the Ministry of Education before publishing it.

According Sdaxue.com, most of the victims swindled by these fake universities are either students who have poor performances in Gaokao but still want to be enrolled in universities, or students who are tempted to skip higher education and just obtain a diploma for better job opportunities.

From 2013 to 2014, Sdaxue.com has exposed 210 fake universities, most of which have been banned by the Ministry of Education and local education authorities.