This kind of thing doesn't just happen in education, and it's difficult to say how to really stop it. For example:<p>My aunt had surgery about a year ago, and our family paid out quite a bit of money to everyone involved in her surgery. On top of the normal fees, we gave the surgeon, first assist, second assist, anesthesiologist, and even the secretary large sums of money.<p>When my mother told me about this, I was shocked. "Why?" I asked. You'll have to understand that my family in China, while well off, has never participated in the cycles of alleged corruption. In fact, my uncle rejects so many bribes (gifts from business interactions) to the point that people have started leaving gifts anonymously at my grandmother's door.<p>Yet, this wasn't about getting ahead in life. My mother told me, "we just want to make sure they have an incentive to do the best job they can." Honestly, I don't blame her. We didn't pay to skip a line, and we didn't pay for any organs (not that type of surgery anyway). We paid the people involved because we felt it would inspire them to do a better job.<p>Is that wrong? Maybe. I don't really know anymore.
I first lived in Taiwan under its former dictatorial regime. Even then, when the late Chiang Kai-shek's son Chiang Ching-kuo was president, the people of Taiwan were very proud of the incorruptibility of their university entrance system. They pointed out to me that Chiang Ching-kuo's son was not able to get into university. The university entrance exams there, then and now, are like taking a battery of multiple AP-level or IB-level tests over just a couple days in July. Students were strictly rank-ordered by their scores, and students rank-ordered their choices of university departments. Then a matching algorithm paired students and schools. (There are other details I am omitting here for simplicity.)<p>The stringency and fairness of the university entrance system in Taiwan seemed to drive a lot of quality in curriculum standards and instruction in secondary schooling in Taiwan. (In those days, compulsory, taxpayer-subsidized schooling for all was provided through ninth grade. Many students went on to three grades of senior high after taking entrance exams for senior high schools. The best and most desired senior high schools were free to attend, having taxpayer subsidies, but of course were hard to get into.)<p>In most countries, over time, democratization leads to ever-greater provision of higher education places, with ever-greater public subsidies. Today, the best universities in Taiwan still enroll very well prepared students, who take many of the core subjects using the same English-language textbooks used at the better univerisities in the States. Some of the lesser universities in Taiwan are barely above the level of typical colleges in the United States, but in general there is still good quality of secondary education there. Selection to higher levels of schooling that is based on achievement at earlier levels of schooling, rather than based on bribes or connections, makes a whole country better off.
I predict that education will continue to be a huge political and economic battleground globally for the foreseeable future. There are so many reasons:<p>1. Convention and desire for free and equal access to basic education is one of the cornerstones of the meritocracy, which prevents a purely economic solution. Even at the university level the government gives lenders extra recourse and the schools themselves provide aid.<p>2. Credentialism: access to well known schools is highly prized and self perpetuating. Even if a new school has an excellent staff it could take decades for graduates to go out in the world and make the school's reputation.<p>3. Access to peers: beyond pure credentialism and instructor quality is the caliber of the fellow students that can make a big difference.<p>4. GPA inflation. The students constantly try to exert pressure on the instructor to raise GPA. If the instructor gives in what happens is effectively GPA socialism ... if many students have a high GPA the true top students are no longer easily distinguished by GPA. Admissions officers then track the students' performance and incoming GPA versus their originating school ... a high GPA from that school is then worth less.
The Chinese education system unfortunately seems to promote dishonesty to children. Plagiarism is endemic and sometimes students are taught to plagiarize. There may be a decent reason - they think kids should model successful thinkers rather than come up with half-baked ideas themselves - but the result is that they are teaching kids to be dishonest. A classmate of mine from China turned in a rough draft of a paper that was copied from somewhere. The university gave her a standard punishment - she was forced to withdraw from the class and they put a "required to withdraw" mark on her transcript. She was unwilling to accept that she had done anything wrong and insisted that even though the teacher told her not to plagiarize they didn't tell her that she couldn't turn in a rough draft that had been copied.<p>I've read that this dates back to the Chinese civil service exam system which is ancient by Western standards and has a long tradition of people coming up with clever ways to cheat.
I'm interested to know how this compares to private/Ivy League schools. It seems to me that you would also have a price to pay in order to gain access to top education although certainly, in the Chinese case, it's more extreme since there are so many students vying for the same few spots at top universities that everyone is trying to gain some sort of edge.
We had similar issue in South India growing up. In my home where Christian Missionary schools were the popular schools when I was growing up, used to collect huge funds as donations (Though they are forced).<p>Over the years, many Private non church based schools got started with better standards (Since there was money to be made). Most of the schools that were doing well in my generation are now closed or on their death bed.<p>Its purely supply and demand. If schools can demand huge donations, it matter of time before more & better schools get started increasing the supply.<p>India is a generation ahead of China in Corruption (Sad but true).
That is very sad and concerning.<p>In my libertarian opinion, the competition start when the participants can make an informed choice - ie when they have a basic education.<p>Basic education, teaching everyone to read and count, provides positive externalities too- so it's generally regarded as a good thing, and many government provide public basic education. (some push that even further, but let's not talk about that yet)<p>An alternative is having companies providing basic education, and students enrolling with vouchers - ie opening competition on the education service market while fixing demand, to keep the positive externality. It is even better than the former option.<p>But biasing the competition even before it is started, by having a single government-run education scheme, where bribery and cronyism replace healthy competition is so wrong!
My theory is that the reason there are much higher levels of corruption in places like China, Mexico and other countries versus the US is because their so-called "economies" are even more broken and unequal than ours.<p>The United States GNI at PPP (gross national income at purchasing power parity) is $48,890 whereas Mexico's is $15,120 and China's is $8,430. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GNI_(PPP)_per_capita" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GNI_(PPP)_...</a><p>So if corruption is related to relative GNI at PPP (obviously that isn't the only factor, but I think it is likely to be a significant one) then we can expect problems related to corruption to be about 3 times as bad in Mexico as they are in the US. Similarly we would expect China's problems to be about 6 times as bad.
The problem is that there is pent-up demand and an open market is not being allowed to operate. This always, everywhere, leads to what economists call a "parallel market" and what everyone else calls a "black market".