International students attending American colleges are required to have test scores showing the ability to speak and write in English.
Many universities require a minimum score on the TOEFL, the Test of English as a Foreign Language, (of) between 79 and 100. The score is calculated in four parts: reading, speaking, listening and writing.
According to the 2016 Open Doors report, there are over 328,000 students from China out of a million international students in the United States. However, some students who want to come to the U.S. may not be able to score that high on the tests. This, in turn, has launched an industry to meet their demand.
This week, police arrested four students for cheating on their TOEFL. Yue Wang, a business school student in Massachusetts, received $7,000 to take the tests for three other students. Those three students were admitted to Arizona State University, Penn State University and Northeastern University.
William Weinreb is the acting U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts. He said the students broke the rules of the exam and took spots at universities that could have gone to qualified students.
The students in the case face charges of trying defraud the United States because they used false results to receive student visas from the U.S. State Department.
It is not the first time something like this has happened. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice charged 15 Chinese students who planned to have others take the college admissions test for them.
Earlier this year, the College Board canceled the results of the international SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) for some students after concerns of cheating arose.
I'm Dan Friedell.