The Brutal Reality Behind Academia’s Fake Success
Tang Wensheng got fired right after final exams ended.
“Please come to HR within three business days to process your paperwork,” the university told him.
No warning. No second chances. Just a cold notification that his academic career was over.
The Impossible Mission: Raise Money or Get Fired
Tang worked at a private second-tier university in Xi’an, China.
In May, the school suddenly announced a new policy. All faculty members had to bring in something called “horizontal funding” – basically research money from companies and social organizations.
The amounts were insane:
- Assistant professors: $6,300 minimum
- Associate professors: $7,000-$14,000
- Professors: Even more
For Tang, a literature teacher, this was mission impossible.
How exactly do you convince a company to pay for your poetry analysis research?
When Your Boss Tells You to Commit Fraud
Here’s where it gets dark.
After watching completion rates drop to 37%, the dean called an emergency meeting.
Her solution? Pure academic fraud.
“If you can’t bring in real research projects, just find a company and make a fake contract,” she said on the video call.
Let that sink in.
A university dean. Telling professors. To commit fraud. To keep their jobs.
The Dean’s Personal Fraud Tutorial
The dean didn’t just talk the talk. She walked the walk.
She was renovating her 24-year-old house. So she contacted a decoration company and created a fake research project called “Living Environment Cultural Theme Planning.”
She used AI to create a $14,000 renovation plan. The contract said the company would pay the university for “research fees” and “design costs.”
After the money hit the university account, she used renovation receipts to get her money back from the finance department.
“This is real work with real results,” she said with a straight face.
The audacity is breathtaking.
Teachers Drowning in Debt to Save Their Careers
The message was crystal clear: Pay up or get out.
Most teachers caved to the pressure.
They took out loans. Sold houses. Emptied savings accounts.
One teacher in Tianjin sold their house to raise $56,000 for fake research funding.
Another in Anhui posted a bank loan screenshot for $11,200, writing: “I’m useless. I don’t have money or ability to meet expectations. I don’t know what’s the point of this work anymore.”
Professional middlemen started appearing on social media, helping teachers match with companies and plan fake expense reports.
Why Smart People Make Terrible Choices
Tang Wensheng refused to play along.
He calculated the real cost: 6.7% tax, 10% management fee, plus 4% for fake invoices. Even if everything went perfectly, he’d lose about 20% of his “investment.”
On his $700 monthly salary, that was devastating.
But money wasn’t his biggest concern.
Tang studied in Australia. He knew academic fraud could destroy his international career prospects forever.
“I might work abroad someday. Academic fraud is a career death sentence internationally.”
The System is Rigged Against Honest People
Six teachers refused to sign fake contracts.
All six got fired.
The other 94 teachers paid up and kept their jobs.
Tang started questioning everything after getting fired.
“Everyone acts like this is totally normal,” he said. “People outside universities tell me: ‘Paying money to keep your job makes perfect sense. You have to pay for everything these days!'”
This normalization of corruption is terrifying.
The Real Problem: Universities Chasing Rankings Over Education
This madness isn’t random. It’s systematic.
Universities need research funding numbers to climb rankings and get government approval for graduate programs.
Second-tier schools can’t compete for legitimate national research grants. So they force teachers to create fake funding to inflate their statistics.
The result? Universities become money-laundering operations disguised as educational institutions.
Teachers Become Sales Reps, Not Educators
Wu Jianjun, an engineering professor, summed it up perfectly:
“Universities now demand: Give me fame or give me money. Fame means national research grants. Money means horizontal funding.”
For most teachers at lower-tier schools, getting prestigious national grants is impossible.
So they become sales reps, hustling for corporate contracts instead of focusing on research and teaching.
Wu had to raise $210,000 during his first four-year contract period. When he succeeded, the university moved the goalposts to $280,000.
“The school always holds interpretation rights,” he said. “Rules change whenever they want.”
Teaching Becomes Performance Theater
The obsession with metrics destroyed actual education.
Classrooms now have 360-degree surveillance cameras for “quality monitoring.”
Teachers must stand in camera view at all times. Front rows must be filled with students.
Universities track “head-up rates” – the percentage of time students look up from their phones.
Stone Yun, a professor in Jiangsu, described it perfectly: “Teaching became performance theater. The most important thing is generating data that makes everything look busy and productive.”
Teachers can’t take sick leave or attend academic conferences because it affects departmental rankings.
The system prioritizes metrics over learning.
The Human Cost: Broken Dreams and Stress-Induced Illness
Wang Sen, a 43-year-old literature professor, got assigned $98,000 in fake funding quotas.
Her annual salary? $14,000.
Leaders suggested she mortgage her house and register a fake company.
“Some teachers actually did that. But I can’t risk my parents’ home. I can’t use their retirement money for something this risky.”
Wang quit after seven years. She got flu twice in three weeks before leaving – her body was breaking down from stress.
“I realized what’s truly important and what I can let go,” she said.
Solutions: How to Fix This Broken System
The current system is unsustainable. Here are real solutions:
1. Separate Research from Teaching Roles
Not every professor needs to be a research superstar.
Create distinct career tracks:
- Teaching-focused professors: Evaluated on educational excellence, student outcomes, curriculum development
- Research-focused professors: Evaluated on legitimate research output and funding
- Applied professors: Focus on industry collaboration and practical applications
2. Reform University Ranking Systems
Stop rewarding universities for inflated research spending numbers.
Ranking organizations should:
- Verify funding authenticity through independent audits
- Weight teaching quality equally with research output
- Penalize institutions caught in systematic fraud
3. Create Alternative Funding Models
Develop legitimate pathways for humanities and social science research:
- Government grants specifically for teaching innovation
- Industry partnerships for practical curriculum development
- Community engagement projects with real social value
4. Protect Whistleblowers
Faculty who report academic fraud should receive:
- Legal protection from retaliation
- Alternative employment assistance
- Financial compensation for damages
5. Student-Centered Accountability
Universities should be evaluated on:
- Graduate employment rates and career satisfaction
- Skills development and critical thinking improvement
- Long-term alumni success and contribution to society
International Implications: A Warning for Global Academia
This isn’t just a Chinese problem.
Universities worldwide face pressure to inflate metrics and chase rankings.
The fundamental question is: Are we educating students or manufacturing statistics?
When professors need loans to keep their jobs, something is fundamentally broken.
The Choice: Reform or Collapse
Academic institutions have a choice.
They can continue this charade of fake research funding and metric manipulation.
Or they can remember their actual purpose: educating the next generation and advancing human knowledge.
The current system is producing neither education nor genuine research.
It’s producing stress, fraud, and cynicism.
What Students and Parents Should Know
If you’re choosing a university, ask these questions:
- How does the school evaluate teaching quality?
- What percentage of faculty time goes to actual teaching vs. administrative tasks?
- How does the school support faculty professional development?
- What’s the faculty turnover rate?
High turnover and stressed faculty mean poor education quality, regardless of university rankings.
The Bottom Line
When teachers need loans to keep their jobs at educational institutions, we’ve lost sight of education’s real purpose.
Real reform requires courage from administrators, faculty, and students.
The alternative is watching higher education collapse under the weight of its own bureaucratic absurdity.
The choice is ours.
But we better choose fast.
What do you think about this crisis in higher education? Have you seen similar problems in your country’s university system? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.
