Fraud and corruption in education exist in various forms. Its global manifestations include diploma mills and the counterfeiting of academic documents, as well as the hiring of academic staff, the passing of examinations, admission into education programs and the award of degrees.

From an institutional perspective, the ramifications of failure to address fraud and corrupt practices are sometimes severe. The most prominent example may be the University of Wales, which was abolished in 2011 because it ran degree validation programs with dubious or downright illegal overseas partner institutions.

Dickinson State University in North Dakota was placed on notice by its accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission after it came out that the university had been graduating international students from top programs with Chinese and Russian partner institutions without authenticated documents or appropriate academic prerequisites.  The 2019 College admission scandal is the latest in the many scandals. The problem is an urgent one.  The blockchain does one thing: It replaces third-party trust with mathematical proof that something happened.

The Education Institutions, similar to most organizations are inundated in data from a variety of sources and devices, are are required to make decision on incoming applicants, incoming employees and at the same time are required to verify credentials of outgoing students and out-going employees.  

The decision makers are under pressure to collect and combine the right mix of available data and use it to make the right decision in the shortest possible timeframe.