Surge in essay buying led by Oxford students

Oxford students are among the worst offenders for buying essays from an online company, a survey has shown.UKEssays.com revealed that 180 model essays were bought by Oxford students last year.Students at Nottingham University and Royal Holloway bought the most essays, while students at Cambridge bought 74 essays, under half the number purchased by Oxford.Students can telephone or email the  company with a subject area and title, even going into so far as to request a specific word count, a certain essay standard and a delivery time. Fees range from £34 for the bare bones needed for a first-year degree essay to £40,000 for the outline of a PhD thesis delivered in five days.UKEssays.com is the UK’s leading provider of custom essays.  Its website poses the question, “What if you could get a better degree and do less work on your essays at the same time?” The five year old company attracts an average of 6,500 customers each year. They expect sales to Oxford students to rise to 300 this year.A spokesperson for UKEssays.com stressed that each essay is intended as “a precise reference tool.” They are not designed to be handed in and claimed as the student’s own, but merely “to either help begin their work, or to help them find that final ‘all important’ source.”When questioned about their popularity among Oxford students, the spokesperson suggested it was because students have “realised that we’re not promoting plagiarism and that they can use our work for the correct reason – as a focused study aid.”The spokesperson also blamed the UK’s education system, which “is failing our students. Graduates aren’t prepared for work, yet they’ve paid thousands of pounds to be in this position. We’re filling the void that an increasingly commercialised education industry has left.”Joss Corner, a second year Philosophy and French student, admitted that she could see how students would be tempted to buy essays. “If you only use it as a study guide, buying an essay from an online company isn’t that different to using other students’ essays for help, which most people wouldn’t think twice about. At the end of the day handing in an essay you didn’t write won’t help you pass the exam.”The senior proctor, Dr James Forder, said, “The University regards all companies providing ready-made written work that students might hand in as if it were their own with deep concern and anyone who cheats in their examinations can expect to be dealt with severely.”by Nadya Thorman