Diploma mills, also known as fake universities or degree mills, are organizations that offer unaccredited degrees for a fee. They exploit the value and prestige associated with a university degree, often without offering any meaningful education or qualifications. In recent years, the rise of online education and the increasing importance of a…

This paper explores how English universities operating in a "quasi-market" are managing the tension between two policy expectations: the first that they should encourage social mobility by widening the social base of their student population; the second that they should compete with other universities to attract students and thereby…