The Grade Change Story

 I was watching this brief news item off N-TV (commercial news in Germany) this morning, and it's a  curious item.

So this story revolves around the University of Duisburg-Essen (NW Germany).  They've been around for about twenty years (regarded as the youngest university in Germany), and have around 40k students in the various programs.

So what the journalists say is that a clerk associated with the school has gone to accepting money to change grades....for a bribe of 800 Euro.  It would appear the clerk has done this on more than a couple of occasions. 

The university?  They've dug as far as they can, and gone to the police/local prosecutor to have more done.  

Just a humble guess, but there's probably going to be a financial review of the clerk's bank account and that might expose more of an issue.  As for 800 Euro per change?  You'd be talking about near $1,000 (US) and that seems awful excessive.  But this would beg the question....how long has this clerk been doing this?  Just a year or two?  Or maybe for a whole decade?

So it begs the question....what if you dig into this and find that more than 500 grades were 'improved' over five years?  Are you going to bring those graduates back and punish them in some way (throw out their degrees)?  Added to this....what if the grade changes all circle back over to one particular professor and students who only took his classes? 

This might be an interesting story to watch.