A Digital Diploma Daze

Blame it on the expectations of modern education. Not only did the Central University of Finance and Economics (CUFE) in Beijing have the burden to instill young minds with the valuable lessons of modern commerce, it held the promise of conferring a widely-recognized degree. Yet the outstanding success of the university on both counts is precisely what led nearly 500 students enrolled at the beginning of 2008 – to drop out en masse last July.

(CUFE's teaching complex for the students it recruited through the unconventional channel /Niu Guang)

The students were told that they had gained admittance into a program which had softer standards for China's standardized university test scores but discovered less than a year before graduation that they would only be eligible for online course degrees.