Moscow Times
$7,000 Buys Dissertation and Flashy Degree
By Oksana Yablokova
Staff Writer
Want to get a doctorate but don't feel like spending months in a library and days and nights in front of a computer composing a dissertation? No problem. For $1,000 to $7,000, a consultant or an entire firm will write the dissertation for you and prep you on defending it before an academic board.
In a worrisome trend for the academic community, dubious academic credential-building has become a common practice among businessmen, politicians and young men hoping to avoid military service, who use ghostwritten work, or at least someone else's help in writing a dissertation, to obtain a degree.
The issue of scholastic integrity took the spotlight last week after U.S. researchers declared that large parts of an economics dissertation written by President Vladimir Putin in the mid-1990s had been lifted from a U.S. textbook published 20 years earlier. The Kremlin has not commented on the issue.
There is a simple motivation behind the demand for paid dissertations: The popularity of academic degrees has been growing steadily in recent years. The Russian State Library, which has obtained every dissertation defended in the country since 1944, received a record 31,000 works last year, said Nina Avdeyeva, who works in the library's dissertation department.
The Russian system of academic degrees is different from most Western systems and includes a "candidate of science" degree, which is roughly the equivalent of a Ph.D., and a higher degree of "doctor of science." Seekers of both degrees are required to write a dissertation and defend it before an academic board.
Firms that offer to write dissertations estimate that up to 30 percent of all postgraduate students resort to their services these days, and they said the number continued to grow.
Most students seek a candidate of science degree but are too busy to put their careers on hold for the six or more months that it takes to write a dissertation, industry experts said.
They also have various needs. Some ask for assistance at a certain stage of their studies, while others want the dissertation written from beginning to end. But cases of people who only read their work for the first time as they prepare to defend it are rare, and few consultants or firms are willing to risk working on such assignments.
"We only deal with clients whom we see as capable of writing the dissertation themselves," said Ksenia Bakhvalova, general director of LSS Group, a Moscow firm specializing in helping students write dissertations.
"If a client knows nothing about the subject, we won't be able to help because he or she will never be able to defend the dissertation before the academic board," Bakhvalova said.
She said that her firm has contacts with several dozen researchers in various sciences who specialize in writing dissertations from start to finish.
Bakhvalova said that some 70 percent of her firm's clients are male college and university graduates in their 20s who want to enter a postgraduate program to avoid compulsory military service.
By law, postgraduate students cannot be drafted while they are affiliated with a university or research institute and preparing their dissertations. Once they receive the degree, they automatically become ineligible for the draft.
"By using our services, clients are killing two birds with one stone: getting a degree that will look good on their resumes; and liberating themselves from the annual fear of being drafted and having to pay a new bribe to avoid it," Bakhvalova said in a recent interview in her central Moscow office, a simple room with a desk and chairs. She wore a United Russia pin on her jacket.
"We often end up dealing with the mothers and fathers of degree seekers who are ready to pay to ensure that their sons do not end up in the army," Bakhvalova said.
The rest of Bakhvalova's clients include entrepreneurs, government officials and lawyers, usually in their 40s and 50s, with successful careers and the desire to boost their prestige in the eyes of other people.
She declined to identify any of her clients.
Pavel Kochkin, development manager of a firm called the Library Fund for Postgraduates and Degree Seekers, said that most postgraduate students had solid reasons for not writing the dissertations by themselves.
"Obtaining an academic degree is a very complicated, bureaucratic procedure, and few degree seekers can meet all the requirements, especially if they have full-time jobs or live in the regions," Kochkin said.
For example, the students need to publish at least three articles in scientific journals and spend weeks in a special dissertation library outside Moscow, collecting statistics and other materials necessary to write the dissertation, Kochkin said.
He said that his firm's services include recommendations to postgraduate programs in Moscow colleges and universities that compose and publish articles, as well as general consultations on how to write and present dissertations.
"Of course the dissertation should be innovative and have practical value," Kochkin said.
Students also have to make sure that no other dissertations have been written on the same topic over the past five years or the academic board might reject the work.
"There are dozens of little details that most people simply do not know about, and we can advise them. As such, we have to inform applicants that it is an unavoidable tradition to throw a dinner or reception for the members of the academic board after the presentation of the thesis," Kochkin said.
He and Bakhvalova refused to disclose their earnings but said they charged $1,000 to $7,000 per dissertation, depending on the client's needs.
"On the whole, this is a fun business that brings in good revenues," Bakhvalova said.
A senior academician who chairs the history branch of the Highest Academic Qualification Commission, a postgraduate oversight agency in the Education and Science Ministry, acknowledged that ghostwriting was a big problem.
"What is true is that it has become extremely popular with government officials to obtain academic degrees by presenting dissertations of very poor quality," said Alexander Chubaryan, who also heads the Academy of Sciences' World History Research Institute.
"This practice does worry us because it leads to the devaluation of the academic community's reputation," Chubaryan said.
The majority of dissertations are written in economics, pedagogical studies and law, he said.
Bakhvalova confirmed that these are the most popular fields, adding that firms like hers do not deal with writing dissertations in the technical or natural sciences. "Problems with those works are eminent, so we prefer not to take the risk," she said.
She also said far fewer clients sought the dissertations required to get the higher doctor of science degree. These are more serious works and subject to closer scrutiny by academic boards, making them much more expensive, Bakhvalova said.
Chubaryan said academic boards were aware of the problem of ghostwriting but found it hard to prove when considering dissertations. He noted that boards currently cannot be held accountable for approving dodgy dissertations and suggested it would help to make them at least partially responsible.
"Then we need to put an end to this stream of dissertations written by government officials and lawmakers by making them subject to a thorough examination," Chubaryan said.
Most federal ministers have advanced degrees, as do 214 of the 450 deputies in the State Duma.
Kochkin said postgraduate students often resort to the services of his firm after failing to receive guidance from mentors at their places of study.
"If you are fortunate, you will get a good mentor who guides you and oversees all the stages of your work. But many students only see their unmotivated mentors twice a year," Kochkin said.
Chubaryan conceded that the process of completing postgraduate school was difficult but said that was no excuse to not study. "I understand the difficulties that students encounter on the way to obtaining a degree, but a degree seeker should still do everything by himself. That is the only way," he said.