Topped £100 billion, student scams are costing us millions. From the evidence youre shown me there is clearfraud going on and it needs to be referred to the police. It is a proud day in many peoples lives, graduating from university. The government is keen to help more of us experience this. Its backing private colleges, called alternative providers, to offer degrees and diplomas to people who might otherwise not are the chance to get a Higher Education. Participation is hugely important. Its good that more young people are able to access Higher Education and particularly young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. In england, wales and northern ireland, these private colleges like universities are paid for by taxpayer funded Student Loans. Students at private colleges can get up to £17,000 a year, £11,000 to cover Living Expenses and £6,000 to cover tuition fees. Its estimated that three quarters of graduates may never pay back their Student Loans in full. There are 112 private colleges, and as they enrol more students, thats leaving them vulnerable to fraud. Over £400 million a year is going to support alternative Higher Education providers. So its vital we track that its being spent as it should be. Our investigation starts in greenwich, london at the Greenwich School of management, or gsm. Its expanded over the last four years and now has more than 4,000 students. A whistle blower told us that an agent who recruits on College Premises is recruiting bogus students who are only interested in the money. His name is Charles Logan. We sent in two undercover students. Sure enough, we find him upstairs behind a desk near the library. 0ur undercover student has one btec, the equivalent of a levels, enough to get him a place. Within minutes logan gives him application for a three year honours degree course in business management. 0ur undercover student says hes working full time. Logan tells him a student loan can be a nice little earner on top. Logan, who has a contract with the college, fills in our undercover Students Loan application. His admission on to the course will be processed by gsm. Most gsm students are recruited by the college itself. The rest come from freelance recruiters. Weve been told by a whistleblower than logan is gsms no1 recruiter and gets a commission of around £600 for every student he enrols and the college gets £6,000 in tuition fees per student more year. More students, more money. 0ur bogus student, what does he get . £5,300 a year for Living Expenses. Although some students get around £11,000. Its all paid by for the governments Student Loans company. Taxpayer funded money. We showed our study to lord storey. The agent gets paid for each person he recruits. The college gets public money. The student gets student loan money and the government can say, ticking the box, we have disadvantaged people doing Higher Education. Well find out later how our undercover student gets on. Our next dodgy recruiter is based in east london. Amir raja runs this unique consulting london ltd from this office in barking. This time our undercover student, who we send in with a friend, says she left school at 16 in india, with the equivalent of gcses. Raja says there are courses she can apply for. Raja says shell need to show some professional experience. But shes already told him that she has been working cash in hand in a beauty salon. Not a problem, raja takes a red pen to her cv. To help with this deception, he writes a fake reference letter saying she has been employed by his company as a Marketing Executive for several years. He says it was sent with her application to the the Central London campus of Roehampton University, which is run by a private Company Called qa Higher Education. Later after an interview, at which roehampton said she did very well, and her basic english test, she is accepted. Rajas fee for helping her cheat her way on to a degree course and apply for loan £200, paid in cash. If i were Roehampton University i would be concerned about the credibility impact on our university. We boast we have the best University Sector in the word, but if these practices are going on, that undermines our University Sector. We withdrew our undercover student from the course before her loan application process was completed. Roehampton University Said it is disappointed an agent may have acted inappropriately and said partnerships are continually audited and reviewed and if procedures are not followed it takes immediate action. 0a Higher Education said it has suspended the agent pending an investigation. Rajas company, unique consulting, denies any wrong doing and say a professional reference letter was sent in error and management policies have been reviewed. Back at the Greenwich School of management, our undercover student has degree level assignments to do. Together with a friend, he pays Charles Logan another visit. Logan knows just the man to help other undercover student with her course work. Logan, the mr fix it for bogus students, tells us how it works. He almost make makes it sound legitimate. Logan gives us the number for his talented friend, hes called mike and runs a Company Called grammarholic. We give him a call. Is that mike . I was given your number by charles at gsm. We ordered two assignments from mike and another online. Here they are. Mikes look impressive. 0ne cost £356. The other £170. Im completely disappointed that these people are exploiting students. It totally de legitimises the work that students do, who work hard for their degrees. There is 50,000 students are cheating by using essay mills to write their essays. I feel feel they should be banned. Grammarholics say they are a small Team Offering writing and it services and dont condone fraud and only provide essays as guides and their terms and conditions say students should not submit writers work as their own, although they have heard that some do. Later, gsm passed our undercover student with flying colours, without him doing a stroke of work. We tell Charles Logan the good news. Gsm says if the allegations are true, his actions a re totally u na cce pta ble. It suspended its contract with him and brought in external experts to investigate. It says if its systems have been open to abuse it will take all appropriate steps to strengthen them. Logan himself says he emphatically denies acting fraudulently. Either for profit or to assist students in fraud lntly claiming student finance. Most private colleges dont award their own degrees, so work in partnership with universities. Gsm pays Plymouth University to approve its students coursework and ratify their final marks. Plymouth University Confirmed our undercover students marks, and didnt detect he had cheated. If theyre going to license out their degree awarding status, they need to be very, very careful. And i think this will send Warning Signals right round the University Sector, to make sure that theyre really getting in there, as well as government regulation, and looking at the quality of work. Plymouth University Says gsm is responsible for student admissions and attendance, and is launching its own independent investigation. It says it has. A barbershop in ilford, east london the unlikely starting point for our final investigation into student loan fraudsters. The man who runs the shop is called imran, and weve been told he is up to his neck in fraud. 0ur undercover student meets him in his mercedes. He offers to get a College Place in any two year Higher National diploma, or hnd course. But itll cost. But imran has lots more to offer. As well as guaranteeing admission for £200, he says, once were in in, he can fake our attendance and supply all the academic assignments we need. The cost £1,500 a year, paid out of our student loan money. So how does imran do it . This is Grafton College, on oxford street. It is fully approved by the government for Student Loans, and hasjust started offering degrees in partnership with the open university. We decide to test imrans claims using two undercover students. 0ne says she is working cash in hand, and she is keen to get some student loan money. He says he will meet us at the college. When we get there, we find he has sent his assistant, raza, instead. We tell him our student left school at 16, so doesnt have the qualifications to get on the course. One solution is to make our undercover student look like she has got more qualifications than she actually has. Imran and raza will get her a certificate to say she has the equivalent of a levels, and that will earn them even more money. So £600 for a dodgy certificate. Will we get away with it . With the agents promise of a real certificate, fraudulently made out in our undercover students name, a member of College Staff later fills out a loan application. He seems to know the agents. Still in the college, our undercover students pay raza a £300 deposit for the dodgy certificate. A few days later, we pay the remaining £300 to his boss, the man with the merc, imran. It is now day one of our undercover students hnd in business management. Grafton College Teaches courses supplied by pearson, one of the uks biggest agencies. 0ur undercover and her fellow students are told they must attend lectures. The dodgy recruiters have a solution for that, as well. Theyre downstairs. Imran says hell fix it so she barely has to attend. After attending just one lecture, our undercover student gets paid £3,600, the first instalment of her annual maintenance loan, to cover Living Expenses of £11,000 a year. And, two weeks later, Grafton College is paid the first £1,500 instalment of its £6,000 a year tuition fee. Time to pay dodgy recruiter imran, who made it all happen. Were back in his mercedes. A nice little earner, at the taxpayers expense. In total, we paid imran £2,300, leaving our undercover student with £8,700 from her £11,000 maintenance loan. And, with a shiny new certificate, it all looks legitimate. The logo on the certificate says ava. That is now the british awarding association, a government approved company based, wait for it. On the floor above Grafton College. Imran says he got it from asif khawaja, head of operations at grafton. Here they are together at the college, earlier. Like all his claims about inside help, we dont know if he is telling the truth. But, if he is, it is shocking. It looks like a genuine certificate. In fact, it is a genuine certificate. No, it is a genuine certificate. But that genuine certificate has been arrived at by massive cheating and falsifying information. And it is wrong, absolutely wrong. We now know that asif khawajas brother, sarwar, owns the place where the certificate came from, with the wife of graftons director. When we asked them about it, they all said they were unaware of any alleged fraudulent activities taking place, and that family relationships cant be used to somehow implicate them in alleged fraud. Asif khawaja says he absolutely denies any involvement. The college says, though raza and imran are on its premises from time to time, they arent authorised to act as agents. As for the agents, how much do they get from their student loan scams . Imran says he has been doing it for years at several colleges, and many of his clients are restaurant workers and taxi drivers. Im lost for words. I mean, these are corrupt educational practices. Theyve falsified information, theyve broken the law, it is just mind blowing. Im lost for words, quite honestly. It seems to me pretty apparent there is criminal fraud going on, and from what youve shown me, it needs to be referred to the police. Neither raza or imran have responded to our allegations. Pearson says it has put an immediate block on Grafton College, which means it will not be able to register or certificate any further students for pearson qualifications until its investigations are complete. The open University Says. The sector expanded fast, and the government did not set up a regulatory system that was fit for purpose. It has to crack down, really investigate it, and send in the auditors, but it also has to have a system that stops them from spiralling in and making money from the taxpayer. The governments regulator, the Quality Assurance agency, was concerned about student admissions at grafton two years ago. But this summer, at the same time we were investigating, they said grafton was improving. You went injune 2017 and said the college was making exceptional progress. How on earth can that be true . Were responsible for assessing the quality of the education. So youre not worried about fraud . Let me be absolutely clear. Fraud of any kind is absolutely unacceptable, and we have tools to investigate fraud. On several occasions, weve investigated colleges, sometimes in partnership with other agencies. There has been a significant drop in the amount of money pay the ineligible students over the last four years. But, at a time when students that has topped £100 billion, our investigation shows how the Student Loans system is still wide open to fraud. The funding system is ultimately broken. These are horrible people, that are exploiting our education system. I think that the government needs to have more rigorous regulation to ensure that they are delivering quality teaching and learning. During this investigation, we received nearly £9,000 in Student Loans we werent entitled to, all at the taxpayers expense. Unlike the fraudsters weve uncovered, we will of course pay it back. Welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. My name is mike embley. Our top stories explosions and gunfire in the zimbabwean capital. Military officers deny theyre staging a coup and say president mugabe and his family are safe. Children caught in yemens conflict. The un warns millions of lives are at risk from fighting and famine. Australians say yes to same sex marriage. More than 61 back the move in an Historic National vote. And are these two really a threat to western values . French president Emmanuel Macron thinks they are. We have an exclusive interview