Tens of thousands of students from the Chinese mainland sit SAT at the AsiaWorld-Expo in Hong Kong on January 25. Photo: CFP

China's Ministry of Education (MOE) has published a list of over 10,000 overseas colleges and universities in 44 countries which are accredited by China, in an effort to prevent domestic students from being cheated by bogus overseas higher education institutes.    

The listed colleges and universities are from countries which are popular destinations for Chinese students, such as the US, the UK, Australia and Canada, according to the MOE.

There will be half a million Chinese students studying abroad by the end of 2014, the largest group in the world, China Radio International reported.  

The Center for China & Globalization (CCG), a think tank for China’s globalization, warned last year that bogus colleges are rife in the US, which is Chinese students’ top destination for overseas study. CCG said that the fraudulent American colleges grant 95 percent of their fake diplomas to Chinese every year.

“The reason why Chinese students swarm to those phony schools is that an overseas education background weighs a lot more than a domestic one in job market,” CCG said.

Some employees working in state-owned companies opted to buy a fake diploma from those schools to get promoted, CCG said.

Staff from the MOE said that some uncertified overseas private colleges have poor standards or go into liquidation while some illegal agents cheat students by providing false information, the Beijing Times reported.

Some self-sponsored Chinese students lack the capability to learn and independent living is also a problem, the staff added. 

Students can go to http://www.jsj.edu.cn/index.php/default/index/sort/12019 to check the accredited education institutions in the US.