Patricia Kingori is the youngest Black woman professor in Oxford’s 925-year history. Captivated by the hidden ‘fake essay’ industry, Patricia enters the world of an estimated 40,000 highly-educated, underemployed Kenyans making ends meet by writing academic papers for global students.

Scholars like Mercy, a single mother, struggling to support her daughter while writing thousands of words every night to help students in wealthy countries graduate and move into lucrative jobs. In the US, a desperate student sells nudes to pay for the promise of a passing grade for her midterms.

The tension grows between the demand and the parallel threats of UK and Australian crackdowns and the rise of AI. Patricia asks: If the world’s elite can pay for degrees they didn’t earn – and educated Kenyans cannot find jobs outside this industry - then what is the real value of education?

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