Verifle says that increasing the price of university education will lead to an increase in phony universities and the purchase of criminally produced, fake degrees.
The company’s — which monitors such institutions — says that bogus universities have increased in number by 25% since the beginning of the year, with 337 in the UK alone and a further 219 under investigation.
Eyal Ben Cohen, Verifile’s MD, said: "It’s clear that fake institutions are on the rise in the UK and the Government is not doing enough to fight it.
"In costly education systems like the USA, degree mills are everywhere. We fear that pushing up the cost of UK education will only increase the demand for fake universities and encourage more people to use their bogus ‘degrees’ as a way to improve chances of employment."