buy an academic essay

Sorry, your request has been denied.

Buy an essay online and forget your troubles

Getting academic help is as easy as ever. Hundreds of experienced writers are here for you.

Work with top expert writers

We hire the best talent to ensure unmatched customer satisfaction. Native English speakers with at least 3 years of experience are here for your academic success.

Buy essays online and explore the perks you’ll get to enjoy

High quality is the only way.

We take pride in our work, bringing academic excellence to everyone who needs it. This is why we keep our prices affordable while our quality remains the highest in the business. See the customers’ testimonials - we can make you that happy, too!

Your privacy is protected

You have the right to remain anonymous throughout our collaboration process. We don’t store or share any of our customers’ private data as we understand the value of your privacy. All your communication is encrypted and will never be compromised.

Unique content quaranteed

The value of unique content in academia cannot be overstated. This is why every piece we produce goes through multiple originality checks to ensure its uniqueness. You can get an originality report for free if you have any doubts.

Always on time

We know how detrimental late submissions can be. This is why we strive to always deliver on or ahead of time. Our work process is tailored for maximum efficiency to make sure you are always satisfied.

Free features

Buy essay online in 3 easy steps, provide complete and detailed instructions.

Complete our order form, providing thorough details for your request. Include the topic, deadline, word count, and other instructions from your professor.

Select from our pool of writers

Browse resumes from our pool, then choose your expert. Then, proceed by funding your selection.

Download your essay

Upon paper completion, we’ll send an email notification. Review the work and ask for revisions if needed to meet your standards. Upon satisfaction, finalize payment.

Studyfy expertly handles all types of assignments, ensuring your satisfaction

• Research Paper
• Presentation or Speech
• Annotated Bibliography
• Article Review
• Literature Review
• Business Plan
• Research Proposal
• Book / Movie Review
• Editing and proofreading
• Reflective Writing
• Thesis / Dissertation
• Admission Essay
• Creative Writing
• Critical Thinking / Review
• Book Reviews
• Homework Assignment
• Statistics Assignment
• Physics Assignment
• Engineering Assignment
• Biology Assignment
• Chemistry Assignment
• Math Assignment
• Geography Assignment
• Multiple Choice Questions
• Short Answer Questions
• Word Problems

Buying essays reviews: hear from satisfied Studyfy clients

Take a look at what our customers have to say about the service.

I've never had such a good experience buying an essay online! The entire process from signing up, to ordering, to receiving my paper was simple and painless!

If you need to buy essays this is the right place for you. Compared to other websites the balance between cost and quality is just perfect!

I never thought that I would buy an essay online, but my friend told me about Studyfy and I'm so glad I decided to try it. It's allowed me to focus on subjects I like and get help with the ones I struggle with.

I've been using the study guides on Studyfy for a few months now and I was so impressed that I decided to use their other services. Try it, you won't be disappointed!

Don't hesitate to buy essays or get help here. I've been disappointed by websites like this in the past but Studyfy is the real deal.

I'm in grad school and was worried that the quality would not be good enough but I found an amazing writer who has taught me so much. Thanks Studyfy!

Find out what else you can buy from our service

Frequently asked questions, how much is your service, on average, how long will it take to complete my order, can you promise me my personal information will be safe, how can you make sure that my paper will be original, what if there’s something wrong with my paper, can i communicate directly with my expert, buy an essay from studyfy and enjoy many advantages.

To buy essay papers in the current business landscape might feel dangerous or unsafe. We are here to tell you that you’ve found one of the few services that delivers on their promises. There are many scams out there, and it’s getting harder to discern which is which. This is why we've prepared this guide for you. This is what you need to look for in a trustworthy service:

‍ Recognized payment methods. First of all, notice where your money goes when you order anything online. A recognized payment system with a good reputation, like Visa, Mastercard, AmEx or Discover, always checks the backgrounds of businesses they work with to ensure their reputation is not tarnished.

‍ Originality guarantee. Any academic service provider knows that the uniqueness of papers is one of the most important factors for a student. A percentage of plagiarism above the school’s guidelines can get one into huge trouble.

This is why we have a guarantee of originality, and we are willing to give out plagiarism reports for free with every order. You just have to ask the support team for one.

‍ Expert writers. Writers are the backbone of every academic service, so hiring someone with no experience can be detrimental to both your reputation and ours.

This is why we hire only native English speakers with three or more years of experience in academic writing, as well as practical experience in their field.Our team works tirelessly to ensure your happiness and academic success. All our guarantees are in place to protect you and to make sure you get the grades you deserve.

‍ How to buy essay paper from Studyfy

For your convenience, we’ve made the order process as direct, fast and simple as possible. To purchase essay from our service, you need to follow a few simple steps.

First, you fill out the order form. You start at the price calculator on our main page, and you fill in all the details that are relevant to your order. You will then need to log in or sign up to continue filling out the order. Don't worry, you don’t need to provide any personal details or anything that you don’t deem essential.

Then, you’ll need to find your expert. Writers will start bidding on your order as soon as you make a deposit. Read through their reviews, compare their experience and take your pick.

After that, you wait. You can actively participate in the process by keeping in touch with your writer through the chat. Clarify their questions, send them detailed instructions and guide them through the process.

Once you get an email notification from the custom essay writing service , you can come check your paper. Carefully read the final draft through, see if it complies with your instructions and if all the required sources have been used.

Remember that you can ask for any number of revisions as long as they don’t contradict the initial instructions.

Buy an essay online with fair pricing

The number of expenses every student has to deal with is often disproportionate to their income. Housing, textbooks, groceries, and entertainment are all indispensable. Sure, you can skip going to the movies to spare a few bucks, but you can’t really save on food or housing.

This is why we ensure that every student purchasing essays gets a fair, affordable price. We keep our prices incredibly low, and most importantly, stable, for you to be able to afford our college admission essay writing service .

We understand that you have loads of assignments to take care of, and it may be impossible to complete them all by yourself, with barely any guidance.

This is why our prices start at 11.4 dollars, and we offer generous discounts with each order. You can place multiple orders as one to get a bulk discount. The more pages you order, the less you pay. You can save up to 40% this way! Or, alternatively, you can follow our social media and our newsletter for updates and personalized discounts for holidays.

Buy essays froom Studyfy and take a break

Students’ lives are full of commitments and stress, and we are here to alleviate that pressure. We know how strict academic guidelines are and how much is expected of a student today. This is why so many people opt to buy essay papers online.

For many, this is the only viable way to really be on top of their studies and get everything done without too much stress. Many people realize they need a diploma later in life, and studying full-time is just not an option for them if they have a family and a job.

Many students also have to support their families by working. It’s natural that a person who has so much on their plate can’t find the time to do homework, especially considering how much is to be done. You might also want to pay for essay if you’ve fallen ill and haven’t been able to attend the lectures.

Why our writers are the best to buy essay online from

When you buy an essay online, you want to be sure you’re getting what you’ve paid for. A good essay writing service is based on many factors, from the security of payment systems to the availability of support. But writers are arguably the most important part.

Without writers, there cannot be a service like ours, and writers are the only thing that takes us one step above the competition. All our experts are native English speakers with a higher education degree and at least three years of experience in academic writing.

The vetting stage is a long and rigorous process that ensures we hire only the best talent. Only about 5% of all applicants get hired. Each candidate is tested first. We run a background check to confirm their education and work experience. After that, we test their language proficiency along with their knowledge in their stated area of expertise.

If they pass, they then write a sample essay on a topic chosen by the writer’s manager. If the test essay gets accepted by the quality assurance team, they start probation. The writers then complete their first few orders under close supervision, and only after that are they fully accepted to them and allowed to work on their own.

Buy essay from Studyfy and get original work

Our team makes it a point to ensure authenticity of every order we produce. We have a strong anti-plagiarism policy in place that safeguards anyone who wants to purchase essays online from us.

The first thing we do to maintain consistent results in terms of originality is we hire only top level talent. All candidates go through a very demanding vetting process that signals to them that no misconduct will be tolerated. Each writer is instructed on academic writing rules and they know from experience that data can only be used in a paper if it’s properly backed by sources. No copying is allowed.

Every writer knows that they will be terminated if they submit a work that has been plagiarized or generated by artificial intelligence.Next is, of course, quality assurance. We have an entire department of people that reviews every paper.

They look at the quality of the piece, adherence to instructions, and uniqueness. They use a Turnitin based checker for optimal results. If a paper shows more than 15% of plagiarism, it is sent back to the writer. If a paper shows over 20%, the author’s manager is informed and further action is taken.

To back up our words, you can ask for an originality report with every order. You will be provided with a file that confirms the uniqueness of your paper for no extra charge.

Buy an essay and achieve academic success with Studyfy

At this point, the decision to purchase essays should not be a hard one. Our guarantees work to protect you and ensure your academic success. Everything we do is made to support you on your academic journey.

Our support team works day and night to answer any questions you may have regarding the order process. Our team of writers is exquisite and hand-picked to deliver excellent papers at an affordable rate. We support all major payment methods to protect you and your payment information. Originality is our main policy.

We care about you and your success, and we would never set you up with a plagiarized or AI-generated paper. All the papers that we produce go through several plagiarism and quality checks to make sure they fit all your requirements. Our quality assurance team cross-checks all your instructions with the final draft before sending the paper out to you.

This is how we ensure excellence every step of the way. Our work process is clear and translucent, along with our policy. If anything goes wrong, you can always send your paper back for a revision or order a refund. Our billing team will look into your problem and give you your money back.

Get custom essays for sale

A-class essays aid that won't drain your budget

Our experienced writers will make essays for sale for your requirements in any time frame.

Trusted by 1,5M+ happy customers

Meet our native-speaking writers

Our carefully-selected academic authors are fully equipped to deliver a state-of-art essay that'll exceed your wildest dreams.

The benefits that we provide

Accomplished writing pros.

We'll match you with one of our highly-skilled pros from the US or Canada, boasting 3+ years of experience.

Lightning-fast writing speed

Get essays for sale online with lightning-fast turnaround times. Our experts can custom-craft papers in as little as 6 hours or less.

Authentic academic content

All papers we hand out are crafted from scratch and don't have a trace of plagiarism. Get a free originality report for your peace of mind.

Wallet-friendly prices

We offer top-notch essays on sale from our time-tested service. Take advantage of our student-friendly prices and regular discounts.

Individual approach

Our genuine pros follow your instructions to the dot and mimic your writing style while creating your essay.

3 easy steps to get custom essays for sale

1. provide the essay guidelines.

Place your request by filling out a simple form. Share as many details about your task as you can for our pros to create a state-of-art paper for you.

2. Handpick your writing pro

Browse through the profiles of our well-versed writers to choose the pro to craft essays for sale online for you.

3. Get your essay

Once your essay for sale is finished, you'll receive an email notification. Check the content, ask for edits if needed, and make the payment to your pro.

Customer feedback about EssayPro

See what other students have to say about our service and enjoy the effortless excellence we provide.

We guarantee you get perfect essays for sale and more

Limitless amendments.

Request all the edits you want for free within 30 days of paper completion.

Full refund

We ensure you are 110% happy with our services by providing free revisions for 30 days after receiving your paper. You can also ask for a full refund if you'd like.

A-class content quality

Get essay for sale from top-class academic authors. We ensure the highest quality despite our budget-friendly prices.

Your anonymity protected

We value your confidentiality, putting up strict privacy policies and encrypting our platform and one-to-one chat.

Get A-worthy papers right when you need them

Common questions about our high-quality essays for sale, why should i choose college essays for sale from your service, if i order an essay for sale online, do you guarantee its quality, who are your responsible writers, what are your deadlines for writing original essays for sale, quality essays for sale without extra hassle, why you should get custom essays for sale from your service.

It's no secret that a student's life is jam-packed with various challenges, from time constraints to formatting difficulties. Even top-tier learners get overwhelmed with their workload and seek additional help.

That's where EssayPro comes in. We offer guided assistance for students, helping them achieve their academic dreams without extra hassle. As a time-tested service, we deeply understand the struggles of modern students and provide tailored and timely solutions for any learner in need.

With a large team of genuine wordsmiths, we are ready to handle your tricky task, saving you hours of time and thousands of nerve cells. Our pros will meticulously study your instructions, take a deep dive into research, and craft 100% authentic content that highlights your unique ideas and writing style. On top of that, we work with tasks of any complexity, be it a simple essay or a master's dissertation.

So, ditch your academic anxiety and join the ranks of satisfied students who have asked for our help!

Get top-tier essays for sale with a personal touch

We understand that content quality and authenticity are major concerns for students looking for help with an essay . Buy with EssayPro, you've got nothing to worry about! We offer effortless academic help from time-proven specialists with an originality guarantee.

We do not condone any academic dishonesty in any form, be it using pre-written samples, consulting unreliable sources, or using someone else's work. All our writing pros abide by our strict no-plagiarism policy and craft all papers from scratch. Furthermore, we run every piece of content through plagiarism checkers to ensure 100% originality. You can also get a copy of this report for no additional cost.

On top of that, order an essay for sale from EssayPro is a piece of cake. You can get A-class academic aid in just three steps:

• Fill out a simple form to get started. Specify your task deadline, paper volume, and instructions.
• Review the bids from our esteemed writers. We keep profiles and ratings of our pros publicly visible, so you can pick the best-suited person in a breeze.
• Monitor your writer's progress and ask them for updates anytime via our encrypted one-to-one chat. Once your paper is ready, you'll receive an email notification. Review the work, ask for edits, and release the payment to your pro.

Academic excellence is easy with us!

Quality essay for sale on any subject

Our team is a time-proven student helper with a large team of skilled writers capable of acing any task. Thousands of learners have chosen us to deliver professional essays for sale, saving hours of time and all the extra stress.

No matter how intricate or voluminous your task is, you can trust our stellar expert to deliver a one-of-a-kind academic masterpiece. Our pros are true masters of their craft, boasting degrees from top-tier institutions and years of experience in various academic fields. Here are just a few things they can help you out with:

• Nursing essays for sale. We have a vast array of talented wordsmiths with broad experience in the medical field. Rest assured, our pros will master your task, delivering a well-composed nursing paper on the shortest notice.
• Argumentative essay for sale. Our skilled academic authors are fully equipped to deliver an A-class essay, putting your thoughts in a compelling form.
• Persuasive essay for sale. Whatever arguments you want to outline in your paper, our pros will help you out. The profound knowledge of your subject and expertise allows them to produce a powerful academic piece on your topic.

This, of course, is not a complete list of our services. EssayPro is your one-stop shop for qualified and timely assistance.

Your ideal academic piece from well-versed pros

Your perfectly-fit essay writer is waiting for you at EssayPro! Why go through all the trouble of crafting a paper when you can get a tailor-made academic piece from a seasoned professional? Save hours of time and get a perfectly-composed essay that reflects your unique voice.

We offer high-quality assistance with all kinds of academic tasks, from help with physics to custom-made nursing essays. To ensure our writing pros are up for the challenge, we've adopted a multi-step hiring process:

• First, we thoroughly check the writer's credentials, verifying their diplomas and IDs. We hire only native English speakers from the US or Canada with a least 3 years of relevant experience and MA or Ph.D. degrees from reputable universities.
• Next, the applicant submits a sample of their work to showcase their skills.
• All experts also complete various tests and go through an interview to prove their communication abilities.
• The final stage is a one-month trial period, throughout which our Quality Assurance specialists meticulously check every paper submitted by a new hire.

This way, we are 100% sure that every person on our team is a true pro. So, no matter which writer you pick, you'll get A-class assistance.

How we can make it easier for you to learn

Crafting a compelling academic paper is certainly not a walk in the park. It is a time-consuming task that can't be done overnight. Although many students believe they can just pull an all-nighter and get it done with, that's a far cry from reality. There are several conditions necessary for an A-worthy essay:

• Time. If you're aiming for a high mark, you have to spend hours researching, outlining, and polishing your paper. And considering that students are often swamped with other assignments, classes, extracurriculars, and other activities, it's hard to carve out time for proper research. That's why many learners like you look for extra help from qualified professionals.
• Profound knowledge of the subject. Even if you have all the time in the world, it won't compensate for the lack of proficiency on the topic or poor writing mastery. Not to mention that finding trusted sources on the web might take ages. So, why not delegate this task to a qualified writer who can ace your paper in no time?
• Deep understanding of academic standards. Proper formatting and citations are as crucial as writing skills. Even the brightest ideas have to be accurately presented for your essay to truly shine. Luckily, our well-versed writers have years of experience in the academic field and know how to polish every paper to perfection.
• Motivation. Sometimes lack of creative spark of overbearing anxiety is standing in the way of your academic success.

EssayPro offers an effort-free and reliable solution to all these problems. Entrust your essay to our wordsmiths and sleep tight, knowing they'll deliver an A-class paper on time.

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Buying College Essays Is Now Easier Than Ever. But Buyer Beware

Tovia Smith

Concern is growing about a burgeoning online market for essays that students can buy and turn in as their own work. And schools are trying new tools to catch it. Angela Hsieh/NPR hide caption

Concern is growing about a burgeoning online market for essays that students can buy and turn in as their own work. And schools are trying new tools to catch it.

As the recent college admissions scandal is shedding light on how parents are cheating and bribing their children's way into college, schools are also focusing on how some students may be cheating their way through college. Concern is growing about a burgeoning online market that makes it easier than ever for students to buy essays written by others to turn in as their own work. And schools are trying new tools to catch it.

It's not hard to understand the temptation for students. The pressure is enormous, the stakes are high and, for some, writing at a college level is a huge leap.

"We didn't really have a format to follow, so I was kind of lost on what to do," says one college freshman, who struggled recently with an English assignment. One night, when she was feeling particularly overwhelmed, she tweeted her frustration.

"It was like, 'Someone, please help me write my essay!' " she recalls. She ended her tweet with a crying emoji. Within a few minutes, she had a half-dozen offers of help.

"I can write it for you," they tweeted back. "Send us the prompt!"

The student, who asked that her name not be used for fear of repercussions at school, chose one that asked for $10 per page, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

"For me, it was just that the work was piling up," she explains. "As soon as I finish some big assignment, I get assigned more things, more homework for math, more homework for English. Some papers have to be six or 10 pages long. ... And even though I do my best to manage, the deadlines come closer and closer, and it's just ... the pressure."

In the cat-and-mouse game of academic cheating, students these days know that if they plagiarize, they're likely to get caught by computer programs that automatically compare essays against a massive database of other writings. So now, buying an original essay can seem like a good workaround.

"Technically, I don't think it's cheating," the student says. "Because you're paying someone to write an essay, which they don't plagiarize, and they write everything on their own."

Her logic, of course, ignores the question of whether she's plagiarizing. When pressed, she begins to stammer.

"That's just a difficult question to answer," she says. "I don't know how to feel about that. It's kind of like a gray area. It's maybe on the edge, kind of?"

Besides she adds, she probably won't use all of it.

Other students justify essay buying as the only way to keep up. They figure that everyone is doing it one way or another — whether they're purchasing help online or getting it from family or friends.

"Oh yeah, collaboration at its finest," cracks Boston University freshman Grace Saathoff. While she says she would never do it herself, she's not really fazed by others doing it. She agrees with her friends that it has pretty much become socially acceptable.

"I have a friend who writes essays and sells them," says Danielle Delafuente, another Boston University freshman. "And my other friend buys them. He's just like, 'I can't handle it. I have five papers at once. I need her to do two of them, and I'll do the other three.' It's a time management thing."

The war on contract cheating

"It breaks my heart that this is where we're at," sighs Ashley Finley, senior adviser to the president for the Association of American Colleges and Universities. She says campuses are abuzz about how to curb the rise in what they call contract cheating. Obviously, students buying essays is not new, but Finley says that what used to be mostly limited to small-scale side hustles has mushroomed on the internet to become a global industry of so-called essay mills. Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but research suggests that up to 16 percent of students have paid someone to do their work and that the number is rising.

"Definitely, this is really getting more and more serious," Finley says. "It's part of the brave new world for sure."

The essay mills market aggressively online, with slickly produced videos inviting students to "Get instant help with your assignment" and imploring them: "Don't lag behind," "Join the majority" and "Don't worry, be happy."

"They're very crafty," says Tricia Bertram Gallant, director of the Academic Integrity Office at the University of California in San Diego and a board member of the International Center for Academic Integrity.

The companies are equally brazen offline — leafleting on campuses, posting flyers in toilet stalls and flying banners over Florida beaches during spring break. Companies have also been known to bait students with emails that look like they're from official college help centers. And they pay social media influencers to sing the praises of their services, and they post testimonials from people they say are happy customers.

"I hired a service to write my paper and I got a 90 on it!" gloats one. "Save your time, and have extra time to party!" advises another.

"It's very much a seduction," says Bertram Gallant. "So you can maybe see why students could get drawn into the contract cheating world."

YouTube has been cracking down on essay mills; it says it has pulled thousands of videos that violate its policies against promoting dishonest behavior.

But new videos constantly pop up, and their hard sell flies in the face of their small-print warnings that their essays should be used only as a guide, not a final product.

Several essay mills declined or didn't respond to requests to be interviewed by NPR. But one answered questions by email and offered up one of its writers to explain her role in the company, called EduBirdie.

"Yes, just like the little birdie that's there to help you in your education," explains April Short, a former grade school teacher from Australia who's now based in Philadelphia. She has been writing for a year and a half for the company, which bills itself as a "professional essay writing service for students who can't even."

Some students just want some "foundational research" to get started or a little "polish" to finish up, Short says. But the idea that many others may be taking a paper written completely by her and turning it in as their own doesn't keep her up at night.

"These kids are so time poor," she says, and they're "missing out on opportunities of travel and internships because they're studying and writing papers." Relieving students of some of that burden, she figures, allows them to become more "well-rounded."

"I don't necessarily think that being able to create an essay is going to be a defining factor in a very long career, so it's not something that bothers me," says Short. Indeed, she thinks students who hire writers are demonstrating resourcefulness and creativity. "I actually applaud students that look for options to get the job done and get it done well," she says.

"This just shows you the extent of our ability to rationalize all kinds of bad things we do," sighs Dan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University. The rise in contract cheating is especially worrisome, he says, because when it comes to dishonest behavior, more begets more. As he puts it, it's not just about "a few bad apples."

Felicity Huffman And 12 Other Parents To Plead Guilty In College Cheating Scandal

"Instead, what we have is a lot ... of blemished apples, and we take our cues for our behavior from the social world around us," he says. "We know officially what is right and what's wrong. But really what's driving our behavior is what we see others around us doing" or, Ariely adds, what we perceive them to be doing. So even the proliferation of advertising for essays mills can have a pernicious effect, he says, by fueling the perception that "everyone's doing it."

A few nations have recently proposed or passed laws outlawing essay mills, and more than a dozen U.S. states have laws on the books against them. But prosecuting essay mills, which are often based overseas in Pakistan, Kenya and Ukraine, for example, is complicated. And most educators are loath to criminalize students' behavior.

"Yes, they're serious mistakes. They're egregious mistakes," says Cath Ellis, an associate dean and integrity officer at the University of New South Wales, where students were among the hundreds alleged to have bought essays in a massive scandal in Australia in 2014.

"But we're educational institutions," she adds. "We've got to give students the opportunity to learn from these mistakes. That's our responsibility. And that's better in our hands than in the hands of the police and the courts."

Staying one step ahead

In the war on contract cheating, some schools see new technology as their best weapon and their best shot to stay one step ahead of unscrupulous students. The company that makes the Turnitin plagiarism detection software has just upped its game with a new program called Authorship Investigate.

The software first inspects a document's metadata, like when it was created, by whom it was created and how many times it was reopened and re-edited. Turnitin's vice president for product management, Bill Loller, says sometimes it's as simple as looking at the document's name. Essay mills typically name their documents something like "Order Number 123," and students have been known to actually submit it that way. "You would be amazed at how frequently that happens," says Loller.

Using cutting-edge linguistic forensics, the software also evaluates the level of writing and its style.

"Think of it as a writing fingerprint," Loller says. The software looks at hundreds of telltale characteristics of an essay, like whether the author double spaces after a period or writes with Oxford commas or semicolons. It all gets instantly compared against a student's other work, and, Loller says, suspicions can be confirmed — or alleviated — in minutes.

"At the end of the day, you get to a really good determination on whether the student wrote what they submitted or not," he says, "and you get it really quickly."

Coventry University in the U.K. has been testing out a beta version of the software, and Irene Glendinning, the school's academic manager for student experience, agrees that the software has the potential to give schools a leg up on cheating students. After the software is officially adopted, "we'll see a spike in the number of cases we find, and we'll have a very hard few years," she says. "But then the message will get through to students that we've got the tools now to find these things out." Then, Glendinning hopes, students might consider contract cheating to be as risky as plagiarizing.

In the meantime, schools are trying to spread the word that buying essays is risky in other ways as well.

Professor Ariely says that when he posed as a student and ordered papers from several companies, much of it was "gibberish" and about a third of it was actually plagiarized.

Even worse, when he complained to the company and demanded his money back, they resorted to blackmail. Still believing him to be a student, the company threatened to tell his school he was cheating. Others say companies have also attempted to shake down students for more money, threatening to rat them out if they didn't pay up.

The lesson, Ariely says, is "buyer beware."

But ultimately, experts say, many desperate students may not be deterred by the risks — whether from shady businesses or from new technology.

Bertram Gallant, of UC San Diego, says the right way to dissuade students from buying essays is to remind them why it's wrong.

"If we engage in a technological arms race with the students, we won't win," she says. "What are we going to do when Google glasses start to look like regular glasses and a student wears them into an exam? Are we going to tell them they can't wear their glasses because we're afraid they might be sending the exam out to someone else who is sending them back the answers?"

The solution, Bertram Gallant says, has to be about "creating a culture where integrity and ethics matter" and where education is valued more than grades. Only then will students believe that cheating on essays is only cheating themselves.