Every now and then, the media informs us of the next scenes of the alleged scandal. Collegium Humanum. However, in the information sound most frequently escapes the essence of the problem. Paradoxically stimulating the top emotions of the “July diplomas” of MBA studies here are only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Flowering at Polish private universities for respective years, it actually reconciled the safety pillars of our country and ourselves. Let's get the facts straight.
Using the imperfections of national law, Polish universities, mostly private, issued papers to candidates for studies, which in practice opened the way for them to stay legally and then work in Poland and the full Schengen area. For comparatively tiny money, the order of respective 100 zlotys per month, it was possible to get the anticipation of legally functioning on the Polish labour market.
The mechanics was comparatively simple. Candidates, among others from Africa and Asia, enrolled in Polish universities and applied for a visa on the basis of a paper confirming admission to study. The student visa enabled them not only to stay legally in Poland and decision around the Schengen area, but besides to work. As a result, any people treated studies simply as a formal pretext for coming to Europe.
Some of the higher education institutions utilized it. Even if the foreigner did not actually attend classes, he had previously paid his tuition. For part of the university, mass recruitment of abroad students has thus become an crucial origin of revenue. The problem was peculiarly with the facilities where the control of the actual participation of students in the classes was illusory.
In fact, there was a Kuriosian situation in which microscopic colleges accepted students fictitiously, without actually conducting any didactics for them. In specified cases, it is hard to talk of the clever usage of loopholes in law. It was apparent and intentional fraud. While in the case of the actual course of studies we could inactive talk about the usage of imperfections of the Polish legal system, in the case of studios exclusively faked we have at least proof of untruth. However, due to the scale of the situation and its social harm, it is justified to ask whether we should even talk about mechanisms characteristic of organised crime.
The procedure could flourish at its best due to the fact that the state institutions did not have effective tools to find whether the foreigner truly intended to study. As a result, formal admission to the university could become a pass for legal entry into Poland, even if the real intent was to work or to proceed migration to another European Union countries.
Under the influence of subsequent media publications, the state apparatus began to inspect universities, which resulted in a loud cycle of proceedings and detentions of people suspected of participating in this process. Paradoxically, it was Donald Tusk's government that sealed the regulations and started real control activities, effectively obstructing the usage of studies as an easy way to legalise foreigners' residence.
Consider, however, the very essence of the harmfulness of this practice. Firstly, it reduced the safety of Poles. Hundreds of thousands of people from almost all over the planet could come to Poland under false appearances, and the scale of the phenomenon requires a full explanation. Much of them came to the Schengen area simply to work. And this most likely active the vast majority of cases. This does not mean, however, that the strategy remained insensitive to people with completely different intentions. If the state creates a gateway that allows almost without real control to legalize a stay under the fictitious pretext of studying, it can be utilized not only by workers seeking a better life, but besides by those coming with the intention of conducting criminal activity.
Secondly, the uncontrolled influx of alleged students, and indeed abroad workers, clearly affected the national labour market. Low-paid workers, sometimes operating in the grey area, were low-paid competitors for Polish workers. At the same time, unfair companies based on specified an employment model gained an advantage over honest employers, the vast majority of whom are. The state thus created a mechanics to reward those who were willing to operate on or outside the law.
Thirdly, the full process contributed to a further simplification of the level of Polish higher education. any colleges have turned into real mill fake students. It was besides a natural consequence of a strategy in which the number of students and the amount of gross began to be more crucial than the real quality of education. This is simply a consequence, as prof. Anna Raźny aptly noted, "of the disastrous reforms of higher education, the culmination of which was the transformation – during the regulation of PiS and Jarosław Gowin as Minister of discipline and Higher Education – of the university in quasi corporations. As such, they are curious not in the technological level but in the fight for money.” prof. Stanislaw Bielen, who wrote that “the deficiency of appropriate supervision of private education led to the pathization of education.”
The above mentioned practice and the associated implications were well known to the state authorities. In a answer from October 2025, the Ministry of abroad Affairs explicitly acknowledged that the recruitment of foreigners for studies could be utilized to circumvent regulations on legalization of residence and work. The problem was those who did not intend to educate but utilized student position only as a basis for access to the labour market.
Therefore, we are not dealing with a single pathology of 1 university or solely with the scandal surrounding MBA diplomas. Collegium Humanum has become a symbol of a much bigger problem. This problem is the strategy that has allowed for years to combine the financial interest of any private universities, the marketplace request for inexpensive labour and the weakness of state control. Each associate in this arrangement had their own business. On the another hand, the bill was issued to the Polish State, Polish employees and higher education.
Being frequently skeptical of state authorities and law enforcement, we should root for them in this peculiar case. Especially since the current power does not give us much another reason to praise it.
Przemysław Piasta
