They Aren't Going to Get Jobs, Anyway, RIght?

Students do backflips, baksheesh, to get adWISE-ers.

BERLIN - A judge has sentenced a German law professor to three years in prison for accepting kickbacks from doctoral students.

The Hannover university professor, whose identity was not revealed, confessed to accepting euro 156,000 (US$240,000) to serve as a faculty adviser to 68 doctorate students between 1998 and 2005.

Court documents say an agency brokered kickback deals for him to serve as the students' adviser. Advisers can be difficult to find in German universities.

Judge Peter Peschka called it "a very severe case of corruption" on Wednesday.

The professor said he needed the money to renovate his Hamburg mansion.

Some observations:

1. Coase would say it doesn't matter, right?
2. Saying that the German academic system is corrupt is like
saying that trees are made out of wood. They aren't separate features. The whole "chair" thing is a state-run monopoly for the benefit of the mentally infirm. German students are good, some of them VERY good, but the system is horrible.
3. It's pronounced "adWISE-ers", as in "AdWISE-ers can be difficult to find in German universities."

(Nod to Anonyman, who never paid ME a darned thing)