All of the country’s public colleges and universities, as well as three private institutions, were included in the study, which was carried out by Sveriges Radio (SR).

A total of 398 students were expelled in 2008, compared with 310 in 2007, an increase of 28 percent.

“In part it may be because we’ve gotten better at detecting cheating. We’ve increased our use of different computer programmes which can reveal copying from the internet. But then again cheating may also have increased,” said head of Linköping University Mille Millnert to SR.

The number of students expelled for cheating at Linköping University doubled between 2007 and 2008, from 13 to 26.

At Uppsala University, the increase was nearly as large, with 17 students getting kicked out in 2008 compared with nine the year before.

But the school where cheating has increased the most is the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, which disciplined 32 students last year, up from only nine in 2007.

The most common cheating cases involved students who copy from the internet without citing the source of the information.

But unauthorized collaboration between students, as well as cases involving the old-fashioned method of sneaking notes into the exam room were also discovered last year.

Some schools, however, saw a reduction in the number of cheating cases.

The University of Borås in western Sweden expelled only six students for cheating in 2008, down from 20 in 2007.

Colleges in Gävle and Gotland also had fewer cheating expulsions last year than the year before.

Meanwhile, the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and the University College of Opera haven’t had a single meeting of their respective discipline committees to investigate a cheating case in more than 10 years.