Miami University has dismissed two students, Beckley Munson Parker and David Lucien Callahan, for manipulating their grades.
The suspension in March-end follows an associate teacher's complaint to information security department and campus police, last October, about Parker's online grade not matching her paper copy as his grade had been changed from an F to a C.
Initially, she thought that her compute had been hacked.
But a five-month investigation into the incident revealed that the students used a device to record teachers' keystrokes to obtain faculty usernames and passwords to raise their grades.
During the investigation earlier this month, police confiscated a key logger, two thumb drives, an iPhone, iPad, laptop keyboard, Canon camera, external hard drive and a red folder.
Apart from grade-changing, police also found copies of test(s), midterms and finals, along with files containing professors' user names and passwords on several devices of Parker.
The students used the test bank to help get better grades.
Parker, 21, admitted he had installed a key logger on the professor's classroom computer.
"It captures all the keystrokes made on the keyboard so then when a faculty member would log into the workstation in the classroom where they were using these devices, as soon as the faculty member logged in they had access to their username and password, "he added.
As a result, the students also face criminal charges. Parker has been charged with six misdemeanour counts for breaching university computer systems, and Callahan, 22, faces three misdemeanour counts.
Parker changed his own grades in 17 classes in spring 2011 and made a total of 28 grade changes for a fraternity brother, while Callahan also changed his own grade once and two other students' marks.
Police allege that many of the students are unaware that their grades were changed.
The university is now reconfiguring its classroom computers to send alerts to respective professors when a grade change is made.
Parker and Callahan are scheduled to appear in Butler County Area I Court on April 4.
