What generation? Academia was very honest for most of history. From WWII through roughly 1980-2000, there was almost exponential growth in the number of academ

What generation? Academia was very honest for most of history. From WWII through roughly 1980-2000, there was almost exponential growth in the number of academic jobs available. At the time of WWII, about 5% of people had college degrees. Today, about 2/3 of people enter college. That near-exponential growth meant there while each professor had a few grad students, and there were enough faculty openings for the students who were both talented and wanted to go into the academy since new schools were opening up. The extreme competition came in when this growth stopped -- college enrolment can't go above 100% of the population. For every professor, there are still many graduate students, but a position at a research institution only opens up when that professor retires. The whole dynamic changed. Culture doesn't change overnight either, so things remained pretty honest for a few years. The present level of wholesale academic fraud is a relatively new phenomenon.