Every one of these “woe is us” articles about academic cheating is fundamentally a tragedy of the commons issue. The commons is the value of a university degre

Every one of these “woe is us” articles about academic cheating is fundamentally a tragedy of the commons issue. The commons is the value of a university degree. No, not the education! The diploma. There will always be some fraction of students that genuinely learn and earn their diplomas. Industry rewards them with higher salaries because the diploma demonstrates that they’re educated and self-motived intelligent people — grade A employees in other words. So of course, some students will cheat and gain a diploma through copying others. This is inevitable, like the drug trade or prostitution. If the percentage is low enough, nobody cares. Okay, but… what if it’s a little higher? Those students might be highly profitable foreign students just looking to get a piece of paper so that they can get a better life back home. What about a bit higher? Now the university is making bank, the foreign students are funding a new physics lab and a new pool! Awesome. What if it’s 90%? Now… it’s too late to rock the boat. The emperors nakedness must not be revealed! If industry catches on that almost all of the diploma-wielding graduates are actually C- instead of A+ the whole thing will implode. That’s why universities are “helpless” against cheating! They won’t fix it, because if they do, the music stops. We’re nearly there now. I walked through my old university and saw maybe 5% locals. I hardly heard a single conversation in English. This place is now graduating students in bulk that are functionally illiterate (in English), let alone the subject matter. The song hasn’t stopped yet, but AI is fiddling with the buttons on the stereo. There are no chairs.