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I think cheating is increasing over time. There are a number of reports about this I have read from individual universities. The problem is that if cheating bec

I think cheating is increasing over time. There are a number of reports about this I have read from individual universities. The problem is that if cheating becomes widespread enough, the schools don't have the power to do much about it when they rely on the tuition revenue. For example, this article https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/11/8/honor-council-withdrawals/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/11/8/honor-council-w... makes the point that academic integrity violations are increasing while enforcement is decreasing. If you read the punishments given, they are basically along the lines of strongly worded letters.

nradov 1y ago
A lot of the tier-3 schools are getting desperate due to declining enrollment. Demographic changes are killing them. Tolerating cheating might help them keep enrollment up for a few more years by attracting the laziest students but eventually this will wreck their reputation with employers and lead to a death spiral. If those schools want to survive then some will need to pivot to other business models, like become a trade school or corporate training center.
- AtlasBarfed 1y ago
  You don't think prominent students from the ultra rich don't get kid gloves? Trump went to Wharton.
- zbentley 1y ago
  Interested, not skeptical: do you have sources or analysis you like which discuss the declining enrollment you mentioned?
altairprime 1y ago
United States culture celebrates and often elects grifters, whose core precept can be summarized as “either you’re running the con, or you’re the mark”. Cheating at academics is treated no differently, through a social lens, from attempting to scam a widow out of her insurance payout: simply attempting to run the con places you in a higher social caste than those marks who do not attempt any con, even if you fail. That the cheaters often get caught is much less relevant to them than the shame and shunning and demotion to the lesser caste that their peers would respond with if they did not try to grift their grades — even if they could graduate with a 4.3 without cheating at all! (I don’t personally subscribe to these beliefs, but it’s important to understand why ‘cheating is wrong’ is so contentious in U.S. culture, if only to be able to evaluate whether academic policies are designed effectively to decrease the rate of cheating per student capita.)
- jvanderbot 1y ago
  I don't think "cheating is wrong" is contentious in US culture. Why do you think this?
  - _aavaa_ 1y ago
    I guess it depends on what you mean by contentious and by whom. The current US administration is a love letter to grifters, con artists, liars, and cheaters. And is staffed with many of the same kind of people.
    - jvanderbot 1y ago
      It's a fairly long way from those people elected to the actions of individuals. Given a few minutes of thought, it's not hard to imagine one side calling the other cheaters, while holding themselves to higher standards (even holding up those "others" as reasons why its important to be honest). That's just how politics seems to go.
      - altairprime 1y ago
        I was thinking more of our cultural appreciation for con men, Robin Hood types, and so on. Many movies come to mind over the past several decades; Ocean’s Eleven, whatever that grass seed salesman movie was, etc. Also, I’d been considering the endless cheating in multiplayer games, whether video or IRL, for as long as humans have played games; and the tendency of United States drivers to cut in line in congested traffic, which is a less-considered form of cheating but still hits all the right points to count as such. Olympians and their endless doping scandals demonstrate that some authorities might think cheating is wrong, but athletes clearly aren’t so uniformly concerned about it. Still, you make a good point about politics demonstrating both the controversy and popularity with voters of cheating and grifting!
        jvanderbot 1y ago
        Those movies, stories, and games are popular _because_ we have an aversion to rule breaking, IMHO. The average person could never muster up the courage to steal a candy bar, let alone a treasure from a kingdom. It's a fun fantasy to live out precisely because we cannot bring ourselves to do it in the real world, and precisely because it wouldn't go well in the real world.

nradov 1y ago

A lot of the tier-3 schools are getting desperate due to declining enrollment. Demographic changes are killing them. Tolerating cheating might help them keep enrollment up for a few more years by attracting the laziest students but eventually this will wreck their reputation with employers and lead to a death spiral. If those schools want to survive then some will need to pivot to other business models, like become a trade school or corporate training center.

AtlasBarfed 1y ago
You don't think prominent students from the ultra rich don't get kid gloves? Trump went to Wharton.
zbentley 1y ago
Interested, not skeptical: do you have sources or analysis you like which discuss the declining enrollment you mentioned?

altairprime 1y ago

United States culture celebrates and often elects grifters, whose core precept can be summarized as “either you’re running the con, or you’re the mark”. Cheating at academics is treated no differently, through a social lens, from attempting to scam a widow out of her insurance payout: simply attempting to run the con places you in a higher social caste than those marks who do not attempt any con, even if you fail. That the cheaters often get caught is much less relevant to them than the shame and shunning and demotion to the lesser caste that their peers would respond with if they did not try to grift their grades — even if they could graduate with a 4.3 without cheating at all! (I don’t personally subscribe to these beliefs, but it’s important to understand why ‘cheating is wrong’ is so contentious in U.S. culture, if only to be able to evaluate whether academic policies are designed effectively to decrease the rate of cheating per student capita.)

jvanderbot 1y ago
I don't think "cheating is wrong" is contentious in US culture. Why do you think this?
- _aavaa_ 1y ago
  I guess it depends on what you mean by contentious and by whom. The current US administration is a love letter to grifters, con artists, liars, and cheaters. And is staffed with many of the same kind of people.
  - jvanderbot 1y ago
    It's a fairly long way from those people elected to the actions of individuals. Given a few minutes of thought, it's not hard to imagine one side calling the other cheaters, while holding themselves to higher standards (even holding up those "others" as reasons why its important to be honest). That's just how politics seems to go.
    - altairprime 1y ago
      I was thinking more of our cultural appreciation for con men, Robin Hood types, and so on. Many movies come to mind over the past several decades; Ocean’s Eleven, whatever that grass seed salesman movie was, etc. Also, I’d been considering the endless cheating in multiplayer games, whether video or IRL, for as long as humans have played games; and the tendency of United States drivers to cut in line in congested traffic, which is a less-considered form of cheating but still hits all the right points to count as such. Olympians and their endless doping scandals demonstrate that some authorities might think cheating is wrong, but athletes clearly aren’t so uniformly concerned about it. Still, you make a good point about politics demonstrating both the controversy and popularity with voters of cheating and grifting!
      - jvanderbot 1y ago
        Those movies, stories, and games are popular _because_ we have an aversion to rule breaking, IMHO. The average person could never muster up the courage to steal a candy bar, let alone a treasure from a kingdom. It's a fun fantasy to live out precisely because we cannot bring ourselves to do it in the real world, and precisely because it wouldn't go well in the real world.