College Student Cheating Essay

There is a rising epidemic of students cheating their way through grade school and college. Scholars who have achieved the highest grades and have went to Ivy League schools admit to cheating. Simkin and Mcleod list reasons for college students cheating as opportunity, desire to succeed, small or non-existent penalties, lack of consequences from schools and professors, and the belief that they are not cheating because the infraction is so minute (2009). Cheating leads to various ramifications, not just on the students themselves but on society as a whole. Academic dishonesty is not a new concept; but, it is a growing concept. “Brown, Wieble and Olmosk (2010) found that 49% of students in undergraduate marketing classes admitted cheating in 1988 versus 100% of the students in an undergraduate management class in 2008; a national survey published in Education Week found that 54% of the students surveyed admitted to internet plagiarism and 76% admitted to cheating; and the Center for Academic Integrity found almost 80% of college students surveyed admitted to cheating at least once (“Facts About Plagiarism,” 2010)” (Jones, 2011). These statistics are alarming. To understand why many students cheat, we must look at the reasons why they choose too. Crimes of opportunity are not only limited to academics. People find that if it is “easy” to cheat, why not just do it? An example of this would be an unlocked car with a purse in it. A person with a “moral code” would not open the car and take the purse. However, a person who was starving might take advantage of this crime of opportunity. This also applies to cheating. If the test answers are on the internet, it may be to appealing and easy not to look at them. Technology has made cheating more accessible. The desire to succeed affects all of us. Whether we want to get a degree or maybe just succeed at impressing our friends or parents. This can lead to stress and feelings of failure, especially in a time restricted setting. Buying a paper off the internet or searching for test answers can alleviates stress of achieving a good grade. For anywhere from $40- $200 a student can purchase a handwritten paper by a professional in the field of study their report is …show more content…
Without a “moral code” students may believe that it is not cheating if they are not caught. A solution has been instituted for this behavior. “A growing number of universities know to these authors, for example, now insist the faculty at most assign a grade of “zero” for the assignment or test on which students cheated – and this only if an instructor catches, and is able to prove, that a student cheated” (Simkin and Mclead, 2009). Keiser University, has instituted a zero tolerance policy for cheating, with consequences from a “zero” on a paper up to expulsion from school. Finally, students cheat because they believe they are not cheating, or they are unknowingly cheating. Students think if they glance at test answers they have found from different sources, they are still studying. Another way they are cheating but not take responsibility for the act is by not citing correctly, or not citing at all. A student will take someone else’s paper and reword it and put their own name on it. This is similar to paraphrasing but not giving credit to the original