E D U CAT I O N
America’s Cheating Epidemic
The internet is often the medium that matches cheaters with experts By Jackson Elliott
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f he can successfully cheat his way through college, Jim plans to become a doctor. Jim, who chose to be anonymous to avoid academic consequences, attends a major university in Canada with about 26,000 undergraduate students. He says he’s always cheated in school, but that after he arrived on the college campus, his cheating rose to new levels. “I’ve essentially been cheating since like the beginning of university, I guess,” he said. “It all started when COVID-19 started, so like when classes went online.” Jim considers himself a good person, he said. But he doesn’t feel guilty about cheating. “I typically do the right thing. I’m pretty active in volunteering,’” he said. “I would say I kind of have almost a ‘cheating personality,’ like I guess I don’t really care about the consequences that much, and I’m willing to lie.” For Jim, cheating is a way to guarantee good grades, he said. In high school, before he started cheating seriously, he got grades in the mid- to high-70s, he said. But cheating has boosted his grades to the mid-80s or higher. The classes he has cheated in include statistics, calculus, linear algebra, physiology, introductory biology, genetics, cell biology, and vertebrae anatomy, he said. “I’ve basically cheated on every math course I’ve taken,” Jim said. With just a few simple strategies such as using a fake email on websites that provide answers, using the bathroom during tests so he can look at notes, and paying other people to write his essays online, Jim says he’s never come close to being caught. The COVID-19 pandemic made it easier to cheat than ever as exams moved online.
26 I N S I G H T April 8–14, 2022
Even so, Jim says he often feels afraid of getting caught because of how it would affect his life. “At the end of the day, I just feel like if I get good grades, I get good grades. And that’s going to get me to my goal,” he said. Jim said he has a passion for gastrointestinal medicine. He wants to specialize in it and treat diseases ranging from colon cancer to irritable bowel syndrome. If his cheating leaves him unprepared for a real-world job, Jim has a backup plan. “I think I can just get a much lower specialty, like maybe family medicine or something like that, and not become a subspecialist,” he said.
The Academic Pandemic As college has increasingly gone online, students like Jim live in a world where cheating is a business. Companies worth billions allow students to pay for answers that they often use to cheat on tests, homework, and projects. The internet is often the medium that matches cheaters with experts willing to sell answers for money. One subreddit with 16,000 members, r/hwforcash, is dedicated to cheating for money. Ironically, the subreddit’s notes warn of scammers who blackmail cheating students or fail to provide correct cheating answers. The cheaters may easily become the cheated. On r/hwforcash, a 1,000-word essay can cost $50, tests often cost around $100, and smaller assignments from $25 to $50. The more difficult or more important the assignment, the higher the price. While figures on the prevalence of cheating are hard to find, a survey by education company Wiley found that 51 percent of college students say it’s easier to cheat in online classes.
A school substitute teacher works from home during the pandemic in Arlington, Va., on April 1, 2020. Other studies suggest that cheating nearly doubles in online tests. “We’ve seen a dramatic and consistent increase in attempts to cheat on the tests we monitor. That’s clear to see in our data,” said Jarrod Morgan, CEO of Meazure Learning, a proctoring service. Morgan said the rise in cheating seems to be correlated with the increase in online classes. “Cheating is a serious problem. Not only does it put unprepared people in
51%
OF U.S. COLLEGE STUDENTS
say it’s easier to cheat in online classes, a survey found.
