An
investigative company specializing in background checks detected that academic
cheating and unethical acts were surprisingly frequent in a sample group of
college students.
Kessler
International surveyed 300 students attending public and private colleges and
universities, which included online schools. A whopping 86% had cheated at
least once in school and 54% even thought “cheating was OK,” a Kessler press release said.
Many
admitted to passing someone else’s work off as their own for a class. More than
three-quarters had copied “word for word” another person’s homework
assignments, according to Kessler, and 79% had plagiarized material from the
Internet or another source. Some bought papers and essays online (42%) and 28%
had “a service take their online classes for them.”
Why
would students do these things? Apparently because they can get away with it.
Of those who said they had cheated, 97% bragged they hadn’t ever been caught.