Academic Honesty - Is Cheating Truly Worth It?

"Some people are just going to cheat" is what William Shropshire states in his essay, Of being & getting: Academic honesty (1997). He seems to bring up good points, and also gives arguments that can support his thoughts. He uses sources to try and get a figure on how many students cheated in some manner, but his estimate ranges from 25 to 70 percent (p. 1). He also analyzes why students cheat, and also why they don't cheat. Among the main reasons that they do is because they feel they are either pressured to do well (p. 3), or they feel its the best way to get ahead. Those who don't cheat don't because of a fear of getting caught, which leads Shropshire to say that all students who consider cheating, and either do or don't, use cost-benefit analysis to make that decision (p. 3).

A lot of the research that is done on cheating shows that, on average, 40 percent of students admit to having cheated at some point in their academic careers. He quotes Gehring, Nuss, and Pavela (1986) in saying that students cheat because either they do not know they are, that what they learn isn't important, or that having good grades is the only important thing, and not how you get those grades (p. 3). The students cheat because it is the only way they know to get ahead of everyone else. They do not care that it affects not only their fellow classmates but everyone else that they affect once they are applying themselves in their field of study.