For-profit college education encourages cheating, hurts academic integrity

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Thursday December 04, 2025 · 5:45 PM PST

2025/12/04 · 17:45

FILE - Students sit on the front steps of Low Memorial Library on the Columbia University campus in New York City, Feb. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File) — Columbia University in New York. AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey

A 2020 study by the International Center for Academic Integrity found that large minorities of college students are cheating. I’m not surprised: our system of for-profit education gives students, professors, and administrators every incentive to cheat or look past cheating.

Under our private education system, students pay tens of thousands of dollars a year for their degree, leading the average student to take on over $20,000 in student loans that can’t be removed by declaring bankruptcy.

Therefore, failing or even not doing well enough in college isn’t just a personal setback—it means more lifetime debt and less time working to pay it off, not to mention a delayed career start if classes have to be repeated or merit-based scholarships are revoked.

Professors understand what students go through, and while they care about academic integrity, it is not easy to impose financial burdens on students by reporting them for cheating. Not to mention, professors compile evidence for free and on their own time—and may have to face backlash from students and their parents, who may complain to administration about the professor.

Private administrations are reluctant to punish cheating. After all, any student expelled is hundreds of thousands of dollars lost in revenue. For-profit administrations want to avoid cheating scandals and bad numbers that scare away donors and their money. So, while administrations pay lip service to academic integrity, they aren’t eager to aggressively enforce it.

Thus, we can conclude that education under a for-profit system is not meant to be ethical. It is an expensive income-enhancing investment that people are desperate to achieve. If we want a higher education system that values academic integrity, then we need a free public higher education system without the financial barriers that encourage cheating.

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