> I'm not sure how students end up thinking it's literally the number of your grade that makes the difference.
Because it literally is true. Students aren't stupid; they know that higher education is largely a sham, and that the number they get and the prestige of the institution is what makes the difference (beyond simply having the paper - which is the most important part of course) in their entry level to the middle class or upper-middle-class workplace. The actual content of their education is largely irrelevant for most places that require it. Only the number matters.
And cheating isn't the only symptom of this problem; grade inflation is another. Both students and faculty are responding rationally to the unspoken truth. To NOT cheat is to increase the risk of living a life of poverty. To NOT inflate grades is to condemn more of your students to that life. Honor codes only mean something in places where everyone is of similar privilege.
As the metric becomes less indicative of reality, the smart people find more creative ways to game it.
Yeah fair point, and it's unfortunate it is that way. I wonder how much the Internet has contributed to this because schools used to be the only source of information in many cases but now a lot of that is easily searchable.
Because it literally is true. Students aren't stupid; they know that higher education is largely a sham, and that the number they get and the prestige of the institution is what makes the difference (beyond simply having the paper - which is the most important part of course) in their entry level to the middle class or upper-middle-class workplace. The actual content of their education is largely irrelevant for most places that require it. Only the number matters.
And cheating isn't the only symptom of this problem; grade inflation is another. Both students and faculty are responding rationally to the unspoken truth. To NOT cheat is to increase the risk of living a life of poverty. To NOT inflate grades is to condemn more of your students to that life. Honor codes only mean something in places where everyone is of similar privilege.
As the metric becomes less indicative of reality, the smart people find more creative ways to game it.