Over the past few weeks, there have been several posts on this blog about cheating and ethics among high school and college students. The problem seems to be rampant, often fueled by easy access to the internet. There have been cheating scandals everywhere from local high schools across the nation to esteemed colleges such as Harvard.
Ghostwritten College Papers
In May, 2011, Reader’s Digest Magazine printed an article entitled “The Cheating Epidemic” by Ed Dante, the pseudonym of a writer who earned a living for several years by ghost writing college papers, including dissertation length documents for undergraduate and graduate students. By his own admission, Mr. Dante has written papers for students working on their Master’s Degree in Cognitive Psychology, a PhD in sociology, and Bachelors’ Degrees in a variety of subjects including pharmacology, theology, nursing, ethics, law and public administration. He admitted to writing at least twelve graduate theses that were over fifty pages long.
Until he resigned from his position, Mr. Dante worked for an unnamed online company that provides students with original papers that they can turn in under their own names. The purchasers of these papers do not have to be concerned about being caught plagiarizing, since each paper is written specifically for them. They pay sizeable fees of up to several thousand dollars to receive such personalized attention.
Mr. Dante revealed that he has earned as much as $66,000 a year writing these student papers, which may give him a higher income than some of the educators who actually assigned the theses may be earning.
Although I have not listed all the different topics that Mr. Dante covered, it particularly bothered me to think that people who work in the fields of cognitive psychology, sociology, pharmacology, theology, nursing, ethics, law and public administration may not really be qualified to perform their positions. Does it bother anyone else that your nurse or pharmacist might not have written their own papers when they were attending college? How would you feel if you knew that the theologian who is preaching about honesty and integrity from the pulpit may have cheated his way through college?
At a time when so many high school graduates are only marginally qualified to perform college level work, the fact that some college students may be cheating in order to get through school should not surprise me.
Solution to College Cheating Epidemic
The solution to this type of cheating is clear. If we cannot trust students to perform honestly outside of the classroom, then perhaps the college class periods should be longer, and more of the work should be completed in class. Professors and their assistants may one day be compelled to supervise students while they do their research and write their papers in the classroom. This may be the only way to be assured that college graduates are actually qualified to perform well in the careers for which they are preparing.
It is a shame that the ethics in this country have dropped so low that students who are majoring in ethics would feel comfortable cheating in order to get their degree! If we wish to improve the value of a university degree in our country, college administrators need to make it much more difficult for their students to cheat.
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