> What mitigated cheating at UVA was the honor code and each professor's faith and trust in our integrity. That culture was enough to not cheat.

The decline of actual consequences for cheating has played a big role.

When I was in college, people who got caught cheating found themselves in a world of trouble. Repeat offenders faced severe consequences like failing courses, which could delay their graduation date if it was a critical-path course. This has a real dollar amount attached to it because you start working later.

Now it seems universities avoid addressing cheating problems at all costs. The professor in this article complains about how hard it was to draw attention to the cheating problem, with no response within his own department.

Students know this. As cheating gains critical mass and you see that nothing bad is happening to the cheaters, you start feeling like you're at risk of falling behind if you aren't cheating. The cheaters are getting higher grades (100% for many in this case) and they get to go out partying while you're still working through the material. You're really screwed if grades are distributed on a curve.

So temptation spreads. Anecdotally, I've seen a few young people lie to themselves and think that they're just going to use ChatGPT to check their answers and learn from it, but they don't realize how superficial it is to have ChatGPT fix your problem and then skim the correct answer. They put less effort into checking their work because they know they have a button to push to check it for them. When they get put into a situation where they can't rely on that button, it all falls apart

At UVA many years ago, one of my roommates was one of the unfortunate 20 or so annually expelled -- the only outcome of being convicted of breaking the "no cheating, stealing, or lying" honor code. It didn't take repeat offenses, expulsion was a first offense consequence.

Interestingly, it seems like you weren't joking about the decline:

> Finally in the spring of 2022, a sanction reform referendum succeeded with more than 80% of the vote, changing the penalty for an Honor violation from expulsion to a two semester suspension. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_system_at_the_University...

> When I was in college, people who got caught cheating found themselves in a world of trouble. Repeat offenders faced severe consequences like failing courses, which could delay their graduation date

We had a very real threat of rustication. People still cheated. I think culture does play a big role. Of course, there need to be consequences too.

and there's also the Ivy League grade inflation...

https://jamesgmartin.center/2025/11/harvard-admits-that-grad...