Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman are just two of the famous names recently involved in what has been described as the “biggest university admission scam ever”.
Fifty people have so far been charged with using one or other of two ways of fraudulently getting their children into elite US universities. One is to for their offspring’s SAT results to be improved. The other is to bribe universities into accepting their children based on fake athletic achievements.
Unsurprisingly the scandal has undermined the high opinion most people once had of American colleges. And unfortunately cheating doesn’t just happen over the pond, it takes place here as well, though so far it is the students and not their parents who are doing the cheating.
The education secretary, Damian Hinds, recently called on students to report their peers if they think they are paying essay writing companies to do do the work for them.
So why are parents and students increasingly willing to cheat to get ahead in higher education?
Personally the world of higher education has always fascinated me. I always wanted to go to university and I was always aware that going was a privilege that not many people could afford. So hearing about the level of cheating going on was a great disappointment.
Most of the criticism is aimed at the cheating parents. But how would the kids not know too? As a daughter, I would never want my parents to cheat in order for me to accomplish anything. I would feel embarrassed if they did, because I think everybody should succeed through their own abilities. But maybe in the modern world that’s a naïve opinion.
As far as the UK essay scandal is concerned, I wonder why it is more of a problem now than it was in the past. One reason I think is that many students feel more pressured to succeed now than they ever have before – and they see cheating as the only way to help their situation.
The fact that so many students are using these services makes me reflect on how, nowadays, universities are connected to a kind of “cheating culture”. Instead of worrying so much about ’safe spaces’ on campus, students should work together to make their university a space that is safe from cheating.
