Causes and Effects of Cheating in America

Here is an article that describes how the family's failure to instill a strong moral compass (and even corrupting the moral compass of some children) is leading to costly short- and long-term economic consequences. It reports a case where several students were found to buy "ringers" to take entrance exams for them so as to get into colleges where they would otherwise be unable to gain entrance. A troubling statement in the article is: "Parents – who presumably foot the bill for hiring these ringers – feel tremendous pressure to give their children the best odds they can for gaining admission to Ivy League schools, where success would mean better prospects for future careers." Assuming parents are supporting or at least not preventing this sort of behavior, the family is truly failing in this case. The least of the consequences from such a situation are described in the article as follows:

Thanks to this case, ACT and SAT testing will be more expensive for everyone – including high schools, which will now be burdened by extra costs. The DA in this case has successfully pressured the College Board (SAT) and ACT Inc. to implement a two-level system for photo identification for testing. All students will have to submit a picture when they sign up for the test, and then produce a photo ID that matches the registration photo printed on their admission ticket. When the companies score the tests, the results will get sent to the high schools along with the picture of the person who took the test, so that the schools can check to see if any fraud occurred. All of this will impact the costs of the tests – and make admission more secure than voting in most political elections, too. Instead of instilling a personal sense of honor and strict consequences for cheating, we end up insisting on massive and expensive interventions to deter it. 

Unfortunately, the bigger costs will come when widespread cheating causes incompetent students to get into schools and drives down educational standards. Then, engineers, doctors, teachers, attorneys, business people and others who are incompetent will get into their professions and perform poorly. In the meantime, countries such as China, Chile and India will be turning out people that cheaters can't compete with.

Time to strengthen traditional homes and families and restore the foundation that made America the greatest nation in history...