there's a deeper problem... (Score 2, Interesting)

I'm sad, but not suprised, to see that the university cited in this article is NJIT, my almer mater. I think there are a number of reasons why kids, in tech schools especially, turn to this kind of thing at university.

Firstly, there is an increasing disconnect between what you do in school, and what will be doing in the workplace. Getting a degree is seen as a necessary evil that you have to undergo in order to get a job in the "real world. NJIT is a research university, and as such it generally hires professors who do good reseach over professors who are on the cutting edge of technology and practice. As such, it houses a number professors who have been out of the work force for years, if not decades.

Secondly, the research focus of the school means that professors are often focused on publishing papers and getting grants rather than putting effort into being a good teacher. Related to this is the fact that applications for tenure (a secure, full time position) at a university are evaluated based on the number of papers published and grants received.

The other important measure when a faculty member applies for tenure is student evaluations. Soooo, teachers have two choices: work very very hard to make their subject and their course material exciting and appealing to students so that they get good evaluations, OR make the course really easy and give out lots of high grades so that students will be happy and give them good evaluations.

Unfortunately many professors choose the latter, meaning that students do not learn what they should, and often *have to cheat in order to get to upper level courses, or courses with teachers who are more demanding (teachers who will likely get bad student evaluations because the course was too hard, making it more unlikely they will get a full time position at the school...sigh).

Anyway, there are a lot of other factors involved in plagiarism and cheating, but it seems that it is related to a fundamental problem in some universities, where student learning is not a priority for either the students or the professors.