Foreign students seen cheating more than domestic ones

A flood of foreign undergraduates on America’s campuses is improving the financial health of universities. It also sometimes clashes with a fundamental value of US scholarship: academic integrity, write Miriam Jordan and Douglas Belkin for The Wall Street Journal.

A Wall Street Journal analysis of data from more than a dozen large US public universities found that in the 2014-15 school year, the schools recorded 5.1 reports of alleged cheating for every 100 international students. They recorded one such report per 100 domestic students. Students from China were singled out by many faculty members interviewed. “Cheating among Chinese students, especially those with poor language skills, is a huge problem,” said Beth Mitchneck, a University of Arizona professor of geography and development.

In the academic year just ending, 586,208 international undergraduate students attended US colleges and universities, according to the Department of Homeland Security. More than 165,000 were from China. South Korea and Saudi Arabia were the source of nearly 50,000 each and India of about 23,500. Faculty and domestic students interviewed said it appears that substantial numbers of international students either don’t comprehend or don’t accept US standards of academic integrity.
Full report on The Wall Street Journal site