[gms7777]

I'm not justifying those excuses. But those are the reasons students give (at least to themselves), and it would be naive for the university to overlook this and tell themselves that students just shouldn't cheat based on principle as opposed to fascillitating an environment that promotes cheating.

Perhaps "high standards" wasn't the correct choice of words on my part. I meant they all except themselves to get good grades. In particular where I went, where the school is largely populated with pre-meds where GPA is everything! If they're in a situation where the reward for cheating is high and the likelyhood for getting caught is low and they don't see any other option (not that there isn't but often they don't see it) they are likely to succumb.