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Comment by selectron | Hacker News Reader

Anecdotally as a TA this absolutely matches what I've seen. I think it is cultural combined with courses being much more difficult if you don't speak English well.

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Back when I was a masters foreign student, I had ousted another foreign student who stole my assignment and submitted it as their own. But later I learned how their family had been in poverty and that his parents had done everything possible to get their son out to higher studies in the US and I felt really bad. Life's just more difficult for the average foreign student overall from the small sample space I experienced. That doesn't make it right but the values of right and wrong are somewhat skewed when it comes to survival.

This would be relevant if foreign students were more likely to be poor than domestic students. But that's not the case. If anything, they are more likely to be better-off (the poor students, unless on a scholarship - which US public universities seldom give to international students, will study locally).

Here's a fun aspect:

At most schools, if you know of cheating and don't report it, it's a violation of their honor code which will get you punished.

Whether it was "justified" cheating or not, it is cheating. Even if you don't want them to get in trouble, don't let yourself get screwed in the process.

I've never heard about that, and I graduated from a top college fairly recently, which leads me to believe this is not true of most schools.

As well, it seems to be non-domestic students who are from countries with low English language penetration, possibly because they tend to have peer groups almost exclusively of their native language.

Again, this is anecdotal.

Not to mention there is much more pressure on foreign students to perform well academically, both due to their culture and due to the fact that their families often sacrifice a lot in order to provide them with the opportunity in the US.

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