Despite all the talk about "academic integrity" and whatnot, very rarely were there punishments for people who cheated. For every professor that wrote FRAUD in the grade sheet and escalated to the Disciplinary Committee, there were 100 that turned a blind eye or at most confiscated a paper being passed around when the exam was being administered. This hypocrisy irked me much more than the cheating itself, in which I didn't partake mostly because 1) I thought it was kind of beneath me, something only mediocre students did (which I came to realize was not really true) and 2) I didn't care that much about the grade.
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies...
I understand what you’re inferring, just official transcripts aren’t free or easy enough.
I would argue that the opposite is true, that people are more likely to lie or cheat to avoid consequences, especially significant consequences.
This is why, the aviation industry that has made commercial flying safer than other transportation modes, grants immunity for reporting incidents [1].
If I was in a course where it was so poorly taught that cheating was the only feasible way to pass, I'd go talk to the dean. Things like that don't get fixed unless people complain, because how would anyone making decisions know?
It sometimes works, there's no reason to leave stuff like that for the next group of people to suffer through too. E.g. I'm extremely proud of my wife for this kind of thing, as she managed to get nearly a whole class to complain about an awful pseudo-science-pushing teacher, and got them kicked out in fairly short order.