> The most surprising discovery for me was that it seemed like after foreign language students the heaviest users of the service were education majors. No joke. I never figured out if the noticeably heavy use by education majors was a selection bias caused by the way the service was advertising itself, a sign of especially low ethics among education majors, or an indication that there might be a higher incidence of lifestyle factors (e.g. going to school while working full time) that made it difficult for them to crank out all the BS assignments required of them.

Not a huge mystery here; check the average GRE scores by major here (2001-2004, but the general effect is well documented): http://www.ncsu.edu/chass/philo/GRE%20Scores%20by%20Intended... . Data provided is average GRE score in Verbal, Quantitative, and writing sample, for 50 majors. Here are #s 41-50 in verbal, along with some reference points:

     1. Philosophy (589)
    25. Business - Bank. and Fin. (476)
    41. Engineering - Industrial  (440)
    42. Business - Administration
    43. Education - other (437)
    44.  Home Economics [?!]
    45. Education - Special (432)
    46. Education - Counseling (428)
    47. Social Work
    48. Education - Administration (427)
    49. Education - Early Childhood (418)
    50. Business - Accounting (415)

Here are the same in Quantitative:

     1. Physics/Astronomy (738)
    25. Education - Secondary (577)
    41. Education - other (531)
    42. Social Sciences - other
    43. Education - Elementary (527)
    44. Education - Administration (523)
    45. Public Administration
    46. Education - Special (502)
    47. Education - Counseling (500)
    48. Home Economics
    49. Education - Early Childhood (495)
    50. Social Work (468)

There are four education majors which don't make the bottom 20% cutoff: Education - Secondary, Education - Higher, "Education - Curr. & Instr.", and "Education - Eval. & Res.". They hold ranks 21, 30, 32, 37 (V) and 25, 34, 35, 39 (Q). So to sum up -- it's a "lifestyle" factor; it's harder for education majors to crank out their assignments because, compared to other students, they're not very smart. What you're seeing is not lesser ethics but greater need.