Harvard survey points to cheating problem that predates AI
An Amherst professor says campus cheating concerns reflect habits many students developed before college, not only the rise of AI tools.
By Maya Lindqvist · Senior Technology Correspondent
3 min read
Nearly half of surveyed Harvard seniors said they had cheated during college, according to a Harvard Crimson survey cited by Amherst College professor Austin Sarat. Sarat wrote in The Conversation that the figure shows why colleges should treat academic dishonesty as a long-running problem, rather than blaming it mainly on artificial intelligence.
The 2024 Crimson survey found that 47% of 850 Harvard seniors who responded said they had cheated at some point, Sarat wrote. He said the finding fits a wider pattern: many students arrive on campus after years of exposure to cheating in high school, where pressure for grades and college admission can shape habits before college begins.
High school habits
Sarat cited educational psychology scholar Eric Anderman, who wrote in 2018 that cheating was common across U.S. high schools. Anderman pointed to a large national study in which 51% of high school students said they had cheated on a test.
Other research on high school academic misconduct found in 2020 that 64% of 70,000 students nationwide admitted cheating on a test, while 58% admitted plagiarism, Sarat wrote. The same research found that about 95% of high school students said they had taken part in some form of cheating, including test cheating, plagiarism or copying homework.
Sarat also cited a 2018 survey at one Pennsylvania high school in which 90 of 100 respondents said they had cheated on schoolwork at least once. One respondent described the behavior as widespread, according to the survey account cited by Sarat.
Students use several explanations for cheating, Sarat wrote. Some feel unready for assignments or exams but want strong grades, while others say peers are doing the same thing, fault weak teaching or misunderstand what counts as misconduct in different academic settings.
College responses
A 2020 study of 840 undergraduate students found that 32% had cheated in some way on an exam, according to Sarat. He wrote that college instructors sometimes avoid reporting suspected cheating or try to reduce misconduct by changing how they assess students.
The Wall Street Journal reported in 2025 that some faculty members were moving away from writing assignments because students could produce them with AI and were returning to in-class tests, Sarat wrote. He argued that AI has intensified concerns but did not create the underlying problem.
Colleges maintain rules against plagiarism and other academic dishonesty, Sarat wrote. Harvard’s policy says cheating on exams or problem sets, plagiarism, misrepresenting another person’s ideas or language, falsifying data and other dishonest conduct violate the university’s standards.
Students who break such rules can face penalties from failing a course to expulsion, Sarat wrote, but he said many instructors do not report all cases they detect. He also said few colleges have built academic integrity instruction across all four years of undergraduate study.
Pressure on honor systems
Matthew Tobin, a Harvard undergraduate, wrote in a February 2026 Harvard Crimson opinion essay that plagiarism and misconduct at Harvard had existed well before AI became a central concern. Tobin cited the Crimson senior survey and argued for a stronger commitment to academic integrity among students.
Other campuses have also changed or questioned long-standing practices, Sarat wrote. Reported academic misconduct cases at Ohio State University rose 57% between 2014 and 2018, though Sarat said that figure likely undercounts the issue because many cases are not reported or investigated.
At Oberlin, student Charlie McLaughlin criticized a 2026 change allowing professors to proctor exams, according to an op-ed Sarat cited. Princeton also recently ended its 133-year ban on proctored exams to address concerns about academic integrity violations, including AI use, according to Sarat.
Sarat wrote that colleges should discuss intellectual integrity throughout courses and ask students to consider the habits they are forming. He said reducing cheating will require both support for better academic habits and clear consequences when students are caught.
This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.