Why do high school students feel pressured to cheat?

Most high school students consider cheating okay. According to a CNN poll of 4,500 high schoolers, around 75% engage in “serious cheating,” over half plagiarize directly from the Internet and about 50% believe that copying answers doesn’t even count as cheating. Such questionable ethics apparently stem directly from absurd competition, since grades mean the difference between getting into a dream school and a backup. To alleviate the mounting stress to constantly perform at the highest level, students turn toward cheating and compromising their own education as a solution.