<p>Wolfpiper:</p>
<p>There are many many conscientious students who would not dream of cheating or blowing off assignments. There are some, however, who take short cuts and and some who feel entitled to good grades without doing the work. They do so in high school, and do not stop in college. The phenomenon is not new.<br>
There were term papers for sale when I was in college--forty years ago! But it was harder then to catch plagiarists easily. One had to go to the library and work on a hunch. In fact, some graduate students did just that. I remember one catching a bit of plagiarism because she had only recently read a book that was being plagiarized. Nowadays, the internet makes it even easier to plagiarize. There are websites to sell term papers on practically any topic you care to think about. In fact, I read an article grading some such term papers.
Profs used to vent to one another in corridors, in faculty meetings, etc... Now they have another resource for catching out plagiarism and for venting--the same internet.</p>