It is hard to know when we can't discuss.

Cheating is a perennial problem wherever there are students. Since I was a college student in the late seventies, there have been whispered discussions about cheating by Chinese students. I was at Georgetown and some of the first Chinese exchange students came there. Everyone wanted the program to be a success but the inclination of Chinese students to treat cheating as a pragmatic means to an end rather than as a moral problem was one of the wrinkles.

Since then I have heard similar such observations across the country. It is one of the more obscure issues. One that everyone who has some familiarity seems to think is a real problem and yet one which no one wants to discuss for fear of seeming insensitive, unsophisticated, racist, etc.. We also cannot ignore that there is a more than $10 billion dollar industry at risk.

My childrens' recent experience in university seems to indicate that cheating remains a serious and privately acknowledged issue and with a particular concentration among Chinese students. The students know it is happening. The administration knows it is happening. The great majority who are non-cheating students resent that some students are advancing through deceit. And no one wants to upset the applecart.

From How an industry helps Chinese students cheat their way into and through U.S. colleges by Koh Gui Qing, Alexandra Harney, Steve Stecklow and James Pomfret.

The article focuses more on the cheating to get into university whereas most the conversations I hear are of routine
traditional academic cheating, i.e. improving test scores by various means.

I don't know what the reality is. I just know that it is a topic that seems privately acknowledged and publicly ignored.