The scale matters when classes are graded on a curve. If a few students cheat the score distribution doesn't change too much, if a significant fraction of students cheat it really hurts those who don't.
I had exactly one class in college where cheating was rampant. I don't know why, but most of that class cheated on exams; the prof reused exams, and frats had bibles. I didn't see much cheating in my other classes; it was exceptionally rare.
That class was graded on a curve.
I got a 'B', and I would say I was in the 90th percentile for understanding the material. It would have been neigh-impossible to get an 'A' without cheating.
Where I'm from, previous exams are public and you can request previous students' answers (with names and PII censored) from the university for a small processing fee. This forces the professors to not reuse exams.
I've seen a case where about half the class was cheating. People would pay those who took the test earlier to give the exam. Given this, it would be cruel to come down hard on any particular student for cheating.
Only if you come down equally hard on paid academics for being so incredibly lazy that they encourage cheating. Yes students should resist that temptation but man alive what the academics are doing to put that temptation in their way is completely unconscionable.
An academic with a cheating problem in their course has a problem they need to solve it they are knowingly screwing the honest. From a position of power.
Just like a lot of things where the best thing to do for the individual only works out if only a tiny minority of parasites do it.
e.g. getting a vaccine. You're arguably best off if you're part of the 1% of the population who choose not to get one but still get protected by herd immunity. But if that 1% grows to 10/20/30%, suddenly, not only does the defection advantage disappear, but the whole herd starts to suffer. Tragedy of the commons.
We're all stuck between a rock and a hard place of simultaneously not wanting to restrict individual freedom, autonomy, and privacy, but also recognizing that when being a parasite is a disproportionately advantageous role for an individual to choose, it eventually kills the host.
