By cheating, you're voting for a society of scammers, and you think you deserve more than the honest student because you're willing to eat honor instead of preserving it and growing it for future generations.
Scammer implies there is a victim. Who is the mark here? The college that charges huge tuition despite having a huge endowment? The professor who is being paid a salary to tech courses ppl are uninterested in? The employer for requiring degrees for jobs that don't need them? If cheating became so widespread that degrees stopped mattering, employers would have to find other ways.
The victim is the person who did the actual work and has the same credential as the person who did not, as well as the group who is using that credential as a decision filter. By cheating, you distort the information that credential is meant to convey.
Do you care if someone you enter a transaction with cheats, even if you take pride in your side of the bargain?
Humans (and other primates) have an innate desire for fairness. Ethics helps guide human interactions. If you don’t think interpersonal ethics are important, it’s hard to have a functioning society.
Scammer implies there is a victim. Who is the mark here? The college that charges huge tuition despite having a huge endowment? The professor who is being paid a salary to tech courses ppl are uninterested in? The employer for requiring degrees for jobs that don't need them? If cheating became so widespread that degrees stopped mattering, employers would have to find other ways.