New venture outsourcing blog

I am a strong believer in two simple tests for business ethics which goes as follows:

1) If you find yourself asking “Is this ethical?” then chances are that it isn’t.
2) If the independent outside observer would view situation as potential unethical, it probably is.

With these in mind I thought it would be fun to share a story I heard from a student. There is a local entrepreneur who is running a very successful business in the collegiate tutoring space. So what you ask? Here’s the rub — he who shall remain nameless makes a habit of collecting old homework assignment and old midterm and final exams. He has been doing so for some years and has amassed a large pool of questions. Students pay per review session to go over questions that are likely to appear on exams or to work out homework questions with the tutor. Those who are able to attend the tutoring sessions (for a fee) generally do extremely well on the assignments (that were worked out for them) and well on the exams (as the tutor knows the types of questions each professor has a propensity to ask). Those who do not attend the sessions study like the rest of us did…

So what?

In the face of this competitive learning establishment, a certain department has assigned virtually no homework assignments (as many students were submitting nearly identical solutions). As long as professors exist they will draw from old exams and question pools, and as long as the entrepreneur exists there will be an industry set up around even the finest academic institutions - the questions is how much is too much?

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