Carmen Florez carries her GRE study-prep workbook around campus every day in the hope of achieving her dream score.

Florez, a third-year psychology major, stresses about her GPA and spends hours studying at the library. But she knows there is an easier way out.

"I think for my major everybody thinks that it's so easy, and we should be getting straight A's all the time," she said.

"The material is difficult enough that sometimes students will turn to cheating as a way to get the grades that are expected from them.

"It's tempting."

A study conducted on academic dishonesty was published in 2016 by BioMed Central.

Researchers concluded between 40 and 80 percent of students in higher education had been involved in academic dishonesty at least once. The leading reason for students to cheat was the pressure to obtain good grades in order to increase their job prospects.

From a young age, students are led to believe their grades are a reflection of their worth and character. When students don't perform as well as they had hoped to, this leads to stress and desperation and in some cases cheating.

"There's definitely a lot of pressure to maintain a high GPA," said Maranda Shelton, a third-year telecommunication major.

"There's even more pressure for students who plan to go to grad school or medical school. Their acceptance into top schools depends on the types of grades they got in undergrad.

"The pressure definitely gets to some people, and cheating can seem like an easy way out of all that."

Students cheat for a variety of reasons, but most students understand that it is not the right thing to do.

"Taking someone's ideas that aren't your own or getting the ideas from someone else beforehand isn't right," Florez said.

Andrea Guillen, a first-year public relations major, has noticed a lot of cheating going on since arriving to the University of Florida.

"Sometimes people are just lazy," Guillen said.

"Sometimes it's a class that doesn't matter, and sometimes collaborating just makes things easier."

Guillen thinks the consequences associated with getting caught cheating are not worth the risk.

On the other hand, Shelton understands students' motivation to academically cheat.

"I think it's definitely tempting because the professors grade pretty harshly," Shelton said.

"If you know you can get a good grade by cheating then you won't have to worry as much for the exam grade because you'll already have a higher grade in the class."

As landing a job after graduation becomes harder and harder, will cases of academic dishonesty increase?

"I obviously think cheating is wrong," said Florez.

"But realistically, people aren't going to stop anytime soon."