Acquaintance is paying friend to do his coding for an Ivy League master's degree. What should I do? I'm relatively close to someone who is currently attending an Ivy League graduate program.  He believes he has it all made in life and yet here he is paying one of my friends to do his coding assignments and projects.

It is an online program, so it makes getting away with this even easier.  This situation only benefits both of them, but it's just bothering me.  I just hate the idea of someone bragging about being in an Ivy League graduate just to pay someone else to do his work.  Should I just drop it or report the student?

In response to questions: no, I am not a student myself.
What would I do? I would report them both, anonymously.

What is my rationale for this? Mainly because it is not a "victimless crime":


There are plenty of employers who weight the reputation of a university very highly (perhaps too highly) in hiring processes. A more-deserving and capable candidate might not be given an interview or an offer as a result of this person having cheated.
To the extent that any university's reputation is well-deserved, this is founded upon other people's judgements of its integrity. i.e. that the degree means something. If that impression of integrity is eroded by unqualified people receiving degrees, that hurts the employment chances of everyone with a degree from the same school.


I feel these two points are basically just statistical. Given enough incidents of cheating either or both seems to be a likely consequence.

Somewhat more subjective reasons:


Bad outcomes are possible when an unqualified person is granted responsibility. Crashed airplanes? Deadly medical devices? Losing money for their stakeholders? Maybe the odds of great harm are small. And perhaps such a person has no actual interest in taking a job like that. But I don't think this can be totally ignored.
More broadly, what other harm are these people likely to cause in life? Chances are that this is not at all their first case of untrustworthy behavior and won't be their last -- as long as they perceive it to be in their interest to act this way. On the other hand they may be early enough in life that a "shock to the system" from being caught could actually be helpful. Or at least a deterrent.




Why an anonymous report? I think this is pretty obvious, but I would not want to take any personal risk (in any sense) from this. People can be petty, angry, etc., and I see no reason to expose myself as any kind of 'target' of those emotions. 

On the other hand you might have to trust the institution to protect your identity, it depends on how you can make a report.