One way of looking at it is passive aggression: A lot of kids have no desire whatsoever to be in college; they've felt pressured and pushed their whole lives to meet parental expectations, and have never successfully stood up to it to pursue their own dreams/ambitions, such that the only way they have to protest is through self sabotage, without even fully realizing they're actually trying to rebel by being so obvious with something like stealing somebody's work.
Or they're just stupid.
