Yes, I know. The point I'm trying to make is that there is no salient difference between an employer hiring an employee to do the work and a student doing the same. Students typically do not actually steal the work that they pass off as their own, they usually pay for it. But for some reason, when a student does it it's considered underhanded whereas when an employer does it it's considered a normal business transaction.

This carries the assumption things like "school work" and "business work" are inherently fungible on the basis they are both types of work. Dropping the assumption for a moment, it seems reasonable there may be more than one goal of or type of work, and that these goals/types might not be interchangeable with each other. This view of the difference is only possible if you start with the earnest question of "what's the difference supposed to be" rather than asserting a conversation along the lines of "these are the same, so why are we treating them different".

Taking this approach, many might find school work is, largely, effort done to grade a level of understanding the individual has of the content. On the other hand, one might find business work is, largely, effort done to accomplish a customer's request. Additional less common types of each may come up as well, and there are, of course, exceptions to the main theme of each. In general though, I think you'd agree swapping the goals to say "school work is effort done to grade whether someone understands the content while business work is effort done to see if the particular person you make the request to is able to complete it on their own" seems rather unlikely in comparison. Because of this, swapping who does the work in each case results in different treatments.

> This carries the assumption things like "school work" and "business work" are inherently fungible on the basis they are both types of work.

No, the assumption is that the purpose of education is to prepare you to be able to function in the real world. IMHO learning how to get other people to do your work for you is the single most valuable skill one could possibly acquire.

There can be more than one assumption carried so why not judge each on their merits instead. Taking this other line of thought, it could definitely be truer in a vocational college or work placement type education but less so in a typical college education. Traditional college doesn't even come with the assumption you'll ever leave academia to go out into "the real world" to make your living, or that you have an actionable goal beyond being interested in the first place, let alone the assumption it should be the only goal ever considered. An easy way to see this take is not the actual primary goal of college is the self-apparent conflict of such activity being seen as underhanded in the first place.

Even if we took this line of thought as the truth though, also came to an agreement this is the most valuable skill of all to teach, and also took it as being universally good to do regardless of context, what's the reasoning for assuming college only seeks to teach and grade success on a single skill in the first place?

> Traditional college doesn't even come with the assumption you'll ever leave academia

Yes, and this is exactly the problem, because in point of actual fact most people who go to college do eventually leave. And if you think about this even for a moment, it has to be that way because someone has to do the actual work required to maintain the the civilization that makes college possible in the first place.

It is interesting that in Finnish university there was actually possibility to enter a track aiming at PhD from the start. With more rigorous math and other things. So you could work towards just Master's Degree or PhD from start. With different course load.