I agree completely. I remember that cheating in college (at least on a small scale -- e.g. copying homework in certain STEM classes with a "right" answer) was common and not viewed as risky behavior. I doubt that any of the people who cheated would have said that they felt they were morally in the right or even in a gray area if confronted. Cheating is more akin to stealing a laptop from an empty dorm room than it is to running afoul of some arcane law that few people have ever heard of.

Given the high value that many desirable career paths (e.g. consulting, finance, academia) place on a good GPA, and the low probability of getting caught, the risk/reward tradeoff from cheating is naturally going to tempt people to make the unscrupulous choice.