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200 Students Admit Cheating After Professor's Online Rant
Over 200 University of Central Florida students admitted to cheating on a midterm exam after their professor figured out at least a third of his class had cheated. In a lecture posted on YouTube, Professor Richard Quinn told the students that he had done a statistical analysis of the grades and was using other methods to identify the cheats, but instead of turning the list over to the university authorities he offered the following deal: "I don't want to have to explain to your parents why you didn't graduate, so I went to the Dean and I made a deal. The deal is you can either wait it out and hope that we don't identify you, or you can identify yourself to your lab instructor and you can complete the rest of the course and the grade you get in the course is the grade you earned in the course."
According to this news piece, http://www.wftv.com/news/25798994/detail.html, the instructor used exam questions supplied by the publisher. Apparently, the test bank the instructor was drawing the questions from had been released into the wild and some of the students found copies online.
DePaul, St. Louis University, and Catholic University of America are three universities that I know that require professors to create a syllabus. I don't believe any of those three universities are "degree mills."
But perhaps you misunderstand what the syllabus states at most schools that require syllabi. The required elements are usually (a) how the grade will be assessed, (b) any policies that might affect the grade (e.g. attendance policies), (c) legal boilerplate from the university about honesty and disability policies, (d) office hours and contact information for the instructor. There is usually a line stating something to the effect that the schedule of what material will be covered when is subject to change at the discretion of the professor.
And, personally, I find having a schedule of what content will be covered when to be extremely useful.