> Eh, when your future career prospects hinge on what grades you get it's perfectly rational to optimize for getting those grades over learning "properly".

I knew a few people who cheated and gamed the system at every opportunity through high school, all in the name of getting into the best universities.

They got absolutely crushed in college when their old tricks stopped working and they had to actually do the work. One of them got caught cheating and had a wake-up call when the university threatened him for it. He eventually put in the effort to grind it out and graduate a year late, but graduated nonetheless.

He's mentioned that he could have saved himself a lot of pain and suffering by just engaging in school the first time instead of cheating.

This idea that you can cheat your way into a job and then just coast doesn't really match reality. It may work for some people who get into weird jobs that don't fire people, but the idea that it's "optimal" to cheat your way through life until you're handed an easy job doesn't hold up in practice.