I was told specifically to give them a second chance at the assignment for 50% credit. No disciplinary action was taken on the part of the administration with the justification that "if they really don't know the material they'll fail the final."

So no, it's just as bad in higher education here.

I teach collegiate intro programming classes, I can say it definitely seems that way. My office hours will be an absolute ghost town, nobody has any questions for me in class, and then when a project is due about 1/3 of the submissions are AI slop.

I know cheating has always been rampant, but I've never seen it this bad before.