Photoshopped rather than uberized.
2
It is a case of honesty and for a lot of people, that train has left the station. There is one statement that I live by and that is "Right is Right and Wrong is Wrong". It is pretty simplistic but it leaves nothing to be evaluated or parsed. "Right is Right" even if the result does not fit your political objectives if it is something opposed to you said. If he is right, he is right. If one of your own objectives is wrong, it is wrong no matter how the argument is framed. In these times, we are faced with a daily avalanche of lies created by the Democrat Party and their client Propagandists, CNN and MSNBC. They feel that it is their right to condemn others, simply because their political views do not fit the narrative of these lies, like stating that PRESIDENT TRUMP is a racist with their only "evidence" is what he said at the Charlotte riots. When the President stated that there were "good people" on both sides. PRESIDENT TRUMP was very aware that the majority of the people that attended the "White Power" or whatever it was, were there for the original purpose of the gathering, to stop the tearing down of the Confederate statue. These people were not dressed up in Nazi uniforms nor did they wear Nazi armbands. This is all that he meant. President Trump is not a "white nationalist" or supremacist of any kind. He is our President. Truth is becoming a rare commodity and thus corruption is running rampant and it is being used by the Democrat party to gain power.
3
It's hard to blame the parvenues for comprehending entrance is the real education. Once your kids get past the front door, they can ride a wave of foucauldian drivel to achieve summa cum laude Cs then move on to careers in banking, finance, hell even the Presidency! Now we know what the HYP (Harvard Yale Princeton)is all about!
1
Can we please call a moratorium on the "nothing to see here" and "who's surprised" lines? It's this very line of thinking that most enables white collar criminals. They rely on that jaded, glib response, and it's everywhere...at the Globe, NYT, WP, Guardian, etc. They bank on it. Some have gone further (on this very thread) and speculated that we'd all do it if given the chance.
No. We would not. And to not grasp that is to give up on democratic principles and ideas about fair play in ways that truly doom us to becoming an increasingly unjust, petty, impoverished, ignorant, criminal backwater.
There is nothing to praise in a jaded cynicism that shrugs and moves on from grotesque corruption, in the process normalizing it. We may not be surprised at the players, but the game, once fully exposed, should damn well enrage and motivate us to demand justice and to make sweeping systemic changes that hold this craven criminality in check.
That lack of surprise seems to go, however unwittingly, hand in hand with enabling.
5
In other words, excess wealth buys the whole damn system.
2
Once WASP cultural values (never perfect) were replaced by the new mercantile class, the country has gone down the tubes; except for the mercantile class that is. Income inequality, bad healthcare, bad schools, deteriorating infrastructure,working families barely making, middle class families with one foot on penury as the result of the looting that collapsed the economy in 2008, and of course the take over of all institutions by the mercantiles. Jared Kushner as the senior advisor to an imbecile, corrupt president, maybe a war with Iran. What else can go wrong?
Bribery, corruption & paying your way to the top have always been part of the American story. If income inequality is the true measure of pervasiveness of thesse paractices, it doesn't look like we have progressed much since the 19th century.
1
The fact that wealth buys status and permanence is centuries old. This scandal should surprise no one. It's actually quite pathetic, all things considered.
2
I am not sure why we do not recognize that this is not a new phenomenon.
Our Democratic Republic has always struggled with money and privilege, versus hard work, and merit.
No big deal. Arrest, try and convict and all of the 750 plus families whose children were placed in colleges via this direct form of bribery. Make them all convicted felons.
Investigate the private secondary schools - Exeter, Andover, Choate, Deerfield, Madeira, Bryn Mawr. go for prosecutions there, too.
Ask yourself the core question; is the US a nation of laws and justice, or a nation where money is all that matters?
There is an important similarity with the Robert Kraft massage parlor scandal. In that case, people with money were getting what they wanted without considering the underlying horror of human trafficking. In the college admissions scandal, people with money were getting what they want without considering their role in corrupting college coaches and test proctors.
1
But they weren't single digit millionaires at all---at least triple digit. Just sayin'. Plus there's so much more wrong with the whole system---middle level college administrators being paid upwards ion $200K plus benefits---many of whom could not get a job anywhere else--professors paid for full-time work when they teach one class a quarter or semester, 3 or 4 times a year, college coaches being the highest paid state employees. ..I mean, it never ends. A system which is corrupt at its core will invite corruption. (As a footnote, I'm amused by all the millionaires who were offended by the column---really? Take a look at yourselves).
Society needs neither the poverty nor the sadism which force some people into working as strippers. And I do mean force - cowardice, venality, and bigotry protect with silence the networks and methodology (and the matriarchal sadism at the back of it all) used to coerce people into those 'jobs'. It degrades all Americans to allow the argument that college isn't for everyone - although education doesn't exist just to help individuals to get jobs, but also to try to enable democratic-republican society, make government accountable, preserve understanding of the importance of due process, freedom of speech, human rights and civil liberties, etc. - to slip-slide into an excuse for the viciously childish pretense that powerful people (deliberately never accurately defined by 'intersectionality') are entitled to stroke their egos by smearing-down non-powerful people into seeming to fit into the degrading images that sadistic hierarchical psychology wants to lean on. This country will never have anything approaching genuine egalitarianism without dragging the sadists out to burn up in the sunlight.
There is no meritocracy. There is only careerism.
1
What no one is talking about is that the prestige of an Ivy League/type education is meted out by the outstanding researchers/scholar-professors/lecturers/teaching-assistants and the pipeline for that is still clean (you've to prove yourself with a PhD for such jobs and no 'side-door's are allowed). However, this pipeline is going to dry if education itself is not free for all. If poor people around the world cannot get a shot at Harvard-type institutions then we'll be like the 17th Century where only the well off could do research (e.g. Newton). Instead of having one Newton, we could've had scores of him if education was egalitarian in the 16-1700s and we would've cured cancer, eliminated poverty and been to Jupiter by now ... Are we going back to the days where only the rich could go to college? How different are we then our feudal past?
A simple stat says that there are 80 million people who comprise the top 1 % of the world population. Are we educating those 80 million properly? If not, then we are woefully inefficient in tapping the resources available to us. Corrupt admissions is at the bottom of this. Stop legacy admissions: not just Alumni but those generationally advantaged ...
Author is correct. This is (was?) the cheap way to do it. I think the number is $10 million to the Harvard foundation gets anyone in but these guys were bribing coaches for 1/20th the normal vig.
1
This bribery scandal and Mr. Manjoo's piece throw more light on the subject treated so well in Matthew Stewart's "The 9.9 Percent is the New American Aristocracy" in The Atlantic. Both pieces leave me wondering whether or not we Boomers who have enjoyed success can reconnect with the ideals of our salad days. How did we go from admiration of MLK, RFK, Clark Kerr, Mandela to become or settle for so much less? Our race should not be to ensure that our children are on the winning side of an unequal contest. In the end, everyone loses that race. In the end, how much is the status we buy really worth?
4
It seems that there is an analogy here with Cohen's testimony and the lack of Americans to analyse what is corruption.
Corruption is in the system created by the proprietor of power , not the one who buys himself into it.
The corruption of the private colleges of elite exists since the beginning of their creation, even if there is a hypocrite stance of facade that they are clean to make parents pay .
The people have paid because they knew it was possible before them trying .
The real guilt is in the education system that is corrupted with money and literally sells social status and money making instead of education.
These people are not the only victims but all students also who entered normally and acquire an education that is tainted by corruption at all levels.
Well, what is the big deal here?
We have a president who got five draft deferments for "bone spurs", was gifted millions early in life by his father, got into Wharton and "graduated" despite very questionable academic qualifications and accomplishments, cheated and lied to build up his real estate business, is currently involved in trashing our Constution and democracy with his lies, and even got elected under very shady circumstances.
But he got elected because "the system is rigged"; the elites cheat the common people.
I just hope that Trump's working people supporters recognize that he got where he is now due to dishonesty and privileged treatment, and that he is busy shoring up the advantages of his REAL base---not them---the 1 percent.
2
Every theme park, including the Ivy League, has its skip-the-line pass.
4
How sad to have your parents cheat for you on a test or to buy your way into a school. It’s not just about status...it’s about subtlety saying your kids are not good enough to raise your elitism...
3
Ick, let's very much NOT use the name of a criminal, climate-threatening, overrated, underpaying, stupid-fad service to describe college brib—
...wait actually it fits perfectly, for just those reasons. Carry on.
1
“Wealth buys status and permanence”. What a scoop!! Who could have guessed?? THAT’S certainly never occurred before in the history of humankind!! Monarchs in ancient Egypt, Rome, China, Europe, Mesoamerica didn’t use wealth to solidify their status! They were humble servants of the proletariat. Right!
3
The parents who paid bribes to get their kids into college are a few dozen. Out of millions of kids who apply to college every year.
So perhaps we should put the brakes on the sweeping generalizations that Mr. Manjoo seems to enjoy trafficking in.
2
Our entire society is corrupt and rotten, based on lying and cheating. Virtually every resume contains lies. People also steal hounour, and falsely claim victim status for the perks. Eventually a system based on fraud collapses, like a Ponzi scheme that runs out of idiots. You know God exists and loves America for the fact everything hasn’t collapsed and there’s still time to fix things. It won’t come from the government or any of our ridiculous, foolish political parties. We have to do it ourselves. We can’t even trust the press to just simply do their jobs, the ones they had no trouble cashing the checks for. Nope. It’s just us.
1
...boring.....wealth buys everything...college entry...internships...jobs....contracts...political favors...much of it is morally questionable, if not illegal. In this case, it's a de minimis number of students at Ivy League schools...spare me....what a 'trumped' up story this is.....I don't think many students have been shut out of college due to this fraudulent activity...it's being blown way out of proportion..but that's what sells newspapers these days......
2
yes to everything in this article.
Yes indeed. How do you manifest destiny? With a big fat check and zero conscience.
So give a hundred thousand dollars to someone like Singer and your kid might get into an Ivy, or you might go to jail. Give two million dollars to the Ivy and your kid gets in legally-----and you get a two million dollar tax deduction!!! How's that for justice?
Mr. Manjoo drops the hammer of truth. Now we need the hammer of justice.
The real "scandal" in the college admissions process has been going on for 15 years, and nobody wants to talk about it--two tiers of extra-time "accommodations" for the SAT--time and a half, and double-time.
That's right. Your child is finished, but there's another room in the building where a bunch of kids get a few more hours to complete the same questions.
Time-based accommodations have been steadily rising, on average, since ETS / College Board (CB) did away with notations (in 2003) for accommodations on the SAT results they send to colleges.
What has been happening ever since is hard to quantify but occurs everywhere rich people send their kids to school. Parents of already advantaged kids are taking advantage of these accommodations more often than other groups because, well, such parents have the time, resources, and money to get on the accommodations list. This is perfectly legal.
I witnessed this firsthand back when I was a teacher-administrator at an advantaged independent school. Every year, from 9th grade onward, as the SAT approached, more students as a percentage of the overall class endured the gauntlet to get official time-accommodations. Before I left teaching, in 2007, the percentage of students receiving accommodations inched towards 20% of the graduating class. (It's a real conundrum because certainly there are children who need and deserve extra time.) I challenge any school administrator to release its own generic data. CB wont confirm or deny it.
6
Bribery works. It gets the bribers and the bribees in trouble only occasionally, when they are caught. Corruption is almost always a variation of bribery. Since the very rich see little difference between meritocracy and plutocracy ("The smart are deserving and the rich are rich because they are smart."), corruption is almost a law of nature in their mind.
We will not change most of the rich folks' mind on this, so we must make it much more likely that they will get caught.
Might help, a little.
1
Interestingly we detest these near-swells much more than the truly filthy rich. Perhaps it’s due to the fact these mere millionaires are hypocrites, like Mr William Macy and wife. The mega-wealthy make no pretense about the power of their wealth — they use it openly and often for political purposes. These not-quite A-listers? A smarmy bunch of strivers, small and insignificant but under the delusion they have achieved greatness. There are no more disposable citizens then these wretches.
2
"(See: Manafort, Paul.)"
Is that the same wealthy felon who is currently doing seven years in federal prison and possibly quite a bit more? What did he get away with again?
This is again about the BIGGER PICTURE. Abuse of power is rampant in our society, in every business, in every coop, government, college...in every walk of life. There is manipulation, graft, greed, lying, cheating.... Our moral compass has been thrown out with the garbage. Where are the checks and balances? Where are the good people? Legacy, white privilege and the like surrounds my every day life. Vogue is a truly pathetic example. Instagram is a fake version of life, people tying really hard to look like they fit in. The art world is another mess of deception/corruption. Media manipulation is brain-washing our entire society. Decency, honestly, truth and fairness are needed desperately. Every one of the people involved should $pay big bucks$ and then go straight to jail.
You know what the true irony is? These millionaires are purchasing their children's way into high-end schools....and in many cases the entitled offfspring will NEVER get a job or work for a living.
Can someone please explain the rationale before my head explodes?
1
@JL Farr you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. I know over half a dozen billionaire families and their kids. Everyone works. Very rarely does a rich kid not work, it’s almost unheard of.
This scandal is pathetic, though tasty, but as John McCain once said, the greatest injustice was the conscription of the poor into the Vietnam War, while the wealthy avoided it. This all pales in comparison to the Trump bone spurs.
2
@Dave and John McCain getting into the Naval Academy because his father and grandfather were Admirals even though he was at the bottom of his high school class. Not surprising, he also finished almost last in his class at Annapolis.
2
This proves that the affirmative action case is bogus. The so called conservatives need to shift their focus to a different target, these corrupt parents should all serve time in jail. That is how you send a message to the entire system; furthermore, I haven't heard a single Asian in the Harvard lawsuit care open their mouths. Hardworking American, children of low income parents and immigrants are the true victim of a society that favors the elite.
2
To add insult to injury, Loughlin's daughter brags publicly that she doesn't even care about school, just game days and partying.
Got yourself a real winner there, USC.
Is that why they call it the University of Spoiled Children.
3
Mr. Manjoo: Another excellent column.
But one disagreement: "It (money) buys power and influence, it buys class and it buys permanence."
If you mean "class" as in social hierarchy, then perhaps.
But if you mean "class" as in "a classy person" -- as opposed to a person who is rude, crude, crass, and vulgar -- money cannot buy that kind of class. A snake may shed its skin, but it's still a snake. Case in point: Donald Trump.
1
All those kids need to be kicked out of the schools they cheated their way in to.
Oh, and a lot of these students knew something was going on. They may not have made the payment, knew the person who was taking the bribe or the specifics, but they knew, especially social weasel Olivia Jade Gianulli. Kick her out.
Well done Mr. Manjoo! I especially liked...
“I have no quarrel with the charges. But as to Mr. Lelling’s bromide about our nation’s supposed vigilance against inequality: lol.”
So much for the meritocracy. In truth, inequity leads to legacy, legacy leads to undeserved privilege, undeserved privilege leads to power, and power leads to corruption. Absolutely!
Perhaps it's been asked already, but what exactly is "Uberization"? I could ask Google, but should I have to?
Venmo'ing money to pay someone to fix something is the "true story" here, really? I think the true story is how some authors try to pointlessly twist the significance of a straightforwardly bad action into something much broader.
1
ISIS or immigrants aren't ruining our country, these people and their cousins on the very top are. The punishment should be severe. Tax them big. If they don't like it, we'll make it without them.
1
There is nothing meritorious in being born female as opposed to male. It is nevertheless commonplace for female teachers - aided by their pansy-sadist male co-abettors - to tell themselves that they are morally justified in finding all sorts of calculated, covert, flagrantly malicious ways to discriminate against boys, in favor of girls. This undercuts boys for years, all through K-12, starting long before any prospect of college. The people who do this are quietly gleeful, particularly about scorching the lives of high IQ boys who refuse to be venal or sadistic. Teachers like this particularly loathe those boys, once a norm, who are macho as well as smart and moral. This phenomenon is pervasive. It inevitably corrodes - intentionally - far more educational careers
than the antics of plutocrats who lack the savvy to rely entirely on legal methods of giving their kids an edge. It's commonplace for people to be aware of this, and even more so for people to continue to repeat to themselves shallow talking points that reinforce ideological, bigoted excuses for supporting the infliction of broad oceans of damage - while keeping the lid on against public acknowledgement of it. It isn't even in the long term interests of girls and women to live in a culture so hypocritically morally degraded by this sort of socially-manipulative poison. It creates greater tolerance of the dehumanization of people. Why can't Americans see how vilely childish and sadistic matriarchy is, and grow up?
1
"it's money that matters
hear what i say
It's money that matters
in the USA "
Randy Newman
What's the real story here?. Mr. Manjoo purports to expose a system of "Corruption, routine and pervasive". But, so far, fewer than 50 people have been indicted and, for all we know, that's it. There is universal revulsion throughout the country. The perpetrators are already shamed; soon, they will be punished. But Mr. Manjoo (and the NY Times editors who enable him) want to condemn the entire system, and to push the trendy narrative of victimhood. That's the real story here.
3
Have you noticed that none of these unqualified students applied to MIT?
2
@Charlierf Because it is almost impossible to fake your way through Biology, Chemistry, Calculus and Physics which are all required classes. MIT makes sure their students learn something which is why it was ranked the #1 school in the World Rankings.
2
Interesting that no single piece of journalism has uncovered anyone who was denied opportunity b/c of this scandal.
Let's start putting faces and names to those that didn't get in, that should have.
Let's show the Huffmans, Laughlins and McGlashans of the world what their actions cause.....
1
@Kevin McManus Unfortunately there is no way to know who would have been accepted but for the criminal conspiracy.
What's new? Why all the outrage?
What's the difference between NCAA vs wealth family buying their children into the University of their choice? College basketball and football programs are riddled with corruption. So called student athleteswho can barely read or write, low SAT scores and, poor grades enter NCAA Division I basketball and football programs yearly.
Disproportionately NCAA basketball and football students athletes are African-American's; NCAA Division 1 basketball and football programs are the main source of the billion of dollars that fund all other college sports programs. If those Black students weren't "student /athletes", screams of affirmative action /reverse discriminations would abound.
The parents who were willing to bribe their kids into prestigious colleges; alumni of NCAA Division 1 routinely pay "student /athletes" under the table, pay-off parents, buy cars and houses, pay for adult entertaiment to lure basketball and football athletes to sign with their college.
This nation worships money, fame, and winning: Cheating, lying, stealing is par for the course. The "greatest nation on earth" was built and found on these "principles".
Again, what's new?
1
So what's new. Legacy admissions? Big donors kids? Hey this is the American dream.
Keep in mind that foreigners can buy their way into a green card and a path to citizenship for $500,000.
https://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/fullpage/500000-green-card-eb-visa-program-28662457
lol you got the "real news" and the "true story" wrong, Mr. Farhad.
the "real news" and the "true story" is how the wealthy massage the current meritocracy culture -- to the detriment of the non-wealthy.
nice try, though.
Wealth allows you to pay $3500 to a couple of Nigerians to fake beat you up so you can get a raise on your hit tv show.
What I don't understand about this Mossimo guy is why didn't he just commit a $500,000 donation to the school to get his daughter in? Why all the cheating? Was his daughter that much of a snowflake that he needed to create the illusion that she was smart?
Look, not everyone gets to grow up to become an astronaut. We need waiters and actresses and strippers too.
4
chumps=middle class. The rich have found a way to strangle every opportunity out there. Good luck to us serfs.
Am I only one who had to look up perfidy in the dictionary? I am all for good grammar ( I did go to a Catholic grammar school), but honestly did we need this word in the article in an interesting article.
I hope part of the punishment for these felonies will be exorbitant fines that can be used to prop up our state educational systems that have been stripped of resources by GOP governors and state assemblies. The Scott Walkers (thankfully gone and replaced by a former education secretary) of the world have done tremendous harm to many public colleges that offer a sold, fordable education that prepares students to thrive...not just manage the family trust fund.
1
@Indy Anna This is a Federal Case. The states will get nothing from it.
A society built on purchased credentials is well on its way to moral and financial bankruptcy. Admissions can be bought. Aptitude cannot.
3
I am surprised that the NYT allows the publication under its banner of an opinion piece that makes such gross generalizations.
Mr. Manjoo’s over simplification of the issue is truly astounding. His statement “And while the billionaires are crushing society on a grand scale, the single-digit millionaires are striving to crush it small” ranks right up there with other sayings designed to prove your point by showing one or two examples and generalizing to a whole group such as “Whites are racist”, Blacks are lazy,” and “Gay marriage will destroy traditional marriage.” I will admit I did take his comment personally, I am a single-digit millionaire, just as I’m sure African-Americans are insulted when someone holds up one bad example (Jussie Smollett) and makes general claims about all African-Americans or when the bad actions of one immigrant (Gustavo Perez Arriaga) are used to condemn all immigrants.
His claims about Ubertization or the rush” to provide drivers, cooks, personal assistants, cleaners, butlers, private jets and food delivery at the push of a button to anyone blessed with more wealth than time” actually undercuts his argument. These services are generally not targeted at the single-digit millionaires but at those aspiring to be.
15
@JJ
I’m a ‘single-digit’ millionaire, and your officious complaint is absurd, and absurdly demonstrative of the class attitudes Manjoo targets in this op-ed. His presentation is a bit trite, too cutely slick, yes. But his point is correct.
His point may be somewhat discomforting to the demographic that reads this rag. “Oh no! How dare you suggest my dry cleaning delivery service, dog walker, and accountant are class-sculpting tools that encourage my own corruption!! How dare you Manjoo!”
20
It is somewhat disconcerting to listen to "single-digit millionaires" discussed like they are not rich. Even a single-digit millionaire is still very rich.
1
I noticed that Lori Loughlin is allowed to travel for work in British Columbia through November.
How many low-income people are arrested and are told by the judge that they'll set bail low enough that it's affordable so they can continue their work?
The court proceedings are already a sham and it's only been two days.
3
Shame on the University's for conferring degrees to incompetent students
1
Ever wonder why the working class doesn’t respect ‘expertise’? Now you know.
1
@AG because 50 kids in the entire country got into school via bribes over a 25 year period? Yeah that makes sense.
2
And I wonder when these illicitly-admitted students are ready to graduate how much it costs to get a “Cum Laude,” “Magna Cum Laude,” or even Summa Cum Laude” added to their diplomas. Surely an honorific is worth paying for, for these status-hungry parents.
@Susan Ask Jared Kushner. Someone wrote his thesis.
I don’t feel sorry for a single person charged. I do feel badly for some of the kids. To have learned that you only got into school by your parents cheating for you must be shameful. Think of what they must be going through right now. The therapy bills alone would devour most budgets.
Further, when those kids who couldn’t get into those schools on their own start getting poor grades, I guess Mommy and Daddy again “help” them out. Entitlement never ends. To all those kids that play be the rules, study and work hard, this has to be jading them.
Moral compasses seem to be lacking in many areas of our world.
1
I love Manjoo's columns. "Uberization of Graft" is the perfect title for this one. It isn't surprising that so many of these people have connections to Silicon Valley, which has operated on the instant-wish-fulfillment-I-want-it-now ethos for quite a while.
This sort of thing has one on for a long time, of course. Parents buy dorms for their ritzy colleges to ensure their children get in--hello there, Meg W!--or grease the skids with a few million (Jared K, how are you doing?). Legacy admissions are often absurd, and the power of sports is crazy.
Maybe this will shine a light in some dark corners and a change is gonna come. Maybe. In the meantime, there are some excellent public universities in California that aren't UCLA, and where your child might even meet the offspring of rich people there. If that sort of thing is important to you.
Among those nabbed in this College entrance payola scheme is a big time Miami developer who walked into Miami City Hall and dumped 30 million dollars of cash on to a commissioner's desk to buy his way to approval of his billion dollar development. They don't call the project magic city for nothing. It's almost magical how 30 million will buy you just about anything.
30,000 or 30 million the principle is the same. Grease the right hands and you can get just about anything. Welcome to America where everything and anything is for sale, even your soul, and you can take your children's soul right along with it.
1
Even if these academic thugs go to prison, it won’t be much short of a country club.
In other news today, Lori Loughlin's daughter, Olivia, was aboard a yacht owned by the USC Board of Trustees Chairman and billionaire Rick Caruso in the Bahamas when the college bribery scandal broke. Olivia has been outspoken about her disdain for college and education, learning and classes, and has posted that she is only interested in college partying and filming her narcissism for the Internet.
How many bright, hard-working, meritorious children of the working class or middle class would get to spend spring break cruising the Bahamas on the yacht of a billionaire college trustee?? Zero.
These spoiled rich kids who got into college as a result of parental criminality need to be expelled from the schools, and the money used to buy their way in needs to go to poorer kids who value an education.
expelled from USC. USC officials confirmed Wednesday that the school is reviewing the applications of students whose families have been implicated in the bombshell college admissions scandal. The decision will ultimately be made by the university's president, and the Caruso-led Board of Trustees will not have any influence. Pictured: Caruso with his daughter Gianna (left), Gianna with Olivia (left inset), Olivia by herself (center), the Carusos’ yacht (right inset) and Olivia with her mother, Lori Loughlin (right).
The Democratization of Graft has already occurred with the Citizens United decision legalizing Corporate BRIBING of the election process!!!
1
How come it’s almost all California citizens. ? What about everywhere else ??
All of these miscreants should be sentenced to jail then their community service should be to pay for at least one deserving student to attend whatever school they can fairly get into. Mr. Manjoo has nailed it...these are not evil people in the classic sense...they are just deluded to their own avarice and lack of morals...although I am sure many would profess to be good liberals who believe in fairness to all. 50% goes on them and 50% on the rotten system we all have to deal with.
I have to say I get a perverse pleasure reading columns like this because the anger, envy and contempt for American society that conceives them is something the authors have to live with every day.
Note to Mr. Manjoo. It's called prosperity. It has always been thus. There are always those who will take the corrupt route because it's seemingly easy in a free society. Until it isn't. And if you don't think the 1 percenters are there because they've struggled through the meritocracy wars and won, you aren't really paying attention.
This is a scandal that involves a tiny percentage of people in the class of people who send their children to elite colleges. Yes, the charges are serious, but to indict the entire American system, which is the closest Western Civilization has ever come to a SUCCESSFUL classless society, only exposes the writer's bigotry and malevolence to all things American-- except of course, the self-congratulatory moral superiority of the leftish mindset.
4
Absolutely spot on.
You’ve hit at the deeper problem.
Perhaps they could pay the interest on my student loans.
Signed-
A chump, PhD
1
Another excellent reason to elect democratic socialists to Congress and the White House! Redistribute the wealth and free college for all!
Why is it even legal to donate money to get into school? Go for bigger whales, if billionaires can’t do it, these single digit millionaires def won’t be able to do it.. so just don’t target these people ...
Is it so hard to believe why our country is failing........unqualified people bought into universities then getting jobs based on falsified credentials. Then repeat the scamming cycle.
As Aristotle indicated in philosophy, it is the corruption of humankind that is it's demise.
Until America begins to look at things through a moral lens, corruption, via capitalism, greed, bribery and dishonesty will continue to reign, just look at the highest office in the land.
....well at least it's being exposed, I guess that's a start, but what about all of us who did things the proper way...I guess we get a participation ribbon
More disheartening proof that we've devolved into a banana republic. American exceptionalism, you never were.
1
I agree; however, the problem is that how our society operates in every industry. It is not what you know, but who you know and now how much money you can give the school or tutor. Our society does not value respect,hard work or honesty. Instead it rewards those who can yell the most, who are friends of friends and who have money. But think of all the rewards cards you use at the grocery store or airlines......it is all about being part of the "right" group to get ahead. Heck even according to religion if you are not part of the church, you are not going to so-called heaven.
1
What's especially galling with white privilege and rich privilege; they brazenly add insult to injury - because they believe themselves entitled and because everyone (who can) does it. If you don't do it you're looked down on as being holier than thou or maybe you are a sap.
And they might be right, but that does not make it right, just common. We see this pay to play everywhere and it cheapens us.
Gotta dope to compete at a high level, or use smart drugs in school, or go negative in politics to level the playing field.
In America everything is crooked and we have to get with the program to survive. The system is rigged everywhere and makes us all dirty.
That's why Trump is President.
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“There can be no separate college admissions system for the wealthy,” said Andrew Lelling, the United States attorney for the District of Massachusetts. Earth to Mr. Lelling “wake up!”
1
The indictments parents received were handed down for tax and mail/wire fraud because of the false foundation through which the payments were funneled. Mr. Singer, the boss, has all that and then some, including racketeering. The people he paid off, like the proctors, test takers, test administrators, and coaches, got racketeering.
If you avoid this kind of too-good-to-be-true company, you could, on your own, legally hire an essay coach willing to go well over the ethical boundaries, find a look-alike test taker, or convince a medical professional that your kid needed extra time on the tests. It is very unlikely you would be "caught" for any of this, and there are no guarantees like Singer offered, but what would you be charged with? You could always claim the coach "coached", your child was really disabled, and, as for the look-alike test takers, unless they are very careless, frequenting the same test centers with the same proctors too often, rarely get caught - although they do, now and then https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-sat-exam-leaked-20180827-story.html
I am less concerned with wire fraud than with the entire broken system.
I had to look up Venmo, but I'm with you Farhad. I always felt that if you had enough money to throw at a problem you were halfway to nirvana but this is so much better. You can simply buy what you want to ensure your progeny will get a leg up and keep it there all the while teaching them that's it's not only who you know but who you can buy. Oh wait a minute...that's not new.
Convicted felon, Charles Kushner donated $2.5 million to Harvard so that his smart son can carry on the fable of the genious story. Who else can reform government other than Jared Kushner. Peace in the world, Jared Kushner, and so on and so on......
1
Privilege buys more privilege...
Back in college I had a summer job building swimming pools. We did one for a really loaded guy. The job started on a Monday. After a day, the guy came up to us and told us he wanted the pool ready to go by Friday so he could have a party. My boss told him that was impossible. The guy got really upset, then calmed down and said he'd pay whatever it took to get the pool in by Friday. My boss said "There's no amount you can pay to have concrete dry by Friday."
What makes a diploma valuable is not that you have it, but the implication that you earned and deserve it. That's the part that these people will never be able to pay for.
1
These same Hollywood elites who lambaste Trump over his character are now caught defrauding and bribing, sexually harassing, and engaging in race-based scams. If you don't think the average American will bring their disgust of this elite hypocrisy into the voting booth in 2020, then you're probably part of the very same elite who's engaging in this behavior.
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Two points:
1. Mr. Singer's grammar is terrible. The parents who used his services apparently missed the clue that demonstrates the quality of his education.
2. My dad, a public school teacher, believed that every student should be guided to find meaningful education and training that suited their particular intellectual, temperamental, or physical gifts. His way of explaining this was, "We can't all be chiefs." We've forgotten that that's OK!
3
The real problem with the "single digit millionaires" is that there are so many of them that if you allow them to buy admissions slots the same way the truly rich do, that actually results in enough sales that it devalues the whole product.
Society can politely look the other way when a billionaire buys a spot for his child for a 10 million dollar donation - we can even make twisted arguments that this helps all the poor kids who it will theoretically subsidize. But that's fundamentally because there aren't many billionaires doing it. Admitting 1% of your class by taking bribes from billionaires still leaves a large enough percentage of the class based on "merit" that we can maintain the polite lie that those quotation marks need not be placed around the word.
But if you let mere millionaires buy places for just a couple hundred thousand dollars or, God forbid, maybe even less than six figures...now you've got a class where maybe 50% of the students have had their positions bought. And that ruins the whole thing. Because nobody can even pretend any more that there's anything meritorious in being in a class of people where half of them have bought their way in.
Basically people will put up with a few truly rich people abusing the system, but when the mere upper middle class starts cheating too...that is when revolutions occur.
192
Hear hear! Great comment.
I'd note the delicious irony that it is primarily the bourgeoisie who are both the most vested in the system (the people who pay $10k for SAT prep and private admissions counseling) and the ones who most rage against it.
They have both the most to lose in a radically altered economy/social pyramid and are the ones most outspoken in hastening its demise because they truly believe they deserve their place in it and will rise to the top regardless.
...they are in for a rude awakening
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@A
Great point
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@A great comment, well said
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I love all the moral preening going on here. I'm not at all surprised people with money to spend on bribes would do so. Under the right circumstances, I would too. If one of my children needed a lifesaving operation and would likely die before his or her "turn" came, I'd spend whatever money I had to put him or her at the front of the line. No, I'm surprised at the relatively trivial nature of the parents' objective in relation to the risk they assumed by participating in this fraud. Both of my kids are of above average intelligence and attended solid prep schools. However, when the time came to select a college, neither were qualified for a prestigious college or university, so they selected from among the schools for which they were qualified. I wasn't worried about their futures. Both received good educations and are now employed in promising careers. Most importantly, both are very happy. I have no reason to believe either would be happier or more successful if they were permitted to attend one of the exclusive schools.
1
Money appears to be the universal solvent, and not only for college admission. As soon as someone decides to run for public office, the first step is not developing a rationale, it's developing a bank account. If money is going to be the grease that eases one into college or politics, those with the biggest pots will have the loudest voices. A welcome bit of news is the ability of people like Sen. Sanders to raise huge sums in small chunks. But this is rare.
Way back in the late 70’s, when no one thought about test prep, and my family was too poor to have connections to anything, I applied to, and was wait-listed at, an elite college. The admissions officer told me that if accepted, I would not get financial aid. So, I withdrew my application and wound up going to my state university (now a national powerhouse in more ways than one). Thanks to low tuition, generous Federal Grants (what happened to those??), a bunch of scholarships, and work-study, I graduated debt-free and phi beta kappa with distinction. After a wonderful career, I went on to earn a doctorate in order to start another. That said, do I wish I had gone to that elite school? You bet. I’m a little bitter still, especially when I watch the back-slapping, name-dropping, elite-school clubbiness that permeates every work and social context among many people who should never have been accepted in the first place. We’ve created the monsters that game the system.
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I had a friend many years ago who was married to a millionaire. It wasn't enough for her. She wanted her child to grow up where she would never be denied anything. She divorced the millionaire and married a billionaire. The last time I saw her she didn't look any happier to me....end of story.
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Money doesn't immunize one against gun violence, so good luck with the cheating attitude in life--life has a way of hitting back against cheaters.
How come there’s no blame of the elite colleges? They are absolutely complicit in this sham. It seems they are cheapening their brand.
As for the families, I cannot imagine being raised by parents who had such little faith in my abilities and intelligence. A DNS’s these squeaky clean stars will now have this part of their bios. Shameful behavior.
2
I couldn't agree more. Yes, all named in the criminal complaint are (likely) culpable, but come on. Yale et al. shouldn't be permitted to sidestep this.
@SuzieQ Really hard to blame the schools for being duped by college coaches. Obviously they need to change the system now that its weaknesses have been exposed but there is no evidence that anyone in the admissions office had any knowledge of or participated in this scheme.
1
Another example of Corrupt Capitalism in action. This is the reason so many citizens are looking towards new systems -- this one is rotten, and rigged.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. One change in the tax code: 95% tax on ALL income over $10,000,000. Any one who can't get by on 10 mil a year needs some counselling. This won't get rid of the skintillionaires, but, after a few years, it will wear a lot of them down.
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There was no crime here - who was the complainant? This was a simple case of commercial bribery, which is totally normal in American Business.
If you think our Universities are "Ivory Towers" you are totally naive. They are luxury brands, just like Harley Davidson, Rolex and Gucci - nothing more. How were they hurt - by taking in a customer whose parents could afford the "heavy freight" of their tuition?
If the colleges want to fire their purchasing agents - the coaches - for not kicking the bribe money up, that's fine - that's their business; but when the FBI gets involved, it becomes everybody's business, and that is wrong.
Students getting "boosted" into college is not a threat to our system - it is our system. How did the Bushes' and the Kennedy's get in college? Were they not bought in?
Commercial bribery is an inherent feature of Capitalism - if it is a crime, so is Capitalism.
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The children of these wealthy celebrities would have lived close to charmed existences even if they hadn't gotten into the elite college of their first choice. Their parents' actions have doomed them to lives of perpetual mockery. Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad.
There is nothing more demoralizing and depressing than to find out the university spot you were aspiring to and working towards has been filled by a cheater. This is fraud, pure and simple and fraud is soul-destroying. We have to accept the fact that in the US access to higher education in general is not fair and favours the rich, but this is way beyond this inherent unfairness; it is gross and I for one am glad it is being taken seriously by crime enforcement. Sorry to say, the kids of the guilty parents, whether they knew or not what there parents were doing, should be kicked out. Kids have to work so hard these days to get anywhere, the competition is so much more intense than ever before -- to have to deal with this, no -- unacceptable.
When we paid due homage to religion, we realized that not only the rich, and not only the disadvantaged, but all of us, high and low, were capable of falling.
It's not just us, and it's not just the other guy.
We knew this once.
This is nothing new it’s just been packaged for the “tweet age of very short attention spans and instant gratification “. In San Mateo and Hillsborough California( Silicon Valley) where I had my business for fifty years, I dealt with these very affluent moms on a daily basis; giving false addressees to get your kid into a Hillsborough School grammar or high school for instance was quite common, giving gifts to administrators was quite common and among the “Tiger Moms” using such in your face insistence tactics that “their children be accepted” to a private, prestigious Episcopal grade school in San Mateo became so noxious that an administrator of this school took early retirement in frustration. The gifting of libraries and other such things has been around forever among the rich, especially by the legacy crowd( their daddies or mommies went there). Hey this is the new diverse America, a long ways from the more egalitarian days of the forties fifties and sixties where yes there were Yalies, but there were also excellent, free or almost free schools like San Mateo Junior College or U.C. Berkeley, there was also machine shops, auto mechanics, wood working and home ec. classes for those not interested in going to college but perhaps wanted to be a carpenter, mechanic or God Forbid a homemaker. Maybe Im just old but everyone did live a lot better then, at least in the Bay Area where I grew up
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It's become "racist" and "classist" to lump all the poor together as lazy, stupid drug-addled parasites on society. But it's totally okay to decide that all mere "single-digit millionaires" are greedy and corrupt. How is that really okay?
Mr Singer had a few clients. We know of about 50 people who did this. Yes, there are probably more, but we're not talking about a total corruption in college admission or all millionaires really deserving to be in prison. Oh, it makes a great vehicle to get one's opinion in the NYTImes! But is it true, let alone fair?
Most parents who value education, will do what they can to help their child get into the college. They do this in many ways - they insist that their child works to the best of their ability. They will attend all the "college prep for parents" meetings their child's school holds. They will find out about available, affordable PSAT/SAT prep courses. They will talk to their child about what the CHILD wants out of college. And yes, they will read their college application essay and suggest that there are many spelling errors and they might want to take another look at it.
Yes, some will hire expensive consultants - it probably gives them very little, if any advantage, but it makes the parent feel better. Most will not spend millions doing this - most a few thousand.
How is any of this in any way "wrong" and "unfair"? I guess it's also "unfair" that many of these children are very smart and hardworking, too.
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Those coaches that were fired weren't "little people"... they have massive salaries at USC & Yale... they were GREEDY.
College sports have corrupted everything in higher education.
What's really sad is that those "student-athletes" are going to be graduate without an education to fall back on when their bodies start to fail on them.
As someone who attended an elite university on a full ride need-based scholarship, I can only shrug my shoulders. I spent my undergraduate years joking that I was squandering the donors' money by studying Milton and James Joyce, doing theater, and reading Marx while taking bong rips in one of the hippie "co-op" houses on campus. Were it not for those willing to pay full tuition, I would never have enjoyed the full "college experience." That said, I harbor no pretense that I deserved any of this. Sure, I worked hard in high school, but I also aced the SAT with ease and threw myself at extracurricular activities like debate because being an intellectual bully seemed like good sport. Attending an elite school seemed like a strange, almost comical stroke of luck. Why should I get to graduate from a top five school with no debt while those less cognitively endowed than I had to work two jobs to pay tuition at Big State? More absurd than this cheating scandal itself is that the concomitant "graft" ultimately goes to support po' folk like me who stumble through the ivory gates, almost as if by accident.
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I attended Harvard College from 1976-1980. But I can honestly state that I only learned to think critically after studying the Talmud using the Socratic method of chevruta in an Israeli Yeshiva (Ohr Samayach).
American universities and colleges do not teach students to think critically, but rather to absorb information like a sponge and to regurgitate it on tests and papers.
I would go so far as to state: The goal of the American education system -- Ivy League included -- is to teach students ... until they no longer can think.
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Well said, Farhad. Thank you for your clear exposition of the stages of this stepped system of corruption. On the argument from the stronger, surely our international sense of entitlement to a disproportionate slice of most of the world’s resources shouldn’t stop at our borders. Can you please unfold the fully itemized menu of ‘side’ dishes! Lemme uber!
So can we finally put the "Meritocracy" myth to bed??
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Here is a problem within our society and why it makes some sense to cheat, to use whatever methods one can devise, to get into whatever college you choose: no one really knows what "smart" is. We have an idea, we have some standards, we have IQ tests, we have subjective ideas but we can't completely, fully pin it down.
Dumb is easier to delineate. No problem there.
Smart is what someone says it is and if that someone is the admissions committee of a school that rejects 94% of the people who apply, it sticks.
By looking at the admission statistics for Harvard some years ago, I made a modest discovery: Harvard rejects people with perfect grades and perfect SAT scores. What more do they want!?! You see, there are only so many assigned seats and they pick (drumroll) whomever they want. Doesn't matter the background, if they don't want you, you don't get in.
One of the smartest things Bill Gates ever did was to leave Harvard before graduating and start a company called Microsoft. Steve Jobs also left college and the rest is modern computing and business history. Einstein said the ultimate measure of intelligence is creativity. Problem: that can't be measured, nor can it be taught (it can be improved upon).
Don't be outraged at the parents who try to pay their kids way in, legal or not (or through legacy preference admissions, affirmative action for white kids). Be outraged at a system that tries to find and define the leaders of each generation with highly imperfect means.
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Mr. Farhad tries too hard to pin every societal problem on technology --- with catch phrases such as 'uberization of graft', 'push-button convenience', 'easing hurdles through an app' and 'venmo to fix.' I appreciate and share his views on the dark side of technology -- but his bias in viewing everything through that same lens is patently obvious here.
A 320 jump in SAT score in the Georgetown gal should have been a red flag for admission offices as well as the College Board unless they too are on the grave train . As for a "proctor" sitting next to a student with a 504 plan ( bogus or legitimate) : give me a break!
Remember how Joel Goodson, Tom Cruise’s character in Risky Business hooked up the Princeton recruiter?
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Oh boy. Why did the writer have to contort a simple story into some confusing Grand Unified Theory? Couldn't this be simply about how in addition to the outright illegal stuff that happened here, there's all kinds of other legal "this-has-nothing-to-do-with-the-applicant's-merits" stuff going on in College admissions?
1
Mr. Manjoo makes a snide reference to Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, but omits to mention the far more egregious preferential treatment shown by the legal system to Hillary Clinton and by the educational system to Ted Kennedy - or for that matter shown to many other Democrats.
This is NOT to say that Mr. Manjoo should not refer to Paul Manafort or to Jared Kushner - he should. But to position this problem as one that affects only Republicans is a distortion.
The problem will continue to exist in some form or another - as people will generally look for ways around any system. But the problem can nevertheless be minimized. It's a cop-out to say "We can't eliminate the problem". The responsible reaction: "We're going to effectively reduce the problem and we're going to address it when examples are brought to our attention."
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so just to make sure, we acknowledge that the victims here are the kids and their families who do the work, get the grades and scores and are denied admission because someone else, who wouldn’t otherwise measure up to them, took their spot ....
But Affirmative action is good.....
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We have occupants in the White House who have found the backdoor to everything. The new rich are just ensuring that they never have to deny their precious children of anything. Greed and getting over is how they live there lives. Study and the children say why should I. My parents will make it alright. Only a get over child would pretend that they didn’t know to the lengths there families went to get them into elite schools.
Academically challenged children should be in a private college but not in an elite school that they don’t deserve to be attending.
Question if you didn’t do academic work in high school how are you competing in college? At an elite school the work is ten times harder than high school.
Affirmative action has always been for white children now we see how rigged the system truly is. Didn’t read about minorities in this scam.
However Trump will act as if minorities were involved And Fox News will say Amen .
This is an admissions office program scandal at elite colleges. They failed to exercise due diligence and squandered their integrity and the integrity of higher learning. The Colleges mentioned in the indictment are the tip of the iceberg. All admission offices are suspect. In particular Harvard, that admitted admitted Jared Kushner one year after his father donated $1.2 million. Kushner’s grades and SAT did not meet Harvard’s admission requirements. The persons indicted are not as culpable as are the colleges where institutional corruption extends credentials to unqualified wealthy students for money and “gifts”. What a harm is there in that? George W Bush, Donald Trump come to mind.
A thorough investigation will enable reforms and collapse the corruption. It will also shatter the belief that wealth confers intelligence. Inherited wealth does not make a child smart. Earned wealth owes a large debt to luck and skills that are often narrow in scope. Inequality is institutional and college admissions perpetuate inequality in a way that is harmful to progress.
The phrase "uberization of graft" contributes to the tendency and temptation to skirt the real issue and bury it in verbiage; like the noxious "white collar crime," this euphemism pulls us away from the stark reality.
This is about greed. Dangerous, unchecked, viral greed. We have become a nation where money and what it buys are the sole measure of a person's worth. We allow the poor to suffer because in a corrupt capitalist system failure to have money is equated with moral failure.
What is so galling about this crime is that it's the people who least need a boost who helped themselves. The gall of listening to the GOP whine about "handouts" even as it forks over the nation's treasure to the 1% is grotesque. The FBI estimates that white-collar crime costs $300 billion a year in lost revenue. Imagine our schools with that boon.
Many live on austerity budgets to put our children through college. We pay our taxes in full even when that means forgoing vacations, new clothes, painting the house, etc. Where are our handouts? Where are our kickbacks and breaks? The simple truth is we would never take them because some of us actually have values. The crime is that our country does not value us.
I have an urgent question. Where do people think this leads? Every time we turn a blind eye or give a slap on the wrist (just look at the "prison" Manafort will be going to...a country club in all but name)we actively encourage the next crime. Those involved must serve time.
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Many of the posts seem to confuse truly massive donations, which few can afford and have little influence on the makeup of the typical admitted class with the massive preference for athletes, which squeezes all non-athletes.
In the palmy days of the English class system, before 1945, the sharpest line of division was between the people who had servants and the people who were servants. Even the lower middle class could afford to have a woman in a couple of days a week to "do for" the housewife. The working class could not, and their children went into service. As the American working class is driven out of the middle class by the global labor market, the same thing is beginning to happen, only in this country it's on a gig basis instead of a more or less permanent relationship. The Uber driver is the equivalent of the third world teenager who hustles a few coins by carrying your bag or guarding your parked car.
The perception that the college admission system advantages “rich white kids” is used to justify race-based affirmative action, but the system disadvantages far more poor white kids than poor black kids. The U.S. Census Bureau 2017 Poverty Report (Table 3: People in Poverty by Selected Characteristics) shows that 26.4 million white Americans, 8.99 million black Americans and 1.95 million Asian Americans live below poverty level. Whites make up 70.72 percent of Americans below poverty level.
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-263.pdf
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Corruption is the root of all evils in the American Society; it used to be the biblical "money"; but no, the moneyed want to become eternal, no end to their class.
Corruption has been identified even at international measures, and Mexico, for one, with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is fighting actively against it. I do not see much of that in America.
Trump grounds the 737's of Boeing, not the FAA, which lost credibility because the clear links with the airlines: pure corruption, same with the FDA, EPA an other government agencies, paid by all of us, citizens.
We, the citizens have a big job head of us: to put an end to the "American Age of Corruption."
We DO live in a meritocracy, just not the kind where every detectable difference in ability matters. It's more of an overarching principle. In other words, the truly brilliant will always succeed, but everyone else in the middle must fight for the scraps. Wealthy mediocre children have the advantage of wealth, and non-wealthy mediocre children have the advantage of diversity and lived experience. Colleges absolutely LOVE a story about a student who overcomes poverty or some life hurdle, so let's not pretend this isn't a factor being considered on a regular basis.
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I want to know what the universities plan to do about this. Not only the blatant bribery in this case, but the Jared-Kushner-style bribery that allows billionaires to donate a building so their child can get into Harvard.
They shouldn't be allowed to hide behind insincere statements that they'll hold corrupt coaches accountable. It's not the coaches, it's the universities. The universities need to state that substantial donations won't affect the admissions process.
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The fact that most students (70% at Harvard) at elite universities receive financial aid is evidence that the majority of students are not buying their way in. In fact there is a large emphasis on accepting students who are the first in their family to attend college. This scandal is clearly not the norm although children of wealthy parents and alumni have a definite advantage, the large majority of legacy students are rejected from most elite schools.
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@Mike Ford Please cite sources for the data to support your comment - specifically the suggestion that the large majority of legacy students are rejected. Many thanks.
@Duncan Hamilton Princeton is the only Ivy that publishes that data and they reject 70% of legacy applicants. Private data that is shared with parents of legacy applicants show that other Ivies have similar statistics. e.g. "Having a parent who attended Brown comes into play when applicants “are essentially equivalent,” in which case admission officers “will tilt toward the candidate whose parents attended the college,” Miller said. Google it.
What happens to the children who are now in college due to false claims on their applications? In most jobs, a person would be fired if it was discovered that their resume or application contained false information. Will the children be kicked out of the colleges? It seems only right, even if the children did not know that their application was falsified, which I find hard to believe.
let's keep in mind that these millionaire/billionaire cheats account for a very small percentage of the incoming freshman class, overall. Let's not make a sweeping doomsday indictment of our college education system which I bet is still among the most fair and merit-based in the world. There's absolutely nothing new here. If you are truly bothered by rich folks buying college admission - I'd say, why stop there? What about inheritance? What about legacy jobs? Aren't they "unfair advantages" given to rich children that are not merit-based?
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As many readers will realize, one of the standard complaints about "affirmative action" in universities is that the recipients of this benefit will feel less confident about themselves, and others will treat them as less deserving of their places.
Perhaps now we can transform this complaint into one about wealthy students. So if you attend a prestigious university and notice some particularly wealthy students in your classes, feel free to look down on them. They probably don't really belong there. If you're one of those wealthy students you may want to reduce your self-confidence level.
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Any young person who benefits from the commitment still has to do the hard work of acquiring good words and finishing first in all of his classes before he can do bigly after graduation.
I think your average, normal, non-criminal single digit millionaire would use their money to just pay the full tuition at a private college that their C student could get into, which is very many of them since you're paying the full tab, and that ranks high on getting kids to a degree. And buy private tutoring, let their kids matriculate slowly and meander around looking for something they like and can do. And in 6 or 7 years they have a degree and are probably employable and have no debt. That's legal and ethical, and a heck of an advantage compared to a poor A student, let alone a poor C student.
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Which is worse?
1. a parent using a bribe for their child's college admission?
or
2. a politician using dishonest tactics for self serving grabs for money and power ?
3. Elizabeth Warren dishonestly claiming to be Native American for her personal career advancement and political career at the expense of others?
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@jck
Answer?
4. Mr. Manjoo quoting Bob Dylan; he of the newly rolled-out small batch bourbon that he is endorsing......please.
Trump is a Wharton graduate and doesn’t know what the time value of money is. It’s probable Trump received his Wharton finance degree without ever understanding the most used valuation technique in finance.
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@Adam Donald Trump praises Mrs. Wharton as a wonderful teacher.
As delicious as it is to see these folks get caught (they will probably get a slap on the wrist come sentencing time, of course), there's another aspect of this.
While the wealthy are using both legal and illegal means to game the system and secure their children's status in the 1%, there are Black and Brown mothers sitting in jail because they used a fake address to make sure their child could have access to a halfway decent public school, rather than the underfunded and probably polluted school our system forced on them.
This is disgusting.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently said capitalism is irredeemable. Truer words have rarely been spoken.
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“Your reputation is in the hands of others. That's what the reputation is. You can't control that. The only thing you can control is your character.”
I like this quote from Wayne Dyer. I guess we know what these wealthy people involved lack is character.
I believe this is sending a very clear message to the children and it is not a good one. The parents are saying: where you go to college is important to me. With my position in the world, you have to go somewhere that makes me look good. I can't be shown up by everyone I know when their kids get into the top places.
I would bet that there has not been one conversation about what individual talents and strengths the kid has and what might be the best place based on that all important factor.
If you know what the kid's strengths and talents are, you may even be able to find the ideal place by working together. Then you can drive to them and check them out.
I read what this Lori L's daughter is doing at USC and she is doing nothing with her life. She is essentially selling junk over the internet and is not learning anything whatsoever. She even admits all she wants to do is party. Looking at her picture is somewhat disturbing. It looks as if she has perfected smirking and arrogance as a young adult.
But this is all really bad news for her. I can see her three divorces along in just a few years plus bored silly because she doesn't know how to do anything, analyze anything, appreciate anything in the arts, humanities, sciences and so forth.
I got my BA and Law Degrees from in state universities and I have read nothing here that makes me regret that.
I was amazed to discover that Felicity Huffman is actually in real life just like the obnoxious characters she plays!
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With each new day another example of how very far off track our nation has gone. This but the latest. It's been going on in one form or another forever, just more blatantly crass in our country now than before. Wonder why that is? That's rhetorical.
Shakespeare, Tolstoy, all the great chroniclers of human history describe this. It's in our nature. But we usually like it to be a bit more discreet, a bit more classy. Don't we? Sadly, it's all a carny show now, with a Barker-In-Residence.
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Money has always brought inordinate privileges. That is one of the perks of having money and will always be so. Not even Communism can rid us of the oligarchs of wealth. Your mission then is to create your own wealth and not be concerned with your rich neighbor who, by the way, is a rare bird.
2
Donations, college consultants, private high school, private sports coaches, summer fencing camp in France, special polo tutoring in East Hampton, bribery...the rich perceive value in elite schools are are willing to pay for that value. The result is EXACTLY the same as affirmative action: less qualified students get to go while more qualified students are discriminated against. Society will, and must, always question whether one's advantage came from a rich family or skin color. Either way, value is degraded.
Excuse me, the front door is for people who are smart enough to get in on their own, obviously.
It is not the side door. It is the front door.
Colleges have always accepted donations from rich people And "accepted " their kids at the same time. It is consensual.
It is capitalist education and capitalism is corruption by definition.
In the 18th century, the catholics of Maryland refused to send their youngsters to study in England because they were saying that English private colleges are just that : school for kids whose parents pay their way into social strata and they learn nothing, just party. So they were sending their kids to French jesuit schools.
1
It reminds me of the line from Jerry Maguire, when Dorothy, sitting in the back of the plane, tells her son that she's sad because first class "used to be a better meal, and now it's a better life."
2
BTW, the schools involved ought not to be given a pass as victims of these horrible scams. Complicit in perpetuating the entitlement of the entitled. Of course they got suckered by these "side door" entrants, but they taped they permanently jammed the dead-bolt on back door.
Personal note to Mr. Manjoo - sincere complements on the perfect use of Dylan's amazing line. One of my favorites.
With old fraudsters hanging around Trump and middle aged fraudsters gaming the university admissions system for the next generation of fraudsters, the university ratings publications are long overdue to expand their ratings categories. How about using integrity and moral character to rate the student body on a scale of 1-10? Trump went to the University of Pennsylvania, Manafort went to Georgetown, and Kushner went to Harvard. These universities are not admitting the best people.
1
Sorry, I don't get this column.
Bribery and fraud are crimes. The people accused of them deserve their day in court and if found guilty punished. The university admission system is a racket and perhaps it needs to be regulated. But billionaires are not "crushing this country". That some wealthy people committed crimes does not mean wealth is a crime. There are many wealthy people who did not commit a crime.
We must be careful to separate out using your resources to provide your kids every advantage you can and bribery. For someone, no matter their wealth, to hire tutors, essay consultants, or advisors is not a crime. People who earn their money legally can spend it any way they choose.
I reject the premise that this scandal is symptomatic of a society where the wealthy get a separate legal system or any other accusation. There are many children of wealthy people who earn their college degrees and proceed to rewarding careers which also help society. Medical schools are not solely full of the children of poor people. I have yet to hear someone bribe their way through anatomy.
As a graduate of an Ivy League school who could not afford to send his kids to an Ivy League school-I get your resentment. But, blaming innocent people and accusing the wealthy of crimes they did not commit is destructive, stupid, and vindictive.
College admissions need to be cleaned up and these families need to be punished if guilty. But, this isn't an indictment of our society.
The price of everything and the value of nothing. Welcome to the America run by the oligarchy.
3
Being from Haiti, I used to tell my wife more than 10!years ago that the US is learning corruption from country like Haiti. She used to argue that the US institutions and society do not tolerate corruption.
Aftwr Manafort and this college case, we have come to an agreement. It is not Haiti yet but well on its way.
2
For the past few years, I have been connecting themes in The Great Gatsby to the American college admissions race with my high school students because I have found it helps the kids understand Fitzgerald’s world a little bit better. There really aren’t many places in our society where wealth inequality, and the difference between the haves and the have nots, becomes so glaringly obvious. We start with this article (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/18/upshot/some-colleges-have-more-students-from-the-top-1-percent-than-the-bottom-60.html), which always leaves my students shocked and angry at how much the deck is stacked against poor and middle-class kids in our country.
This latest installment in the misadventured saga of American college admissions, however, is almost too perfect: The Tom and Daisy Buchanans' of the world have the right connections and the right amount of money for a well-placed donation to work in their child’s favor, while those nouveau riche Hollywood celebrities and single-digit millionaires are trying, in true Gatsbyesque fashion, to use any means possible to give their kids the same benefits the Kushner’s of the world have been doing for years. In the end, the new-moneyed fools are villainized and punished, while the well-connected politicians and billionaires continue to quietly write out checks for a new building at their favorite Ivy league school (where their child will “coincidentally" be accepted next year). Welcome to 1922!
2
I'm glad we're finally catching up to the other Third World countries. In those places, graft is an art form in which everyone is conversant. Here, you can buy a politician for just a few thousand dollars in campaign contributions and they'll follow you around like a dog for the rest of your life. In every other decent corrupt county, the politicians will take 10% right off the top - for any project. Now, who's the chump?
It's clear to most people that they will never be able to climb out of the circumstances in which they were placed by accident of birth; that they live in an extremely stratified society whose bounds are jealously guarded, and so the best thing they can do is to game the system just like their "betters". Middle class Americans, to a ridiculous degree, still pay their taxes, but I would even look for cracks in that bedrock soon.
2
We are tragically devolving into a corrupt country with characteristics similar to Putin’s Russia, where there exists an unholy, criminal alliance between the wealthy and the regime. The longer our Fake President remains in office, this corrupt nexus will only deepen and broaden as this democracy shrivels, almost unnoticed.
1
I don't see what the big complaints are about.
This type of status has been running around the world since before the Roman Empire existed. Enjoy your bread and circuses...your fast food and cable TV. The wealthy 1% will always have more to compile, complain about, make, look ugly and sell then the rest of us.
The downfall of nature caused by climate change will be the only solution to ante up our rabble-rousing. The wealthy can live on with their AI brains.
1
World's 26 richest people own as much as the poorest 50% of all the people on this planet.
1
I read this several times and remain puzzled why the author bothered writing it (other than trying a clever turn of phrase using "uber" - wink - get it?) It ultimately doesn't say anything the prosecutor and indictment haven't already said.
2
Thanks to the Don Imus, Howard Stern and Bubba the Love Sponge shock-jock mentality that gave us no less than Trump, a cadre of 40-something and 50-something men are fine with bribery or whatever it takes to get their kids into the schools that seal their fate as wealthy next -geners.
They’re not so fine with programs meant to give disadvantaged populations a leg up. Who do those people think they are! Ask Tucker Carlson. He can spout plenty of reasons to game the system and trivialize the long-term impact of slavery.
2
This system was basically affirmative action with money instead of race. Both lowered standards to admit people who didn’t meet the entry criteria for an institution.
Ah capitalism, it trudges along on its common and predictable path...
The Greeks, the Romans, London, so many empires with their little people hoarding so many coins, so many symbols that show they are safe, they are the best, they are the Gods.
After a few years, the children of the super wealthy become the new priests and priestesses of the now stultified culture, and the economy falters, and the rich become defined as the true citizens and the poor their servants, and soon, it all falls and becomes, Putinesque.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
1
Very astute observations. I have to say that Farhad is a far better opinion columnist than his past vocation of a tech columnist. College bribery scandal is just another verification of the age old dictum "fish rots from the head" The elite of the society are the Wall Street Vultures and financiers/rent seekers of sunny sort. Once they got scot-free after robbing the nation blind in 2008, it is the turn of wannabes to emulate the behavior but with much less finesse.
1
One thing missed in all of the discussions about this bribery scandal is that the parents had the audacity to write-off these bribes as charitable deductions on their tax returns. Shame on them for not only cheating their children and the schools, but also for asking our nation to subsidize their crimes.
125
I went to one of the colleges listed in this scandal, I graduated over 40 years ago. I'm not too surprised by this scandal. The next scandal I'm waiting for is student cheating in these elite schools to get the grades their parents expect. In my day I heard rumors, but I was so unconnected to the rich kids in school that I never saw it firsthand. The tension for grades on campus was palatable. If weaker students were so worried and in over their heads I'm sure they did something about it; and for some studying harder was not an option.
This is a broader class of problem as the relaxed standards for some students (especially athletes in minor sports) may have put these students in situations they could not handle even if their parents did not resort to bribery to gain admission. The added time commitment to participate in a sport at the college level is a big drain on time and energy and for a marginal student could be disastrous.
2
Corruption seems the name of the game; nothing new, but still. Remember an article published a few years ago, an interview of college students? When asked if cheating on their exams was O.K., the reply was unambiguous: Yes, it's fine...as long as you don't get caught. But if you think this happens only with the entitled rich, think again; we all are potentially corruptible when the prize looks juicy enough, and all that remains to be negotiated is the price we are willing to sell ourselves for. Of course, living in these amoral Trumpian times, where cheating and lying seem to have become the new normal, trying to stay true to ourselves may have become the exception. To our shame!
35
I got into St. John's on a croquet scholarship.
Go Platypus/Axolotl! Beat Navy!
The evolution of the human race has definitely turned the corner. Used to be that most folks tried to stop corruption, nowadays the dominant mantra is: " how can we get in on the corruption".
1
we are forgetting that this scandal is about the narcotic of college sports.
why are athletes given so much lee way.
The only thing different about this collegiate scandal is they found a new way to scam. The affluent always get what they want, back door, side door, front door, Venmo or not.
Manjoo is correct, corruption is the sad quality of the age. A day in the life is a series of encounters with corruption—petty, but adding up. The nature of corruption is the individual’s desire despite the needs of the world. Corrupt actors don’t recognize how we all depend on one another, are connected. We want to live in a hopeful, idealistic society, not one where, for instance, enormous energy is put into depriving people of health care. It starts small, and then a million corrupt actions later...those of us who remember when there were, of course, villains, but at least the good guys had a fighting chance—that is, because greed (i.e. “value added,” or some other absurd business idea) had not infected every corner of life, so that there was some stability in housing, access to medicine and education, pensions and unions—people enjoyed life itself here, for some part of every day.
1
We are losing our meritocracy and that is a huge concern. Soon we will have these not so intelligent, underserving students running the country. Wait, oh no, it’s already happening and he wants to build a wall instead of addressing real problems like climate change, health care, and the shrinking middle class.
3
Maybe I missed it, but I have not seen one post, one TV pundit or one twitter post bemoaning the lack of a solely merit-based system on the basis of affirmative action or other realignments of the system. (See Harvard admissions suit and DiBlasio specialized high schools).
The only ones surprised by any of this are those that were caught.
1
Good commentary. I quote the last sentence: "As Mr. Singer put it to his customers: “It’s the home run of home runs.” I would compare this nugget of wisdom to what one of Geo Busch's advisors told him about Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction being a "slam dunk."
1
I don’t agree with the idea of buying permanence. Nothing is permanent and no matter how much money you have, cancer, mental illness, tragic accidents, etc don’t seem to care about your bank account and private jet.
I feel really sorry for the lesson of ‘how to get along in the world’ these kids have learned. Unfortunately they probably have straight A’s in that ‘subject’.
This entire thing is laughable--college admissions have been sold forever. It seems the only error these women made (and where are the fathers in all this?) was in cutting out the universities, who aren't used to such crass disregard!
Anyone with a checkbook large enough to name a building or pay to name a practice field has been able to get their kid into college regardless of their qualifications. The real criminals in these crimes are the universities and, in the case of student athletes, an oxymoron if ever one existed, the NCAA.
This is all an illusion. The feds will arrest and maybe even throw probation at a few famous actresses, end the careers of a few coaches, and force whomever to impose some organization to impose penalties of some sort on universities, while holding the children of celebrities up to ridicule as being far less than their parents, all in an effort to assuage the masses that no one is getting away with anything. In a few months, university administrations will wipe their foreheads with relief and return to their fundraising, admitting the children of donors with impunity.
46
@Davina
Sounds a bit cynical but on reflection clearheaded and most likely prophetic.
3
@Davina "Probation"? I don't think so. I'd guess most of these people will spend some time in prison.
1
@Davina the husbands are right there hiding behind their wives skirts.
2
"Excess wealth doesn’t just buy shiny things. It buys power and influence, it buys class and it buys permanence."
It may buy class status, but one cannot buy class, the gold plated toilets in Manhattan show that.
Class is exuded, or not, and no amount of money will buy it. Having class is a learned behavior, often the people with the least amount of it claiming to have it when least appropriate.
People can buy anything, including college admissions, yeah, that's the way the world works, while the rest of us play by the rules.
Punishment for this, in addition to fines, prison, restitution, whatever sentence given, should include - every person found guilty being forced to pay, lock-stock-and barrel, the 4 year college tuition, room, board, books, travel expenses for a deserving student who otherwise wouldn't be able to go to college because of their financial situation.
3
Wealth is a sign of a robust economy and if some wish to abuse their wealth, then they do it at their own risk. The scandal is not an indictment of the rich or the semi-rich. It is a moral question of right and wrong. To extrapolate that money is intrinsically evil is simplistic at best and unethical at worst. Bloomberg gave $1.8 billion on top of other millions to my alma mater with the express purpose to help kids whose families could not pay. The actions of the college bribers are theirs and theirs alone, not some perverse universal evil associated with money. Money is nothing but a tool for people to use for good or ill.
7
@dudley thompson Totally agree. And thanks for mentioning Mike Bloomberg as a billionaire who has used his money for the good of society. However, given the current inequities in our society and the fact that so many people are disillusioned with the American dream, I can't say that I can blame them. This wasn't so when I was growing up. Back when I was in school (in the 60's and 70's) about 70% of my classmates were children of immigrants (as I was) and we never doubted for a moment that we lived in a meritocracy, and that our dreams of getting a college education would come true if we worked hard enough. Sadly, the world has changed and cynicism rules.
3
@Betti College admissions were just as easily bought and paid for back then but fewer people cared because the competition was less intense.
It might be worth considering that many institutions of higher learning were in fact begun by the so-called elite because they had the money, the libraries and the ideas to do so. Harvard was established in 1636, Yale was founded in 1701, Georgetown in 1789 - their inspiration brought over by America's early settlers and based on England''s longer tradition of formal education. Wealth may beget wealth but philanthropy can also beget philanthropy, and those early benefactors and their generations of heirs have continued to found and fund many of America's public and private institutions.
A history that has appropriately benefitted countless generations shouldn't be tainted by this recent episode in the long annals of human selfishness and duplicity.
2
@Harley Many of these institutions were funded by the owners of slave ships and the buildings constructed with slave labor.
1
Isn’t the next step for all of the upper crust who graduated from elite institutions to think that THEY are the real victims of this scam? After all, doesn’t this scam demonstrate that people might think that they too benefited from having strings pulled on their behalf when everyone should know that everything they have accomplished has been merit-based?
3
This cheating and gaming the system is another reason we need to tax the wealthy. Tax their wealth so they can't use it for nefarious deeds.
3
Corruption is a perpetual danger to the integrity of the state and the safety of its citizens and it requires constant vigilance to contain it given human nature. One only needs to look at other less successful societies to see what happens when this vigilance isn't present. The preservation of the integrity of state's institutions and more important the perception of integrity is paramount. Some good may come out of this (and we probably haven't heard the last of it) by raising the vigilance level.
1
It's hard to believe these superior Ivy institutions are so easily fooled. They must be simply giving these admissions to their schools a wink and nod and a shuffle of the paperwork.
Schools must have been anticipating this sort of cheating for years and, with all their smarts, should have been using algorithms or simply their own contacts in the tech world to eliminate the too good to be true cheaters from their admissions.
2
@Lynn Only one Ivy (Yale) is implicated in this scandal. The media is trying to make it all about elite colleges when USC, Texas, Wake Forest and Georgetown may be competitive, but are certainly not elite.
Campbell’s Law; "The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor." Donald T. Campbell
1
Sounds like it's going to turn out to be some expensive husband shopping for a few of those parents! One of those young ladies seemed to proclaim on social media that she wasn't there for the academics,
4
@mjjt best comment yet! This literally made me laugh out loud.
First my n = 1 personal anecdote, then a broader view.
In 1953 as a first year Teaching Assistant in Geology 101 at Yale, I was approached a male student who told me that his parents could provide me with resources - no longer remember what kind - as long as he received a passing - grade. I had grown up on my grandparents' farm in Seekonk MA where there was very little money. That student taught me my first lesson about my country of birth.
The broader view is provided by Masha Gessen in The New Yorker 3/13:
"It (the college-admissions scandal) bears savoring and retelling, because it says something intuitively obvious but barely articulated about American society: its entire education system is a scam, perpetrated by a few upon the many."
Too strong, overreaching? At some time long past I might have thought so. What did I know? Nothing. Then I persuaded my wife and child to move to Sweden in 1996 when I retired from the University of Rochester.
Here, I have helped many 100s of high-school students who came as asylum seekers with their homework. I have learned much about the educational system with all its many flaws.
But I also learned these things:
Higher education, even Medical and Law School is free.
Entry is via GPA and national exams.
An able student can enter Medical School directly on graduation from high school.
Do the impossible, give all qualified those things.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
14
Let's keep in mind that this case, though egregious, likely represents only a minuscule percentage of all college admissions. Even the broader use of wealth to gain admission (with admissions consultants who help write students' essays, financial contributions to schools, etc) is probably an only slightly larger fraction of all admissions.
We should not be distracted from the much larger problems that prevent higher education from being a "great leveler" in our society, such as the underlying income and wealth inequality that prevents many academically-qualified young people from even going to (inexpensive) public colleges and universities, the shoddy K-12 schools that prevent many young people from getting decent college preparation, etc.
4
I remember a financial advisor once praising our frugality, and announcing that we finally had enough money such that our family down through the coming generations would always have wealth. I laughed. One medical issue, one heartbreaking offspring, one lawsuit, and financial security is gone. No one earns enough money to stay on top. And the cutie little portfolios of millionaires are just the next morsel for immoral billionaires to snap up.
5
"Excess wealth doesn’t just buy shiny things. It buys power and influence, it buys class and it buys permanence. It buys the corrupt certainty that every one of life’s problems might be evaded through some special side door, and it does so at the expense of not just the poor but all of us, shattering even the thin illusion of meritocracy that still somehow seduces American politics."
The best argument I've seen in favor of a graduated, very progressive income tax. The wealthy cannot be trusted to do the right thing with their money.
7
I wonder whether the Trumps employed these under the desk contributions to get their kids into college? E Scott has an interesting article in the Washington Post about this.
This could easily become a very big scandal that will sweep up thousands of affluent parents, coaches, and admissions officers. The students are also in an unenviable position - they'll get a taste of the stigma black students have suffered from owing to misperceptions about "quotas".
I wonder how many wealthy white parents out there are experiencing agita this week over their secret involvement in these shameful pay to play conspiracies?
6
@JFR Trump has admitted that he was able to transfer into Penn with the help of his brother's friend who was an admissions counselor and conducted his interview. Likewise Ivanka transferred into Penn as well. The Donald is too cheap to buy his children into a top school or they would have all gone to Harvard with Jared.
2
I recently traveled outside the US for a couple of months after graduating from an American University. And I discovered the infatuation with elite schools is uniquely American, at least among developed nations.
To be sure, the obsession with college sports is also uniquely American. College sports recruiting, and the special treatment served to athletes in the application process, precipitated Singer's Side Door. Last time I checked, the violin instructor isn't guaranteed spots in the freshmen class, no questions asked.
6
"Twenty years ago, the New Jersey real estate mogul Charles Kushner gave $2.5 million to Harvard; a few months later, his son Jared got a place in the freshman class."
Finally, some public discussion about higher education and what a transactional business it is.
Higher education is a ginormous, competitive industry, not a humble equalizer of people of all societal classes, so branding is key, particularly for the most expensive and "elite" institutions. The wealthy burnish the brand and perpetuate the myth of excellence through charitable donations. Yes, it is that simple.
Let's hope that the scientists and engineers building our planes, boats, armaments and automobiles and studying dreaded diseases and negotiating our foreign treaties didn't buy their way into their respective colleges and that they didn't pay someone off to get their diploma.
Whatever became of Trump University?
6
The obsession with getting into a prestigious college is a distinctive trait of America’s upper middle class…I’m Australian, and there is nowhere near the same fixation with attending elite schools… I went to a private school, and I got the marks to get into the country’s most prestigious university. Sure, my parents were happy, but they would’ve been fine with whatever decision I made for my future. They would have supported me had I chose a different degree at a less elite school, or had I wanted to pursue acting or painting or car mechanics.
I think this is the sign of a society with a stable middle class and strong social safety nets - you can still have a very good life, regardless of whether you’re a businessman or a bartender.
In America, it’s a different story.
Recently, I went to visit a distant aunt and her family in a fancy town in Connecticut. She and her American husband have two school-age children. The family is upper middle class and are desperate to stay in that stratum… During my visit, the parents spoke non-stop about getting their children into elite colleges. Every conversation revolved around SAT scores, tutoring, scholarships etc. The parents see a prestigious university as the security pass that will keep their children cocooned in the top 10% of the country.
And as America’s middle class rapidly hollows out, who can blame them? It’s a long way to fall from upper-middle class to working poor.
It all felt very third world.
22
I don't see this as "Uberization" but rather as "Micro-enrichment" through micro-payments.
Nobody does anything without "fair compensation".
Every transaction (of every type, there are trillions each day) involves an exchange of something of value for something else of value - information, time, convenience, access, safety, promises, …., college admission, and money.
Why not monetize it? That's the American way, the Trump way.
If value is being exchanged then some profit should be made (by the side with the power), it's only fair.
1
Well said. This is millionaires trying to emulate billionaires.
4
An interesting take on a disturbing news story. Isn’t special treatment what we are all being sold?
Beyond Ivy League admissions, lucrative internships and other substantive advantages for the wealthy the concept has trickled down to the masses (albeit in less valuable forms). I’m referring to the trend towards ‘elite’ and ‘member only’ status and benefits we are influenced to strive for from airline programs to supermarkets. Amazon Prime being a major example of this and now other retailers are on the bandwagon. Go to Whole Foods and there are regular prices, sale prices and ‘special prime member’ prices.
We are driven to this madness in a quest to be special and get special treatment.
What disgusts me about the college admissions scandal is that the prodigy of the wealthy are by virtue of the family wealth and connections practically guaranteed a good life without an Ivy League degree. They don’t need any more advantage.
By usurping these coveted slots they take away the chance for a hardworking and qualified student from getting a better life.
8
@DMurphy Keep in mind that Yale is the only Ivy implicated in this scandal through the actions of one coach. Don't lump the other 7 schools into a scandal that is really more about USC which is clearly not an elite school; it is not even the best school in LA.
Here is the secret to living well in this country become rich. People will talk things to death but nothing will change for the people that are not wealthy. Maybe, just maybe if another FDR or LBJ comes around but I am not holding my breath.
13
I was accepted to Harvard in 1975 from Lowell HS in SF. 11 of my peers were not accepted; 1 later entered as a legacy from the wait-list. At least 5 or 6 of those peers of mine from SF deserved to get in; some went to Yale & had brilliant careers.
I wasn't that keen on Harvard. I wanted Cal, but a much-loved teacher talked me into accepting the Ivy L. What I know 100% is that the overwhelming majority -- better than 90% -- of the Harvard men&women (it was all Harvard Admissions then, for the 1st time ever) were absolutely brilliant. A few were there because of connections, no doubt. Some, it became apparent over time, hired other people to do their work. But in 1975, most -- truly, Most -- were deserving, brilliant, committed scholars. To this day, I would say the highest concentration of Genius I ever spent time with, for almost 5 years (grad school) was during 1975-1980 at Harvard
Corruption has crept in & grown exponentially, as we can now see. The cheating scandal, the bought places (Jared Kushner's) are not some minor offense. In each case, a Deserving Brilliant Scholar who has the capacity to do the genuinely hard work it takes to get accepted on her/his own merit is literally Robbed of their future. Society is robbed of the contributions they might have made.
We wind up with Trump, the Trump Crime Family, Jared Kushner (BFFs with MBS) in the Oval. Plus, planes that are badly designed, that kill people. It all starts with the college admissions process.
18
@Maria Ashot
No, it starts in the womb bywhat is now, the bought GOP finding ways to withhold pre-natal care, and after birth withholding medical care and food by penalizing Medicaid and SNAP recipients, zoning to limit access to education so brilliant minds don't even get out of HS.
No, it starts much earlier than college admissions. That is the result of wealthy corruption not the cause. It's the the final crowning glory that their lives of graft have successfully secured their unfair place in society.
And after there are all those unpaid internships racking up connections to influential people to jump the line for you know, job interviews, resumes, day long star chamber inquisitions designed to weed out we regular folks who went to the Ivy's and other important schools on scholarship pulling our own weight.
2
@Maria Ashot The students at Harvard and all of the truly elite schools are more brilliant today than they were in the mid-70's when you and I were in school. The increased competition forces Harvard to reject more than 80% of the valedictorians who apply. It is this level of competition accompanied by the increased number of wealthy Americans that has led to all of this corruption although it is still a small percentage of the applicant pool. It is actually much more difficult today for a legacy to gain admission. The largest waste of spaces undoubtedly goes to athletes but then the alums want to see the Crimson beat up on the other Ivies every Saturday in the fall.
The prestige given to Ivey League graduates is the problem. Certainly other schools can and do teach just as well. Remember we are talking about basic science, math, history, literature and writing taught to undergraduates. There is no special curriculum that only Ivies can teach, This prestige is a crutch used by those who don’t know how to assess real accomplishment and merit. Funny how those with an Ivey degree always want you to know about it. Tell me instead what good you have done with your education.
19
@Tom Kocis it’s not about the quality of education you can receive. The college you attend speaks to how hard you work because top schools are so difficult to get into. It takes sustained dedication to academics for four years of high school iust to be accepted to a top school.
@Tom Kocis Other schools may teach the same courses but they don't have the same quality of students. At elite schools students are learning as much or more from their peers and the emphasis is on group study, group projects, etc which is leading to the huge increase in startups.
What's new?
If there is a system, there will be someone with less than perfect ethical standards who will find a way to game it.
That's how the mediocre wealthy stay at the top of the pile.
Mr Trump got into Wharton on his own merits, right?
Thought not.
10
American Myth No. 157: Income inequality (and its stepchild corruption) is a victimless crime.
We are all victims, individually and collectively. As personal wealth rises, empathy, goodwill, etc. decline, eventually shredding social cohesion. Ethical deterioration is always attributable to other people but we never see it in ourselves.
Economic costs are measurable in what is taken from other people in lower economic growth, meager to negative wage growth for the 90%, lost tax revenue and more. Globalization has allowed the wealthy to put allegiance to country well below status as 'citizens of the world' so that workers in this country are treated with no more consideration as those in Viet Nam, Central America, and other low cost countries, and cost of everything from housing to internet to health insurance goes up. Technology has not made life easier, just made everyone work longer and harder. And this doesn't even begin to consider the increase in social costs such as pollution, traffic, noise, and so forth as everyone considers himself a free agent and acting socially responsible is the obligation of 'other people.'
Even the sharing economy is little more than another transfer wealth that makes a few people very wealthy and most everyone else worse off, creates higher underlying costs by distorting markets, and adds little to no new value to the economy.
America is the land of the monetized and the home of the transaction.
19
The "elite" bribable universities have proven themselves to be crooked. Why would anyone hire or wish to go to any of them? The fact is it really doesn't matter where one goes to university. What matters is that the student becomes a complete individual, can collaborate with others and is a positive contributor to the world. George Bush's entry into Yale, Kushner at Harvard, trump to the Wharton School of Business. I would like to see their high school grades.
15
In the early 19th century, Universities were about centers of learning and more learning. Today, its about the endowment funds from illustrious alumni couched as centers of excellence. We came a long way into 21st century to discover the basic truth that institutionalised corruption pervades and permeates across the privileged echelons of our societies - we don't need a PhD to figure that out.
3
Mr Manjoo
An Us against Them dynamic has arisen in the West, aided and abetted by the 'victory' against communism in 1989.
Gone is such a quaint notion as 'noblesse oblige' whereby the most fortunate members of society were expected to invest in the nation's future through thoughtful donations to expand educational opportunities for the greater number.
Now there is nothing but mutual alienation and contempt between the social classes. This communication gap facilitates the utterly guiltless actions of America's affluent to buy their kids' way to guaranteed success.
3
I believe it was the state and city schools that launched a lot of brilliant careers—the fancy schools, well, they were for a few brilliant souls and people going into business.
6
The direct link between money and power has always existed, but in present-day America it seems particularly blatant and ubiquitous. Look no further than Citizens United, the clearest possible expresion of that link.
On the other hand, the very fact that the people involved felt it necessary to act surreptitiously, rather than out in the open, indicates that this kind of thing does not yet have universal popular approval. Just wait a few years ...
7
Not many mentions have been made of these kids getting special accommodations, such as separate rooms and lots of extra time, for test-taking. But that's the easiest and most frequent fraud for getting into a better college.
When I was in college 20 years ago, lots of my classmates got special treatment at exam time. I am sure it helped their GPA and their GRE scores for business school. None were from a disadvantaged background.
Getting their kids certified as having a learning disability is the first step that even middle class parents frequently do these days to give their kids a chance to get better grades and better test scores. And that doesn't take a lot of money. Just think of the lessons that those kids took away from this.
9
There will always be someone willing to pay a bribe to get a contract, an advantage, or whatever. The only constraint is the institution - whether government, college or business. If the institution has systems in place - and an overall environment intolerant of bribery - there won't be bribery.
If you look for countries where bribery is rampant, it's rarely because the people are more corrupt, it's usually because the government is corrupt. If it were the people, they would carry their corruption when they migrate to other countries. But with the exception of criminal gangs (e.g. Mafia) corruption rarely travels with immigrants.
If the Ivy League colleges want to root out corruption, they don't need laws or regulations to do so. They just need to reject explicit or implicit bribes.
9
This tendency is not limited to just rich and corrupt US parents. Many similar rich and corrupt parents from around the world also flock to the US to get their children admitted to American universities. Such tendency is equally or, many be, more visible among Asian parents. These American parents can visit India to understand the long term consequences of it. No, I don't expect such wisdom from those rich and corrupt parents from abroad who basically destroyed their own country and its education system and now desperate to getting out of it.
These people also know that such degrees hardly matter in real life. Those children will inherit powerful positions anyway- irrespective of degrees or what they learn or able to learn. Academic degrees and standardized tests lost most of its values since last 4 decades as US higher education sector had been transformed to just another for-profit industry and a means to supply cheaper and easily exploitable employees to various employers, including universities themselves.
5
Very perceptive. This story is about the spreading slime of greed and presumptive privilege below the billionaire class that owns us all. It's evident in the crime. It's also evident in the outrage. There's a startling consensus that education is no more than a weapon with which to scratch and claw over others, scaling the American mountain of power, money, status and acquisitiveness. How unfair that the rich and near-rich seize that weapon first for their kids. What about mine? Even the public moralizing is grotesquely selfish. The entire national wall-to-wall media show we're now seeing reminds me of nothing so much as any episode of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians."
4
Such vitriol in the comments - I feel sorry for the kids - they were under-performing academic lightweights going in and they will graduate as the same lightweight academics - just with a fancy piece of paper - assuming that they even graduate.
How do I know that not a one of them is studying engineering.
And that is the dirty little secret - you don't need to go Ivy to get a world class engineering degree - indeed many Ivy's don't have very good engineering programs - any state school will do just fine.
7
Farhad, this is the opposite of what Uber does. Uber democratizes access to public services, and primarily provides benefits to the poor side of the economic spectrum.
2
@Alex
Kindly look up what the word 'uber' means in any english language dictionary or, simply google the word. It is not a business!
@Alex. Very funny!
If you are surprise about the recent stories high income people using money to bribe college coaches and other corrupt college admission and testing practices then you are asleep.
America is plutocracy, it is a country by the rich and for the rich.
6
The app metaphor does not work.
My niece, who gets straight As at a certain large western Massachusetts university, tells me about a saying that students have: "Cheat or repeat." Cheating is a strategy these days, not seen as immoral by students. On the contrary--to succeed by cheating is seen as a victory. And there are many modern ways to cheat, from smartwatches to wifi-connected calculators to apps such as Group Me.
The honest people are the suckers these days. A society cannot survive like this. An entire half of our political system is led by a phony, and he has an 85% approval rating among them. Trouble is, we need real doctors, real engineers, real pilots, and real leaders.
10
Not addressed in this latest scandal is the role of standardized exams.
Maybe the parents should be "fined" and that money used to endow scholarships for worthy students who play by the rules.
Shouldn't their kids be expelled or, if already graduated, have those fraudulent diplomas voided?
BTW wasn't it Teddy Kennedy who paid someone to take exams for him?
4
I loved CNN's Rosemary Church's response to this story: "Simply Shameful."
The humiliation of these parents will be a far greater deterrent than prison time.
And then there's the sheer amount of money it costs to go to a college, not just the elite schools but your average school. Who's grafting whom? Is the parent who paid $500,000 in bribes actually bribing? Or is she the mark being grafted by a scam dressed up in fancy clothes?
2
I guess my son is a "chump." He got into Princeton through the front door - - no legacy status, no rich parents, no fancy private school. I'm proud that he was admitted on the basis of merit. He loved Princeton and flourished while there. Kudos to the public schools of our town, which prepared him well for the rigors of Princeton.
12
I loved CNN's Rosemary Church's response to this story: "Simply Shameful."
The humiliation of these parents will be a far greater deterrent than prison time.
2
@jzu Yes, they are humiliated, but the article seems to doubt whether they will get much, if any, prison time. In contrast, teachers who helped their students cheat on standardized exams, are in prison right now. They were also humiliated by publicity, but their lives were upended by the sentences.
But that's assuming these people are shamable. Unlikely, and probably the reverse.
The saddest thing about this issue is that after four hours there were only forty-nine comments to Tom Friedman's thoughtful column on the qualifications necessary for a President, while this story about a couple Hollywood people getting busted had over three thousand comments. The next day when Friedman had 319 for his discussion, there were 4276 for Hollywood.
That pretty much sums up why a Trump can get elected from either party.
8
@Steve Fankuchen Despite the media focus on the 2 actresses, this wasn't about Hollywood at all. Almost all the perpetrators were business people.
@Steve Fankuchen : I'm halfway in agreement. It's true that many Americans are inexcusably under-informed about politics *and* make no effort to change that. But it's also true that TF is preaching to the choir with regard to prez qualifications -- the NYT demographic isn't the bloc that elected DJT, so many would give his piece a pass (I did).
This story has captured the imagination, and enraged many of us, because these miscreants have assaulted one of the few things that we Americans like to pretend is still relatively uninfected by greed an influence *and* one of the few gateways to achievement in life.
I really don't see the point of all these articles speculating about the deeper motivations of the well to do people involved in this illegal action. These are mostly business people, of small to moderate size businesses, who probably cheat on many things in life.
6
What does this say about how we love our children - is it about making them symbols of parental success and power? Are our prestigious institutions of what is purported to be about higher learning complicit in the superficial goal of wealth, materialism and image as recognition of success in life. What does the video of the the adolescent girl who got into a "good" school say about her perspective on what is important? Her vacuous comments can not match the achievements and aspirations of the Parkland kids who show intelligence, leadership. compassion, commitment - the hallmarks of what really counts in self-realization and being able to make contributions to society. I am grateful there are a lot of young people like them. .
14
@Margaret Fraser -- Yes! One of the things that enrages me about this story is that these parents are clearly (if unconsciously) preoccupied with how their kids reflect on them. With money and connections at their back, not one of these kids will have any trouble finding work or even a career (well, those who can function after being brought up by narcissists), so there's no justification for doing this.
As Loughlin's elder daughter said some time ago: "Mostly my parents really wanted me to go because both of them didn’t go to college." So her parents know that college isn't essential for success *and* this daughter has said she isn't into school *and* she already has a career as a [barf] "influencer" -- so what kind of weird "I'll live vicariously thru you" or "You need to shine bright in order to reflect well on me" garbage is going on?
Dreadful enough as a commentary on parenting, but for these vile people to have stolen two spots from kids whose parents aren't rich and connected -- there are no words.
Living in Los Angeles for so long, I have known numerous Hollywood actors. As a class I've found them not to be particularly bright. Apparently that applies for their children as well.
7
@KC Despite the media focus on the 2 actors, most of the people involved in this were not - they were business people. The scandel has little to do with Hollywood. These are probably the same people who do petty cheatin on their taxes, claiming deductions they don't deserved, etc.
7
A total of 33 parents are charged in the college admission scandal. That is not enough to incriminate an entire economic class.
9
@William Case
Sure, let's ignore the tip of the iceberg as something insubstantial! Perhaps we should also ignore our progression from a republic to a kleptocracy. It's fitting that Americans elected a president who is the poster boy for privilege and underhanded processes.
6
As a decidedly middle class Los Angeles resident who's child attended an "elite" private school chock full of Hollywood moguls of all types, from grades 6-12, I share your concern. I was often in awe at the work ethic and course load of these "children of royalty." An often repeated mantra in our house:
"Don't slack off-you are lucky to be there-Look at THAT kid;they have access to any school with their name/connections, yet take the hardest classes, get jobs, are so concerned with grades-EMULATE THEM"
4
@William Case
It's not, but when you're an opinion columnist trying to come up with something original to say about a topic everybody already has read pretty much all they need to see, it is.
To the writer: No, this kind of corruption really has nothing to do with the "gig economy."
Straightforward fix: every applicant who meets the minimum standards for admission and athletics are excluded entirely other than counting as a single extracurricular activity, is assigned an ID number and placed in a lottery.
This side door hiring out the real work happens all along the academic route: I had doctoral candidate classmates who assigned their dissertation research and production to their secretaries and assistants. They only showed up with the final product in hand, although their hands never touched it from beginning to end. They thought it was their due. Some have been awarded the profession's highest honors for their "contributions".
4
As Balzac noted, behind every great fortune there is a crime. Perhaps an ongoing series of crimes repeated by succeeding generations.
11
The people who benefit the most from the “seeking diversity in admissions or faculty hiring” stacked deck complain the most about how unfair the system is and use this run of the mill bribery scandal to justify their endless push for more accommodations and preferences.
3
I submit that every comment should be prefaced by how many kids people have and which schools they did not get into. Or which schools they did not get into themselves. It would save time reading between the lines.
4
@RRI -- Try again. I'm completely enraged by this, and I earned my BA at Cornell and my MA at Hopkins, both of which I was eager to attend.
Humans who have empathy can be joyful or enraged on behalf of another person; in this case, many of us are sickened by the elimination of opportunity for kids who are already struggling. (A handful of parents were caught, but it's highly likely that this goes on elsewhere, has for a long time, and has eliminated lots of slots for those with few, or no, assets.)
Can't help wondering whether your post implies that you think injustice is a good thing.
7
As was predicted, this winter has suffered through a severe level of affluenza.
12
Several comments mention the "damage" done to the kids, who internalize their mediocrity. Um, no. I know tons of kids who used connections to get into colleges (Dartmouth, Harvard, Georgetown, to name a few) and even get their first jobs. No one cares at all how they got it. Everyone is stressed out about getting into college, and suddenly they get into Georgetown when they were otherwise qualified for a school like Michigan or Vanderbilt at best? Still good schools, but significantly easier to get into. HURRAY! I grew up in exactly this type of environment and no one cares at all if they use connections, everyone is very happy to do it and not at all troubled by the fact they wouldn't have gotten in otherwise.
12
@alex
Hmmm...Vanderbilt, at least, is significantly harder to get into than Georgetown.
@W I just looked up the statistics and you’re right. That wasn’t the case from my high school. Had to be in top 10% to get into Georgetown (unless you were a legacy), and top 20% for Vanderbilt.
I'm shocked, shocked that university admissions in the US are corrupt (apologies to Claude Rains).
Anyone who's been paying the least attention cannot believe that:
(1) admission to colleges and universities in the US has primarily to do with merit.
(2) academic excellence is the principal focus of Amrican higher education.
(3) wealth and influence plays no role in American academic credentialing.
Grow up. Pay attention.
13
@richard You missed it but US admissions are holistic, not based on merit.
2
@richard : Or, *you* could pay attention and realize that the landscape used to be very different.
I can't speak for all who are shocked, but I'm old enough to have gotten into college when grades, scores, and essays did it; my middle-class family contributed nothing (I even received some financial aid). Same for my friends, siblings, and cousins (all in our 50s and 60s) -- Cornell, Tufts, Princeton, Brown, Brandeis, Amherst ...
We were very fortunate, and I liked thinking that young people now could be equally fortunate; it's painful to know that they face yet another obstacle in this increasingly unfair world.
Some comments suggest a strictly academically-focused, merit-based admissions process. If we could make all public k-12 schools high quality (and do away with private schools altogether), then we could implement an academically-focused merit-based admissions that would be closer to fair. In the current educational situation, two kids with equal IQs and work ethics will likely have wildly different academic transcripts if one went to an elite prep school and one went to a Title 1 school. You can't put robotics club, quiz bowl team, a dozen AP courses, and three years of Mandarin on your college application if your school didn't offer any of those. And what if we just did a standardized test? That would be a little better, but again, rich schools tend to have environments that are more conducive to learning-- more highly-qualified teachers (a lot of private schools require a master's degree), smaller class sizes, and students who do not constantly disrupt the learning of others. Additionally, the aforementioned academic enrichment offerings of elite schools would likely put their students at an advantage even if the tests focused on Common Core. Who do you think could write a better essay--the kid who took AP Language and AP Literature or the kid who took regular English lit and composition in an overcrowded classroom with an overworked teacher? College-admissions inequality is merely a symptom of the deeply complex, horrendously unfair educational system in this country.
27
@H Beautifully stated. Bravo! We also need to get the Betsy DeVos' out of the education system. She pushes private schools with a single minded goal- separating us into classes of the rich and everyone else.
14
Is it under qualified teachers or the lack of appropriate investment in public education where instructors and administrators alike are continually pushed to take on caseloads that resemble assembly lines? Eighty percent of the faculty at my local public high school have an advanced degree.
3
It seems you believe that nurture is more important than nature, and give the example of people of equal IQ in different learning environments will achieve different outcomes; that is, given the same IQ, the person who attends a better school will do better. This ignores the more proven effect of nature; if you take two people of different IQ and put them in the same learning environment, the one with the higher IQ will do better than the one with lower IQ. Standardized tests were designed to mitigate the effects of lesser education by examining not rote info, but concepts and insights that do not depend upon a rigorous education. If we stuck to using only objective measures we could eliminate the effects of legacy, money, and athletics. The major trouble with that approach is not that it is unfair, but it produces outcomes that are disproportionate since IQ is not equally distributed amongst the populations. @H
Yet another reason for a wealth tax to help level the playing field in all walks of American life.
18
Yes, yes, yes.
Favoring the rich and influencal parents children is also rampant at private high schools. It is almost impossible for you to be a high school quarterback just with hard work and talent you need to be the son of an influential parent. There are rewards made to fit this children. One that I like the most is the "Most Improved" reward. Does anybody see the irony in this so called reward. One girl who won a painting competition was introduces as the future Leonardo Davinci , I can not believe my ears when I herd that
3
Over the past three decades or so, the children of the rich have taken most of the seats at the better private and public institutions. This is true at Michigan and it's true at Harvard and it's true at Tufts. They have those seats because they took them from the middle class. Once upon a time, those schools were great middle class institutions. Now, however, at some of these schools more than 60% of the students come from the richest 1% of families. The rich like to think their kids are innately smarter than everybody else's. I don't think so. You aren't smarter because you are born into wealth. See, for instance, Mr. Trump. And you aren't smarter because your father bought you admission to Harvard. See, for instance, Jared Kushner. The college rankings and the illustrious Ivy League mean only one thing, and nothing more: your classmates are almost all rich.
26
@Robert
See also President "I Invaded the Wrong Country."
1
@th
Yep. Thanks for your reply.
1
When we rightfully condemn the special privileges accorded to the wealthy, we should remember some history.Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates spent just two,years at Harvard.They had more important things to do.Warren Buffet was turned down at Harvard Business School,and eventually landed at Columbia.Steve Jobs spent a short time at Reed College before he was off to pursue his dream.Our children are not these geniuses but they do have a passion for learning and can see themselves at a school which suits them and not dictated by parents..Harvard cannot take credit for educating any of these richest men-they followed their dream.
7
@Janet Michael: Bill Gates' parents were very, very wealthy, and his mother had connections that he was able to leverage. When he was a young teenager, he was able to use computers due to his mother's connections. Other kids didn't have his connections or the wealth that allowed him to put in 10,000+ hours. I am so tired of people trotting out Gates and Zuckerberg in the yeah but. Gates and Zuckerberg are outliers; Gates acknowledges that his family's wealth afforded him opportunities he wouldn't have had if his parents had been merely middle class, and certainly wouldn't have come close if his parents had been poor. Gates also acknowledges that luck and timing (he was the right age at the right time--in the 1970s) played big parts in his success. If you haven't read Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers", I strongly recommend that you do so as it will give you a different perspective on "success" and "meritocracy". The book dates to the 1990s, but it is just as true today, if not more so, as it was back then.
31
@marybeth
I disagree with your characterization of Bill Gates and his background. I don't know how wealthy the Gates family was but Bill grew up in a little white 2000 square foot house just down the street from where I live now. He went to the local public elementary school. Yes, he was upper middle class. And, yes, he had every possible advantage. All the same, that sort of advantage looked very different than it does now. Later Bill went to Lakeside which was a very good private school. That was where he met Paul Allen. Allen was the son of a librarian. There aren't any librarian's sons at Lakeside anymore. The annual tuition at Lakeside is $35,000. My goodness! When Bill went to Harvard, the middle class was still a significant proportion of their student body. Since then, at Harvard the rich have taken most of their seats.
15
@Robert
Bill Gates's father, William Gates Sr., was a senior partner in the big law firm in Seattle, Bogle & Gates. This made the Gates family was quite wealthy. Bill's mother, Mary, did the philanthropy thing, being big in the United Way.
Because of the parental wealth, Bill got to attend a private school, the Lakeside School, where he met Paul Allen and the other children of the Seattle wealthy. The Lakeside School, unlike the public schools, had lots of money and was the first to get computers, long before the public school students had any notion about computer science.
Additionally, Bill Gates got his real start when his lawyer father arranged to buy the DOS operating system, developed by another programmer, for Bill for a mere $50,000. Bill (with daddy's legal help) then licensed this software toIBM and got started on his first million.
It is also notable that Barack Obama attended the Puna Hou private school where rich Hawaiians send their privileged children. Obama got in because his grandpa was a drinking buddy of one of the school administrators.
The rich have many advantages given by wealth, influence and contacts.
And we of the 99% are accused constantly of "class warfare" simply for pointing this out when the reality is we have been outgunned by money all along. Citizens United anyone? That SCOTUS of too many "good old boys" idea of a "good time"? Some of these comments are spot on when they extrapolate this ugliness to every thread in our lives. We the people, don't have to take it.
18
Inequality and cheating are closely related. In a highly unequal system, the reasons to cheat go way up.
First, when people believe that others are doing it, or that the system is fundamentally unfair, stacked against them, etc., the moral argument against cheating gets weaker.
Second, when there is a huge separation between winners and losers---a "winner take all" situation---the outsize rewards make cheating easier to rationalize and harder to resist.
The admission scandal is further evidence that inequality has reached an unacceptable level in this country. If there were more social justice, fairer taxation, a government that worked for everyone, and so on, moral rectitude would stand a chance against those willing do anything to get ahead.
16
My high school friend and I speak regularly. We are both middle age, white collar workers, but we have to plan and budget like so many Americans.
However, whenever a story like this comes up he will say “The rich are different. They can just throw money at a problem until it goes away.”
In this case I think we will see in the justice system that the rich are different. They may go to jail but they definitely won’t be going to prison.
14
You know I find it sad that all 'rich' people are being demonized by the actions of few. It is not that I feel bad for rich people, who more than likely have worked hard to earn their way to the life they lead; I feel bad for those who are not rich and demonize people with money, seemingly making, having and wanting to make money a BAD thing.
My family is not rich, but my kids work very hard now in high school to make their way into the best schools they can get themselves into. Please don't demonize all people want to work hard and are able to make their way to a better world which enables them to then make money...
8
@Betsy I think you need to research the way most 'rich' (by which I mean the top .5%) got that way. Hard work and luck were involved, and it is usually that of their ancestors. Even those who weren't 'born on third base' didn't have to get a hit to reach first.
While they don't deserve to be demonized for being wealthy, don't think for a minute that most of them "...more than likely have worked hard to earn..." their wealth.
13
That's just not true. Unlike the aristocratic times of Europe, most of the rich in the US did not inherit it, they earned it. Take a look at the list the richest people in the US and you'll see very few inherited their wealth. @Jim
2
@Betsy -- And how, exactly, do these "hard workers" make their big profits? By underpaying their workers. See Bezos, Jeff.
Real estate? People buy up loads of properties, which reduces the pool of available housing and drives up prices among those who can still afford to buy. Those who can't become renters, enriching group 1, and as renters at the mercy of the landlord, many are unable to save enough to buy, so they have no equity, plus continued rent hikes keep them financially insecure.
Wage inequality in business is well-documented (from Forbes, 5-22-18):
In the 1950s, a typical CEO made 20 times the salary of his or her average worker. Last year, CEO pay at an S&P 500 Index firm soared to an average of 361 times more than the average rank-and-file worker, or pay of $13,940,000 a year, according to an AFL-CIO’s Executive Paywatch news release today.
They get away with it because they can, and the only way to start reining this in is for people to face facts. You're being terribly naive about the centuries-old owner-worker conflict that has been well-documented since at least 1867, when Marx published the 1st vol. of "Das Kapital."
2
This is old news - as old as prostitution. Nothing is going to change. Money will buy anything, as long as there is someone willing to sell. It's the largest reason for getting rich in the first place. Money talks. The more valuable the service, the higher the price. The more demand, higher still. Why the headlines? These prosecutions have been made public, but this summer still more wealthy parents will be lining up at the 'side door' looking for a way to get in. As night follows day.
7
My $0.02?
The rich and more-or-less famous should be subjected to the other end of the glitterati spectrum if convicted of the crime of which they are accused.
Put them in punishment stocks in their own milieu with a vivid description of their crime. Protect them behind a bubble, but let the public see their shame. From the ivory tower to their hands and knees.
The icing on the cake? Freeze their assets until they can demonstrate that they can play by the same rules as the rest of us. I earned what I have. The vast majority of us do. Many millions, perhaps billions, on our shared space don't have the slightest opportunity to get beyond survival.
The behavior of the entitled is beyond reprehensible. This is the example set by the current occupant of the highest office in the country.
"If he can get away with it, why shouldn't I?"
Wrong. Really wrong.
7
If your kid can come close to the admissions requirements, all you need to be is a full-payer, able to pay out of pocket (there are questions to this effect on the college applications - and in your FAFSA) to have a decided advantage over a student of equivalent or better merit who needs financial aid in the form of grants from the college itself. You might get a pass if you are an athlete or demographic plus. Everyone knows this. The ideal of the meritocracy crumbles with a relatively low level of parental wealth. You don't need to be a single digit millionaire, but you also can't be middle class and unable to pay 70K per year. In the cases discussed in the indictment, the students had no hope of coming close to the admissions requirements without illegal intervention. Their parents were not in the position to make building-level donations or deals, so this is what they did instead. This kind of manipulation is so very, very common, often without a third party company making the arrangements. It is very common among international students wanting to attend American universities. It is so common to hire an essay-writer and test-taker that articles have been written on the subject for decades. There was one hired gun essay-writer who wrote that he had continued to be asked to write papers for students after they had been admitted to the elite college. Everyone has to have a side hustle these days, and the money is good, and no one seemed to care before yesterday.
13
@Anna Base -- Please don't conflate tutoring/coaching with people who actually take tests or write essays for students. I'm a college essay coach, and I help kids identify a topic to write about (this is often the hardest part, as most have little life experience at 17), check that essays are structured properly and meet the word limit, suggest edits (as a trusted English teacher might), and proofread. What I do isn't cheating by anyone's measure. To be sure, it would be a lot faster, easier and more lucrative to write the essays myself.
7
@sg I am not. The article written - impossible to search up right now because there are too many hits on the current situation in the news - was about a guy who got his jobs on Craigslist. And I knew many like him who were more careful about it. He ended up at the high end, writing near-exclusively for high-paying foreign students, who, however, continued to treat him like a contractor once they were in college. I did not say anything about essay coaches, did I?
Although the colleges are clearly not expecting edits on the level of "a trusted English teacher." along with topic suggestion, grammar fixes, structuring, and word limits. What you do is I guess perfectly legal, though it comes pretty close to writing the whole thing. I help adults with job application letters and such, I write help with people applying for grants, but there is no requirement that they write those themselves and, for grant-writing in particular, it is these days and acknowledged profession. I am not sure quite that much essay counseling is a good representation of the student's work.
6
@Anna Base I will add that I do any help I do with job letters or grant applications for free. The essay coach market at this very heavy intervention level you describe is hella expensive, and therefore contributing to the bigger problem of the playing field for gaining admission to college being exceptionally uneven, if no criminally so.
1
The Washington Post recently ran a story about how countries with high levels of inequality (India, China, the U.S.) have more rampant tiger mom/helicopter parenting. This implies that inequality leads to helicopter parenting, not the other way around. Perhaps this is because parents from countries with steep inequality are more anxious about their children's future financial security.
11
There is a lot of erroneous thinking in the argument that every gilded cheat stole a seat at the Ivies or top tier schools from some poorer wonderful but economically disadvantaged student. And that is sheerly due to the numbers - something like 40,000 applications for 2,000 spots at the "top" ivy schools.
Years ago students were counseled to be more realistic and apply to schools they truly might be able to have a shot at. Today many students apply to 10-20 schools, like throwing pies or paintballs at a country fair to see what sticks in a panic attack of FOMO (fear of missing out). Some of the multiple applications are paid for by willing parents; some are discounted by income-based fee waivers for those seeking financial aid subsidies, encouraged by the colleges themselves. Add to the mix the increase in international applications over the past few decades and 95% of all applicants are destined to be rejected. As every college counselor knows, "selective" doesn't mean best; it only means that the applications traffic allows a school to reject 95% of ALL who apply.
Take out these handfuls of cheaters in the federal case and none of that equation changes. The point isn't income inequality in society at large - that is a different conversation. The only point of this prosecution is criminal behavior among this guru, his cheating followers willing to turn their children into props, and his willing faculty consorts.
15
@Aubrey: That's true. I remember being told to choose a safety school (one that I was certain I'd be admitted to), a reach school (one that I'd probably be admitted to but it wasn't a sure thing) and a dream school (one that I might have a slight chance of getting admitted to because you never know). It costs to apply to college, especially if you're not rich enough to apply to 40 schools, but too rich to qualify for the application fee waivers. Today's kids are applying to colleges using the let's throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks instead of thinking about and applying strategically. That means if you're an average student with no special talents/skills (not a jock, not a violinist, not an artist) and you're not from an under represented group, you look at schools were you have a better than average chance of getting admitted. Forget the Amhersts, Harvards, Wellesleys, Smiths, MITs, Yales, and Stanfords. As the number of applications at these schools goes up, the percentage of those admitted decreases, and hence they are ever more selective. The world won't come to an end if little Johnny doesn't get into Harvard. Maybe not getting admitted means that he wasn't meant to go there. I'd rather see that seat filled by someone who is qualified rather than by a kid whose parents locked in his seat by paying off college coaches (those who help you get into college) and by cheating.
2
My dad was right, never trust the rich. Surprisingly, he was not a cynic, but he saw enough of life to have that attitude. He also was not jealous. I don't think he had a jealous bone in his body, he was just a realist as am I.
This scandal shows how far our country has fallen since Reagan took office. The love of money, the love of status and of course, the love of power. These are not the values my siblings and I were raised with.
I feel proud of my sons who applied for, were accepted to the schools of their choice graduated from college. They did it on their own. We definitely helped but could not afford to send two sons to college at the same time. They worked part-time while attending and told me it was a wonderful life experience. They felt sorry for the "rich kids" because they were not learning about life.
By the way, they would have been horrified at the thought of this kind of cheating, they have ethics. Nuff said.
17
@wolf201 Lived in AZ - understand. Not the "wild West", but part of America.
2
to me the most interesting and fascinating aspect that nobody is mentioning is that this is all about *admission*. Not success once enrolled.
Nobody seems to think these kids, many who were underqualified based on their own test scores, were in any danger of flunking out after getting into a school over their heads. In other words once you're in you just need to put in the time and you get the diploma with a respectable gpa.
24
@Mike T. From this Ivy League grad I will tell you that the grade inflation at these schools is extraordinary. They are worlds apart from a UC Berkeley... I earned a 4.0 GPA (magna cum laude) and only sacrificed fun for studying on less than a handful of occasions. I am not a supreme genius. I only stepped into the library on two occasions that I can remember when I needed to consult a periodical that wasn't available online...
@Mike T. Nobody flunks out from an Ivy; they all get "A"'s. It's part of "the deal".
@Mike T.
Some in the Ivy League skate through on what are called "Gentlemen's C's."
They escort certain people through whenever possible.
America has never been a fair, equal or just country, but it used to be notable for the social mobility afforded by our system. That is no longer the case and has not been so for quite some time.
That is worthy of a long series of articles in the Times. Just how America lost its way in social & economic mobility.
That is what undergirds the cheating scandal.
49
@David Gregory
And sadly, one reason for "helicopter parenting" is the realization that there soon will be only crumbs for their children to fight over, hence the need to test-prep them, practically starting in-utero. Instead, they are dooming their kids to a life of disappointment, once they grow up and realize that all that work, and lost childhoods, were for naught.
What does the world lose when the really smart young people,. the ones who have native intelligence and who have worked hard and mastered their subjects do not get into the Ivy League schools because their places have been taken by mediocre spoiled rich kids? One of the advantages of attending the Ivy League schools is the friends and acquaintances one makes with the monied classes, the ones who can fund research and development? How many beneficial inventions get nowhere because the really smart and hard-working do not have access to the capital of the overlord class?
12
@Earthling Oh, yeah. Been there, done that
@Earthling
Why do I keep thinking that some of these kids are going to land up on the Supreme Court? The Presidency doesn't matter because as we now know any idiot can get that job and any idiot can work in The White House. Yours is a country in decline. Fast decline and I'm starting to think you deserve it because all I ever hear is about your reluctance to pay taxes. What did you think would happen? Nobody pay taxes and the rich get richer and cheat, cheat, cheat.
Agree.
This due to the virtue signaling of school brands and the degrees they sell. Education isn't the point much these days, as few ever ask for GPAs (a C student and A+ student each graduate with the same degree, one an excellent student and the other a president born to a president), nor is there any such thing as an exit exam to compare across schools.
But corruption occurs because some have power over us, and that's true if bribing a company or government worker.
7
Not sure this is completely a case of the anxious less wealthy trying to compete with billionaires. Some of these parents should have been able to make the big donation to get their kids into the school of their choice. (E.g., the former CEO of global asset manager Pimco or the Willkie Farr co-chairman.) They either wanted the reduced admission price, or wanted to be more discreet about how they got their kids in, if we are being generous about motives. This is more reflective of the general anxiety of most everyone that their kids won't have as good a life as they did given the world is so much more competitive. Granted, they should be told that life without - I guess - fabulous European vacations is still worth living and that people will still like you if you aren't the most successful person in the room. But that is a topic for another day.
11
This isn't about the economy. Don't try to make it so. It's about a corrupt class of media mavens and liberals who, if they had their way, would turn the entire country into this sort of rentier culture in which contacts and access to power matter more than anything. Don't for a moment think that if the policies that these Palo Alto and Hollywood "liberals" support come to pass, that being connected and access won't become even more important.
16
@JMR
Nor is it about rectitude belonging only to the right wing. Humans of all stripes are seduced by an easy path to getting what they want; and regardless of their liberal or conservative leanings are susceptible to illegal choices.
Another puzzling thing about blaming the liberals and Hollywood for every cultural sin is where do their detractors think these people came from? Fully formed from Zeus' head? No.
The majority of famous stars (not their offspring) left small towns from all over the US and came to LA and NY. May be there is something in the culture of those small towns that led to these people creating "this sort of rentier culture in which contacts and access to power matter more than anything."
10
@JMR This is about wealth, not liberals or conservatives. Not one of the Trumps got into college based on merit...
21
@JMR Because "conservatives" don't operate schools or have money?
Deeply distressing to think of the psychic damage done to children who suspect, or learn, that their parents have no faith in their ability to make it unless someone carries out criminal actions on their behalf. Of course, children of parents with little or no sense of right and wrong are likely to have been poorly treated long before the age when they applied for college.
8
@Steve Blum Look up the term, "Affluenza". The damage wrought to these children is of little consequence compared to those robbed of opportunity by these scams. If I have any empathy left after them, I'll give a thought to the former.
20
I do homework for a lot of "back door" kids, beneficiaries of mind-bending donations to get them into Ivies--they're not terribly dumb (although a couple exceptions leap to mind), and would thrive at mid-tier liberal arts colleges. I think their parents feel that one of the prerogatives of being multi-hundred-millionaires or billionaires is having kids who graduate from Ivy League colleges.
On the one hand, I have little empathy for the kids. Not one would ever have to work a day in their lives, if they so chose, and yet would never worry about grocery money. I don't know how you can go through life faking everything, lying to everyone. And, in a real way, they are complicit--unlike some of the "side door" kids, these kids knew someone else was writing their application essays. Many have had college graduates doing their homework since (elite, private) high school.
On the other hand, the kids all are lonely, don't have real friends, and have (sometimes severe) social anxiety. To my mind, the real villains here are the parents. How terrible, to tell your kid that you can only be good enough if I hire experts to cheat for you! It's flat-out parental malfeasance to pay someone to do your kids' homework, and put them in a position of needing to lie all the time.
If I had unlimited money to spend on my kids' education, I could probably spend it--on schools, teachers, tutors, all manner of enrichment, and lots of travel. But I wouldn't spend a dollar of it on someone like me.
1
@Steve Blum
Not one of the Kardashian kids has the brains or the discipline to graduate from college or to contribute anything to the benefit of humanity. But they have all done very well financially.
Who cares about the emotions and psyches of the mediocre offspring of the wealthy? These kids will be fine cruising through life on mommy and daddy's money.
My sympathies lie with the smart and hard-working young who are deprived of opportunities given instead to the useless offspring of the parasitic wealthy class.
Subbing at exam time and files of term papers have been around for decades and probably a lot longer. Porterhouse Blue--This thing is for modern Scullion Scholars. If you want a really beautiful institutional example, try the faculty child scholarship, done officially and formally.
3
@Bruce Williams And corruption is found everywhere we give others power over us. The faculty child scholarship is not the same at all, and is a benefit provided to employees. When the school selects students, it's fair unless you think schools have no say in which students to accept (like, isn't affirmative action a constraint added without regard to "merit"?). This was a side deal, not done by the school, but but corrupted individuals who have power to make things happen.
5
Employee children scholarships are incentives to retain employees, and are given to all employees (not just faculty), at least at my institution. I've heard that the competition is quite steep for these kids. There are only limited slots made available, as the universities "lose" money on these admissions. As you can imagine, the kids of faculty are often raised for competition. Put together, these factors result in actually a tougher set of circumstances for admisson.
1
What I think is being lost here is not just the fact that the children of these parents benefit from their enrollment in a prestigious college, but the fact that many parents insist that their children attend the best schools to make them look good as parents. It's always a source of pride to have little Johnny or Jenny accepted into an ivy league college.
Bragging rights is always a very powerful motivator.
33
Here is another example of the wealth distribution (up!) fallout. More than plenty of money in some hands can buy just about anything. And in general, whatever becomes too top-heavy... The dangers are clearly evident, just like climate change, as Bernie Sanders has been crying out like a voice in the wilderness. Well, I guess the disasters have to happen sometimes for any real change. Regarding the wealth, there may be a terrible reckoning for many people, regarding the climate, I hope it won't be too late for all of us.
2
I've spent many years in this world - not the single digit millionaire world, but the education world occupied by the single, double and triple digit millionaires.
What this good and funny piece misses is the beauty of entitlement. These parents are sure that their children are entitled to admission to these colleges. Even the thought of rejection is a searing injustice. So, they are not committing a crime or acting unethically. They are social justice warriors, seeking what is only right and good for their children.
27
I’ve said it many times before: money has become a national infection...and should be treated as such. The bugs that cause infection are always around but a healthy ecosystem keeps things balanced. Inject a huge amount of one bug or enough of a particularly toxic one and the immune system of the society or the individual is overwhelmed. Voting after a proper primary and secondary school education should be sufficient as an antibiotic. Why isn’t it? My hunch is that “making money” is what people believe is the major reason you get educated. “Making a living” in a well balanced ecosystem... who teaches that?
17
@Bobby B Money isn't an infection, otherwise you'd surely not want to give any to the poor.
Making money is important unless you can do it all on your own. The poor today live with greater access to things than nobility of old. You can preach this, but you'll get few followers who want the deprivation of "natural humanity."
1
@Bobby B Yes, in this culture, the value of human worth is measured in cash, as in "If you're so smart, why ain't you rich?" But Marley's ghost to Scrooge: “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
--Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Part of the problem in college is its mind-numbing complexity. Grades and test scores aren’t enough. Kids have write essays about all they have done in and for the world. (Who as really done anything meaningful at 17?). It doesn’t hurt if they are good athletes, act in school plays, volunteer in various charities, etc. All this puts terrible pressure on kids and their parents. Maybe this awful case will start a discussion about simplifying the process of applying to college.
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@Mark Siegel
Agreed. If someone understands who they are at age 17, that's a red flag.
3
"One popular defense of rising inequality is that it hurts no one: Sure, rich people keep getting richer, but if everyone else is also getting richer, albeit more slowly, why should the masses care, other than jealousy?"
Everyone else is not getting richer more slowly. We have experienced decades of flat wage growth and drastic price increases for housing, education, and health care. Not to mention smaller increases for food and basic consumer staples. Everyone else is in fact getting poorer.
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@Dan But also more stuff that you forget about, like faster computers, pervasive communications, easy travel across the world.
The poor of today indeed are better off than the nobility of old. Ask George Washington to go from D.C. to San Fran, or turn on the heat, or get a cup of water, or flush a toilet, or get a vaccination, or lookup so much of the world's knowledge via the Internet.
Spoiled is how to describe people who think they deserve more or take what they have for granted as if that's anything remotely like what "natural humans" got for eternity.
5
@David You forgot something, we live today not in the middle ages. Many of my great nephews and nieces are millennials, they are struggling. Yes, my husband and I struggled, but we had a future, they don't.
I'm sick to death of this argument. It doesn't hold water.
8
@David
Sorry David, I can't ask George Washington anything. He's dead.
I can't imagine you're a member of the elite, but I'm sure they're glad you're fighting their battles for them.
The masses are spoiled? Actually, this country practices socialism for the rich. The ultra wealthy are the ones who are spoiled.
If you think multimillionaires and billionaires deserve all their ill-gotten wealth you have absolutely no idea how the system works. We're not talking about small business owners or artisans who work diligently, save a little for the future, and are active participants in their communities. The only way to reach that level of wealth is to engage in absolute greed through the mechanisms of high finance and all its shenanigans.
You think working people who barely get by - the vast majority of the people in this country in 2019 - take what they have for granted?
Jeff Bezos has more money than god and the average CEO salary is now close to 400 times more than the average worker, up from 20 times more in the 1950's. But because George Washington used an outhouse and a poor person today can use a toilet, you say shut up and be grateful. Your argument is inane.
Be sure to tell the next kindly old lady whose life savings were wiped out by medical bills that, despite her travesty, George Washington would still envy her telephone. I'm sure she'll be grateful and return to her proper status of being in awe of the oh-so-worthy elite.
3
The system is already skewed by what we see at Harvard: the school quite literally did not accept qualified Asians to take in people of other ethnicity though they had lower grades and scores. This is seen too at Cal and the University of Texas. So, people like Singer reason, if the system can be gamed by race, why not game it with money. And, he did. The solution is admission based strictly on grades and test scores if both an be confirmed as accurate. This system can be employed at every state school and arguably at any private school that accepts any governmental money. Even so, there will be interest groups that will object to admission based on academic merit only.
13
@Bian
And yet, white Americans have consistently gamed the admissions system, and most other economic systems in this country to their favor inorder to keep out "people of other ethnicities" who are always labeled as having lower grades and scores against theirs which of course are always stellar. And, they are always first and ready to question these students' academic merit, and harass them on campus, however few in numbers they might be, when they have been admitted.
@Bian -- What you're describing isn't "gaming the system by race," it's race-based quotas, which is a topic for another day.
And when you take up that topic, keep in mind that universities have seen such an uptick in applications from Asian students that they were becoming over-represented on campus. (I'm not saying that's either good or bad -- I know too little about it to form an opinion. I'm just stating a fact.)
The kids involved have already lost far more than they will ever gain, just by virtue of having parents whose values are so superficial, whose is thinking so narrow and whose morality is so questionable that they would sign up with this guy Singer. The kids would benefit so much more by doing their own work, and letting the chips fall where they may. It amazes me that their parents can't see this. While I'd love to be rich enough to afford an expensive school for my kid, I am not sure that I would want to live in a culture of that kind of wealth. And I am old enough to mean that.
227
>>> "The kids would benefit so much more by doing their own work, and letting the chips fall where they may."
That depends, I'm afraid, on what you mean by "benefit." It's not particularly likely that the kids would achieve greater apparent academic success or subsequent financial success or social status if they did not have the advantage of parental wealth and corrupt practices -- quite the contrary, probably.
It is true that the daughters and sons of these schemers would be more likely to mature as decent and honest human beings if left to their own devices, but that, I'm afraid, is not the goal.
49
@Syliva The philosophic/moralistic high road is nice for what it is but --- reality is what it is too and has been this way forever. Perhaps Orwell summed it up best. "All animals are equal but some are more equal than others." And college or not, they would have learned, had also leaned these un-values. The question of course, the one we must all answer, is given that opportunity on a scale affordable to us, would we have taken it?
8
I'd hire someone who gritted their way through some place like Hunter College or Baruch over some rich dish rag who gamed the system to get into Harvard.
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@Mandrake I think we all agree with you. The problem is, how would you know? There's nothing on someone's resume that says they bribed their way into Harvard.
And if someone has Harvard on their resume, we all know that gold-platted name recognition opens up A LOT of doors.
28
@Mandrake They don't have to worry about being hired anywhere. That in some ways is the point.
15
@Mandrake
The NYT published a story a couple of years ago in which researchers found that the biggest differentiator in terms of success in life was not where someone went to college, but their conscientiousness. In other words, when comparing persons of equal ability, where they went to college was of no significance. What mattered most was getting their work done and on time. I attended an Ivy League school and kids who were brilliant, but who were lazy, failed. On the other hand, I've also known many people who were less than brilliant and who attended less than Ivy League schools, but who worked hard and became very successful. I am not so naive as to think that "connections" may not give some a leg up when they get out into the real world, but if you don't have the ability AND the perseverance to work hard, all the connections in the world will not matter. These parents spent a lot of money on an illusion.
23
One "meme" I keep hearing, and need to push back on. Nearly all "experts", or journalists always start these conversations, about wealth and privilege with this; "Lets acknowledge that all parents will do what they must to give their children X.."
First off thats meaningless. There are no parameters to the do what they must.
Second, not all parents make extra-ordinary efforts to give their kids a pass around others. Many parents demand their children work hard. Earn their way into, or onto a school or team.
Sounds old-school, but it still exists. Crazy old-school work ethics! Many of us demand it of our children. You want X? Earn it! We'll help with the things you dont understand, if you need a lift, a warm house, etc. But no going out on a limb to ease your way that means you work less to achieve a goal.
14
@Boregard : I don't think this is just about "I want my kid to have every advantage," bc it's clear that these parents have the wealth and connections to ensure that their kids will be more-than-fine.
I think it's about deep insecurity on the part of the parents -- an unconscious and very potent "You must reflect well on me, so you must rack up accomplishments, starting with Good College."
As much as I'm loathing Felicity Huffman, I feel sorry for her elder daughter -- the details that have been posted about her PSAT scores, and the likelihood that she'll think (at least briefly) that her parents have not-that-much faith in her, don't fully love her as she is ...
@TPM : I had a horrible mother, too, but that's no reason to make such a damaging generalization. Men are equally represented in the Lousy Parenting Olympics; they just participate in different events.
Seems that each generation thinks they have made a great revelation when learn the same tired old facts of life. Wealth buys privilege? Awesome discovery Dude! Wonder what made that happen all of a sudden. Must be technology.
Seems sort of laughable through my older eyes. But the truth is that my '60s generation was no less arrogant. We acted like we invented sex. How dumb we must have seemed to our parents. Hope they got a good laugh from watching us.
8
Moola moola, moola moola
7
I don't get why this is a crime. Why should it be illegal for a private school to just say up-front that super-donors can buy a seat for an applicant? Then all this subterfuge (or possibly in these cases, illegal bribery) can be avoided. Is it unfair? Well, if you are a student who just spent 12 years giving it everything, trying to get in the normal way, watching a mediocre student get your slot will undoubtedly sting, but life is not fair. Rich people get lots of things the rest of us don't get.
State schools would be a different matter. And in these particular cases, perhaps mid-level officials took bribes that their schools were unaware of, which is a different kind of illegal. But yeah.
1
@Madeline Conant state schools do the same thing. There are buildings, hallways, study rooms, sidewalks and everything imaginable named after donors at state schools like the biggies in my state, Ohio. Do you think none of this facilitated relatives of the donors being admitted?
1
Don’t let the elite schools off the hook. Why do they have a sailing team? It’s to attract payers. What other purpose do these rarified elite sports teams serve. We toured Dartmouth with our daughter and we horrified that our guide told us a big community give back was teaching the poor squash. No one needs to learn fencing unless they are planning a career in the movies.
30
@Karen
"What other purpose do these rarified elite sports teams serve?" How about physical activity, for one? How about interesting sports that have a larger social history behind them, for another? Swords and boats have been around much longer than pigskin elliptical spheroids.
Back in the early '70s, I took a PE fencing class at Vassar, and it was fun. It was a sport I never would have tried otherwise and am glad to have had the opportunity to have done so. I probably would have taken it further had there been an interscholastic team back then. And I am not in the movies (but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once).
9
@Newton
Completed agree. I attended Yale on a full scholarship in the early 60’s. Not an athlete, the only thing I knew how to do was sail. Yale provided us with absolutely zero support. We had to beg from alumni. Adding sailing to my Yale degree got me my first job..Not everybody can play football.
1
@Karen- the same reason schools have football and basketball teams. They ARE sports. Just because you don't think so doesn't make it rarified. That's a pretty narrow-minded remark. Millions of people in the world sail, including me and I'm not a 1%er. I also like to row a scull, play tennis, played soccer in hs and college... My life, what a waste.
My son will graduate from Dartmouth this June and I couldn't be happier with his choice. An incredible education, opportunities to participate in activities outside the class (the Aires and orchestra) and now he has a job lined up in NYC since Nov of last year.
You seemed to miss the point of your guides message. Would you accept that they had basketball camps for the poor? Dartmouth does a lot more than just teach the poor squash. If that conversation actually really happened. Maybe you need to investigate more.
Bingo. At some level everyone knows that the super rich get away with corruption. Authorities turn a blind eye. Why wasn't Paul Manafort prosecuted before he got involved with Trump? Why wasn't Trump prosecuted before? Ivanka and Don Jr. did have a case brought against them, but Cyrus Vance scuttled it because a 'uge campaign donation.
And now the mini-me rich want to get away with the same thing. They don't even think it is wrong. It is just a fact of life. So why can't they lie, cheat and steal their way ahead? Everyone else does it. I'll bet that is what the majority of parents caught in this sting are saying right now. I just wonder if they are saying it to their children, many of whom they deceived on a massive scale.
12
Look around, corruption has always been the name of the game.
2
In Socialist countries, it’s the children of party elites who cut the line on top college admission. They also get the best doctors, hospitals and homes. The problem isn’t money, it’s human nature. Our offspring have our DNA and must succeed.
3
@Rick
No.
In Socialist countries (I know of this first hand with me own kids) higher education is paid for (minimum two years) by marginally higher taxes and for ALL to contribute Progressively into a system where ALL are included. ALL of the colleges and universities are top quality and once everyone gets in, then you succeed or not based on how much you work at it.
This is how it should be.
30
@Rick
''In Socialist countries, it’s the children of party elites who cut the line on top college admission ..'' Uh, No.
In Socialist countries (I happen to live across many) higher education is paid for (minimum two years) by higher taxes and for ALL to contribute Progressively into a system where ALL partake. ALL of the colleges and universities are top quality and once everyone gets in, then you succeed or fail based on how hard you work at it.
As it should be.
1
@FunkyIrishman
Um, no. Not in France, anyway, where the elite schools are reserved for top achievers, and children of alums and the famous. But, unlike the US, those who go to a second tier or bottom rung school will NEVER be considered for good careers. I met a top level recruiter who told me this, proudly: no "Grandes Ecoles", no job for you! Next!
The writer is wrong about one thing- money does not buy class. Quite the opposite. Genuine class is inate. It absolutely cannot be bought.
9
@soi-disant dilletante not sure what you mean by 'genuine class' but our current president is totally lacking in 'class' genuine or not. Supposedly he has enough money to buy lots of class, but he definitely has no innate class. Plus how Donald Trump and his father acquired their financial wealth was not done with 'class'. Perhaps in addition to being a corrupt, lying con man Trump is a 'genuine' representative of the current corrupt status of the American 'super rich' society.
Money has bought our congressmen, senators, officials and President, why shouldn't it buy our schools?
Welcome to 'for profit' America, where everything and everybody is for sale.
18
These people cheated their children. How much more of quality living these kids have missed by such seedy misconduct of their intellectually barren parents.
I wouldn't trade my days in undergraduate and graduate school including the stress of studying, examinations, the failures and successes for anything. I have a full life of reading, watching creating, criticizing and praising thanks to my parent's encouragement and my self-taught discipline.
I accept that these people don't fight wars, don't pay enough taxes, talk like airheads and might have more in common with the Trump family than my own. But, I still pity them.
14
"Wealth doesn’t just buy cool stuff. It buys status and permanence."
Wow! This a revelation...never heard this, nor would have figured this out.
Only the ignorant pursue wealth for the sole purpose of buying cool things. That's why lottery winners and others who find themselves suddenly rich, like so many entertainers. athletes, etc, who hit it huge fast - tend to go bankrupt and worse. They are short sighted about the true power and "gift" of wealth.
I dont want wealth to buy stuff, I want to create a legacy! To leave something that generates more. (not necessarily more wealth)
As for the Loughlin kid...I'm more disgusted by her lack of respect for her opportunities, then her parents "buying" her way...again, and again...and again. And that reflects on her parents...paints them as vapid and well...as bad parents. Because their daughter was not going to appreciate, or use her time in school to better herself as a person, but only as a Brand. Which is her parents fault. No way around it.
Seems that being a Brand is an acceptable way to look at oneself these days. That being a Brand is now a means to value oneself as important and special in the world.
Got nothing to do with character, or ones morals/ethics. Certainly not real accomplishments. Nor religious or political leanings. Its about being a Brand thru and thru.
A sad reflection on this culture. Its become an epidemic as the result of how we swallowed the importance of the public display of social media.
17
Sadly, this isn't just about college, it's part of a larger mechanism of a modern-day American class enforcement. Being affiliated with an elite school can have an over-sized weight on your future job prospects and economic outcome; no wonder these parents were willing to do something stupid-crazy go give their kids a leg up.
Having worked in two prestigious wall street funds, I can tell you that there is blatant and aggressive discrimination against non-Ivy league applicants. When asked to refer people for roles, I was straight-forwardly told that my non-Ivy referral would only get a shot at an interview, if and only if, all that Harvards, Yales & Princetons screwed up spectacularly. If you're not Ivy, you're not seen as "one of them"; a different class of person not destined to have a cushy job making 6 or 7 figures a year. Affiliation with elite institutions is just another way that class is signaled and used to open and close doors that can determine your economic destiny.
As an aside... This is also why you only see socio-economic/college-level or racial diversity in technical or quant rolls on wall street; eventually they need someone to get the math right no matter who their daddy is. However, the quant team's C-Suite supervisor will inevitably be some mediocre Princeton art history major who will be paid 3x as much despite never taking a collegiate-level STEM class.
264
Not necessarily true in the technical fields, especially in Silicon Valley. Many computer scientists and those who created new technologied for example, did not go to the Ivies. There are a few industries still look for a potential employees skills.
6
@Just paying attention
Don't kid yourself high-tech does their own brand of class signaling, instead of the Ivy League schools it's more like Stanford, Cal-Tech, MIT, and Carnegie-Mellon. In fact, most industries have target universities where they focused their recruiting efforts.
19
@ab Great post. Am curious though...about a population effect. The slots in these schools have barely gone up over the last 20yrs but the population and more global applications and wealth has risen. Simply put, these schools can't possibly gobble up the "worthy". You would think banks and such figure that out and try making it more meritorious. But your point about who is doing the real lifting (actual PhDs in the non-humanities and Indian Institute of Technology genius types) probably answers why this ridiculous system can stay afloat.
11
Many political slogans like free enterprise' are used in our politics to justify our economic system that exploits the citizen majority. Other slogans are 'American Freedom from Big Govt, ' etc etc.
Profit is 1st priority in our HC, college tuition, and also our elections---campaign donors invest to get good returns.
America is more class ridden now than many other advanced capitalist democracies that were ruled by kings and aristocrats not that long ago in history.
Abroad, health care for all and low cost or free university is centrist, not left wing as labeled here.
The media must start reporting on the contrast of our own better history--- explain how it was once centrist in the US for taxes to support free or low cost state universities--- 1 of the main factors that created our once secure middle class, that's now downwardly moblile.
In our past generations, many were the 1st in their familiy to get degrees. These new grads got higher paying occupations than their parents and paid back higher taxes to the govt that had supported their education. Win Win.
12
How True. The only shocking aspect about this story is how how surprised and horrified people are acting. Any institution operates in a way that insures its continuing existence. Institutions of higher education, especially state schools, are always in need of funds. To this end, some students are admitted because they come with a library or stadium or physics building in their suitcase. This new, inventive scheme probed the soft underbelly of higher ed; the lower paid gate keepers. This illegal variant played upon the belief that students must find a way to get a unique advantage. Like activities used to spice up applications such as building a church in Guatemala, taking a test prep course or a hiring a college sherpa, this scheme acknowledges the competitiveness and unfairness is part of life and merit is only part of what leads to success. As long as there are inventive, motivated people, the idea that it is possible to eliminate the unfairness from college admission is fanciful.
3
My sister teaches middle school kids at a perfectly middle class public school. Not only are the children unfamiliar with the word integrity, when she defines it for them, they find it a ridiculous notion. They can't imagine doing anything that isn't in their own best interests and they are offended that she suggests they should. This isn't just an elitist thing. We have a systemic, societal problem. Can you imagine any politician suggesting, today, that we should ask not what our country can do for us? All we want to know now is what's in it for me. Rich and poor and everyone in between.
82
@Working mom -
The children have figured it out. Bad behavior drives good behavior out of circulation. Bribery drives honesty out of circulation.
When things have gotten beyond the tipping point, one is an idiot to try and resist. You just get crushed like a bug.
@Working mom
This is Trump's America. Toxic, willfully ignorant, self-absorbed. It will take years for this country to recover, if we're lucky.
To me, one of the scariest things about the Trump era is that the old lessons parents have forever given their children - pay attention at school, do unto others as you would have done unto you, and good things will come to you - no longer apply. This story just confirms to me that these quaint notions are outdated.
6
@Andrew I do believe these lessons were long gone before Trump entered the picture and at the highest levels of our society rarely if ever taught or learned.
6
@Andrew
Is it exclusive to the Trump era?
@Andrew
You don't think the cheating started in 2017, do you?
Why do we Americans accept the practice of wealthy families making self-serving 'charitable contributions' to well-endowed elite universities in order to tip the scales in favor of their entitled progeny being admitted? And what is the difference between that practice and bribery? In order to maintain their non-profit staus, ALL non-profits should put into place donor ethics guidelines that would reduce conflicts of interest.
11
@Kate
Americans accept the practice of wealthy families making self-serving "charitable contributions" to well-endowed elite universities because the contributions help pay the costs of academic buildings and scholarships and tuition for other students.
However, the scandal isn't about contributions; it's about paying much smaller amounts as bribes to individuals for soared treatment.
7
Don't be so condescending. I teach at a small, under-funded state university in a poor region with wonderful philanthropic donors whose families made their money generations ago in the heyday of American manufacturing. Our donors send their children off to far superior schools, yet they still contribute to our small university, as a way to support economic and cultural change.
6
@Kate some, but probably not all. If you are talking about a small satellite campus, say, of Ohio State, donating to your campus could well help a student go there.
1
Here is an issue no one seems to talk about:
So apparently one of the students of a celebrity scored a 1,000 on a PSAT, this is most likely after being in the best high school, tutoring... every possible leg up. This is not a very good score. So why in your right mind would you put your average or less than average student to compete against the very brightest in the country? That poor child will be overwhelmed and unable to compete in any meaningful way. Can these parents think of anything besides their own bragging rights? Good Lord.
27
@leftcoast
The flunk rate is much higher at state universities than elite universities. You can't afford to flunk people who pay astronomical tuitions.
9
@William Case
I don't think that is the issue. These 1,000 SAT score students will be writing essays and competing against kids that aced or nearly aced the SAT's. They will be made to feel inferior and a failure their whole college career, assuming they can even hang on that long. The issue is why would you put a child in that position?
8
@leftcoast actually, no. Having taught at state universities, they will probably just have to downgrade their major. The system is set up for that.
4
One hopes to see a Felicity Huffman/Lori Kaufman college fund as a result. However, it still won't begin to put a dent in the egregious inequities between the rich and middle class/poor regarding higher education.
2
@PFA
A recording of the daughter of one of the actresses was featured on today's NPR's "All Things Considered." She was referred to as a social media "influencer," and was heard to-the-effect to say that she was into partying, not academics. Perhaps the Times will consider backing off featuring such admirable and substantive personalities in its Style Section and Magazine.
14
Mr. Manjoo, thank you very much for this analysis on how the third class carriage folks of the 1% strive to purchase college admission for their little princes and princesses. Content aside, I mostly enjoyed your style and use of vocabulary: playful yet unpretentious. I had to look up Venmo. You have the best words.
10
@Mary Jane Dickenson, Agreed! Manjoo had me with this line:
"I have no quarrel with the charges. But as to Mr. Lelling’s bromide about our nation’s supposed vigilance against inequality: lol."
I almost choked laughing. My sentiments exactly.
For the amount of money squandered collectively on this graft, hundreds of qualified, motivated students could have been sent to college without accruing a lifetime of crushing debt.
20
You can tell the cheating parents are "petit" by their fixation on name-brand, status universities. Arrivistes need to signal their arrival.
7
@Andy
I'm past due for a re-read of Lewis Lapham's "Money and Class in America," and Paul Fussell's "Class."
And what do we, as a society, end up with when we continue to allow the legal and illegal gaming of the system to continue? Jared Kushner, a mediocre student a scion of a crooked family, as arguably the most powerful person in America tasked with solving critical geo political issues.
17
@Dave
In today's hard-copy Times, Frank Bruni references Daniel Golden's 2006 "The Price of Admission." Bruni states that, per Golden, Kushner achieved admission "despite grades that were below what Harvard typically wants." Bruni doesn't say specifically what were Kushner's grades.
mr. Bruni, just what grades does Harvard "typically" want? Does this requirement "typically" apply to all applicants? (Re: Harvard's diversity goals.) The Harvard of yesteryear sought to reduce the number of Jewish applicants. (Re: the current lawsuit brought against Harvard by Asian students, some of whom apparently and allegedly not possessing personalities of sufficiently scintillating brilliance to pass the sharp-eyed scrutiny of "Har-Vard" admissions officers.)
Meanwhile, many in the Democratic Party are still doubling down on politics centered on race, gender and sexuality. When the real issue that affects us all and could potentially unite most of the country is CLASS.
If these parents were rich and black, their kids would get in. If they were rich and gay, their kids would get in. If they were rich and trans female, their kids would get it.
No matter what your identity group, ultimately it's always money that restricts you or greases the wheels. That's why we need more policy discussion on how to broaden opportunities for the vast majority of Americans NOT born into wealth.
6
@shstl
The Democratic party (and especially Progressives within it) are standing for equality in all forms.
That means that discrimination of any kind against any group will not be tolerated in any form. Furthermore, you should get more help proportionally and Progressively upwards to partake in society.
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness should be for all, and not just all of one kind.
Regards.
5
@shstl
The Democratic party (and especially Progressives within it) are doubling and tripling down on equality - across the board.
That means that just because you are a minority, a woman, an immigrant, poor, or other in any way, that you should not be discriminated against, Furthermore, you should get more help proportionally and Progressively upwards to partake in society.
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness and all that should be for all, and not just all of one kind.
Regards.
2
@shstl
The Democratic party (and especially Progressives within it) are doubling and tripling down on equality - across the board.
That means that discrimination of any kind against any group will not be tolerated in any form. Furthermore, you should get more help proportionally and Progressively upwards to partake in society.
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness and all that should be for all, and not just all of one kind.
Regards.
1
can you just imagine the humiliation the students of the parents who have been charged must be feeling right now? the fact that their parents must not love them for who they are, do not have confidence in their own abilities, don't trust them to get into college on their own. Not to mention the stares they must be receiving from fellow students who have read all about it on the front page of the newspaper (or equivalent) where evryon'e names and photos have been splashed.
Or do I have it all wrong and entitled children do not experience shame?
13
@JA
These kids don't seem at all shamed by the prospect of having their parents buy everything for them, including college admission. Purchasing a ticket to a selective college is just another kind of product placement strategy for a life curated by greedy parents and meant to be flaunted on social media. Maybe they can coast through an elite school with tutors and assistants who can do the work for them. Why not buy the degree as well?
6
@JA some, perhaps, but I would be a minority. The students admitted because of sports connections to sports they never played surely knew what was up well in advance. If you read the actual report, parents say that, for example, their daughter scored a 23 on the ACT the first time. Do you not think she had a clue something was up when the score she received on the fraudulent exam was a 34?
4
Shame?! Amongst this tribe in today’s America? What a quaint concept.
1
So all the angst about Affirmative Action, including the current lawsuit against Harvard is really misplaced, it is and always has been about privilege AND race; as we all know legacy admissions exceed the admissions of minority students. All you need is lots of money (donations, endow a chair, or bribe the sailing coach.
5
@Eddie
Re: the current Harvard lawsuit: what percentage of rejected Asian applicants are "privileged"?
Excellent piece. You've hit the proverbial nail on the head.
We are a cheater society - pay off what and who you can, cheat until you get caught (business, taxes, pro sports, test taking, etc.). And getting caught has gotten less and less likely because those with wealth have been effective at de-funding enforcement (think IRS, for example). And when you get caught, if you have the money, your hire lawyers to nitpick and drag out litigation so the government gives up or settles for less than what was just.
Think these folks have any remorse? Yeah, they do - that they got caught. The only real deterrence for white collar crime is real jail time. Bring it on.
11
Hats off to Mr. Manjoo for a well-written piece. Even if it speaks to a pervasive sense of daily corruption we see in the headlines, and is -hard to say - surprising to anyone... I pedaled down the paragraphs of this enjoyable and witty Op-Ed like I was biking down the tree-lined boulevard behind my house. I imagine those that benefit from schemes that read this would have a grin on their face. Catch me if you can...
5
LOOK NO FURTHER THAN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL IN THE USA, WHERE THE TEACHER IS DISPOSABLE, AND THE STUDENT IS NOT!
2
@HoldYourBreath
I know of a teacher who acquiesced to entitled parent/craven administration pressure and gave full credit to a student who turned in a project after the clearly- and repeatedly-announced deadline. "Life is too short," she said.
3
Great read. Thank you.
4
Every aspect of our lives is corrupted by the 1%.
7
And the sleaze of these parents is summed up by the fact that everything can be purchased.
I've heard more than one suburban parent predict that by raising their kids in a certain town, their kid's college pathway will be smoothed. Or that by paying gobs of money for a certain private school, their college acceptance would be assured.
Frankly, these people are the chumps. Even if they don't explicitly cheat their way through the college application process, their shallow and unexamined lives are predictable and shabby.
There is an associated question for me. If the students could not achieve what was required to gain entrance to a college, should that deficit not have become apparent pretty quickly when they started to attend?
Or is it all a nonsense that success in College requires a certain level of educational achievement? Is that really just a way of ensuring that you get to exclude those you don't want on your campus/courses?
I ran a course for Mature Returners to Education for years and listened, patiently, while admissions tutors explained that they simply did not have the 'background' to succeed 'at this level'.
I thought they meant educationally. Silly me!
4
@VM Stone
It's very hard to flunk out of Ivy/Stanford type schools compared to public universities. They allow students to drop classes nearly the last week. I imagine the college prep gangsters will keep coaching these students and writing their essays for them all the way to graduation with a degree in a non-STEM field where in class exams are under-valued for one's grade.
4
@VM Stone it is hard to flunk out when there are so many other options, and this goes for state and private. The first and most popular option is to downgrade your major to one of the easier ones. They exist. Boy do they ever. Most of the education majors fall into this category. So you show up wanting to do business finance. You cannot because you do not have the skills. First, try all the less difficult business majors. If that does not work, go for a degree in secondary education in whatever subject you can manage best. If that doesn't work, go lower in your teaching expectations until you are about a fourth grade level. That usually works for most - and I do realize this is a horrible comment, as well as an explanation, for the state of American schools, but most college professors will tell you this is sadly true. Well before this point, anyone looking for a prestige career will have transferred.
1
@Mark PH this varies quite a bit from school to school, the drop without penalty option. When I was in college you could only drop without a penalty within the first two weeks of semester. Now, in most colleges, not just the Ivies, it can be within two weeks of the END of the semester. Still, there are financial penalties for dropping, which is why more and more students finish a four year degree in five or six years.
1
And then there is Bloomberg donating billions to Johns Hopkins for minority scholarships.
Not everything is bad just because of these particular bad apples in the news.
more interesting is why Elaine Chao's father donated millions to Harvard for an executive learning center. Wonder what goes on there? What motive does this family with connections to the Chinese president have to lure business executives to take courses at Harvard?
6
@MKKW it is hard to criticize Bloomberg, who has been a major philanthropist at a wide range of universities his entire life, with numbers well beyond nearly everyone who has been mentioned before. However, I would wish that middle class parents could benefit. My son attends a Johns Hopkins school and with our income well under 100K per year we could not afford the nearly 70K per year it cost and were not eligible for any federal aid or loan programs. He was given some income-based grants, but the implication there (and also at Carnegie Mellon, which behaved even worse) was that we would re-mortgage our 200K house and cash in our retirement funds before we could expect any more. The amount we are expected to pay will ruin us - we are older parents and one of us is permanently disabled. We cannot possibly re-earn the money that Johns Hopkins expects us to pay with the number of working years left. The implication is that we are supposed to be grateful. How hard would it have been for some of Bloomberg's millions in financial aid donations to be earmarked for families like us, who did everything right.
5
@MKKW
Was the executive learning center named after her father?
Colleges and testing companies should consider using blockchain technology to verify identities of test takers and applicants and their transcripts and references. Now alerted to the possibility of faked photos, universities can invest in a bit of cheap tech to check for this too. When you present yourself as the gatekeeper to a rosy future (lol), you should prepare for gatecrashers.
8
@New Jerseyan fingerprints work fine for the MCAT, etc. It costs very little.
3
World class faculty does not equate to a world class education. You have to do that for yourself. It does guarantee world-class debt, however.
5
What irks me about this is that when good students don't get admitted, they attack equal opportunity aids to help racial minority students, and accuse Black or Hispanic students of "taking their spot" among the new class. I've never heard of an A+ student going to court against a university arguing for the college to end preferential treatment of B-level students simply because the college benefits from the family's wealth. it's the people on the bottom of the social ladder who get blamed and punished for the advantages claimed by the wealthy.
65
@mirucha. GW Bush was a C student at best.....Legacy program got him into the Ivy League not talent & merit. Look what happens when we put unqualified C students into positions of power...disaster.
College admissions in the US are not meritocratic, they are holistic, yes holistic, including UCs. Holistic means everything counts but the admission officer has the ultimate say in how to weigh the individual parts of each application. Say a kid 35 ACT score and 3.95 UW GPA from a family making 250K+ can be rejected while a kid with 28 ACT score and 3.5 UW GPA but from low income family and who provides evidence of a struggle is accepted. This is not meritocracy, but just plain social engineering. Parents who know that their kids are being cheated by the admissions respond in kind. Have you heard about colleges actually checking the info applicants submit about their ECs? Never, since colleges just do not have enough people to do that.
7
The good news is, the person who doesn't get in with those metrics still has a family income of over 250,000$. I think they will be okay.
8
What does it say about Harvard that Kushner was educated there (after paying 2.5M to get in!)? Harvard whose contribution to the world seems to be the tireless turning-out of people responsible for wrecking our economy and our planet? What is wrong with America and why does our country continue to reward these graduates?
17
@erwan uh, except Kushner could have got into ANY Ivy League school in the country, on his own. Do your homework next time. The kid is known for being a bit of a genius.
College should be free, entrance based on academic merits, and there should be no sports associated with it. Or "greek life" either for that matter. Also, people should be encouraged to go later in life when they have a better idea of what they want to do and a better work ethic than most teens. College is wasted on the young (and the rich).
15
Why should star athletes get preferential treatment for college admission and special scholarships in the first place? They aren’t expected to do particularly well academically. What role do they play in an academic institution? I can see that participation in sports may play a role in developing a well rounded personality and I am all in favor of encouraging children to take up a sport and learn to play it well. But why should a really good water polo or lacrosse player have an edge over other applicants?
21
@P.P. Porridge
Good question, and a question (that is not being asked on top of yours) is how is all of this affecting Title IX ? Is there going to be massive fallout from this that affects women greater proportionally, since the microscopes are now going to come out ?
I see all of this (and the uproar) as prelude to there possibly being a few steps taken aback for women.
2
@P.P. Porridge
A star college athlete in a revenue generating sport will generate millions of dollars for his school in terms of gate receipts, media coverage, merchandising and tournament or bowl game money.
There attendance at a particular school has nothing to with academics and everything to do with money.
In this scandal the non-revenue sport is just a cover to get a kid into the school. Chances are no scholarship is offered, the parents couldn't care less about that. They have plenty of money to pay the tuition.
1
@P.P. Porridge
Aren't Asians grossly under-represented in collegiate football and basketball?
And how does anyone think Donald Trump got into the University of Pennsylvania? Certainly through the back door . . .
There is no back door by the way in most European universities, with the UK (especially Oxbridge) being the prominent exception.
6
Singer's so-called "guarantee" wouldn't exist if the admissions office didn't take its marching orders from the coaches and their recruiting lists. That's the real scandal.
23
As a Vietnam War vet, I wonder how much more demand for rigged entrance services would be if we had a military draft with college exemptions?
7
Here in New Zealand, admission to University requires none of the formal entrance assessments common in the US. Students are free to enter but must prove their merit once enrolled. This is a fair system for all - with no opportunity for funny business.
A world-class university system doesn't require what is common practice in the US. Check out the World Uni Rankings - NZ has a pretty respectable system.
29
The problem with this essay is that assumes that every parent in this wealth class uses this method to obtain a good school for their kids. Felicity Huffman and William Macy apparently didn't use this method with their second child because they believed she could get in on her own merits.
4
@HKGuy How do you know that? There was a report that they didn't use it for their second child because they were afraid her tutor -- seeing her perform way better than expected -- would report them.
8
Except she didn't. What are you trying to defend? Or are you one of those parents?
It is even easier to buy your way into prestigious universities at the graduate level. In order to make money, universities create Master’s program with very high acceptance rates -- 50-60% compared to 5-6% for the undergrads in some cases. The programs are relative inexpensively to run because they are generally staffed by non-tenure track faculty, and do not offer housing for students. The grading in these programs is much easier than the undergraduate programs in order for universities to attract and maintain large enrollments, and for the non-tenure track faculty to ensure high evaluations so that they are rehired next term.
13
@Allison Warren
I'm a non-tenure track faculty at a highly regarded college, and I do not grade easy in order to get rehired. Maybe Ms Warren should explain hawse comes by this idea. Because to generalize that a whole class of professionals operates routinely at a low ethics level just perpetuates some of the "fake news" and makes it harder to sift through the multiple factors that complicate higher education. It is unfair to blame certain groups - wealthy, coaches, adjuncts, etc. Everyone who thinks that graduating from one of the "higher tier" private colleges is better than getting a public education is part of the problem.
7
@mirucha
I gather that it has been for a long time a buyer's (universities), not seller's (Ph.D. professors) market. I gather that Ivy League and other "elite" Ph.D. grads are strewn across the fruited plain at many a State U. and perhaps at at least a few community colleges. Whatever "Ivy-ness" rubbed off on them they surely pass on to students at allegedly non-elite institutions.
@Allison Warren, Very true. If you want to earn a Masters from, say, USC, in Global Supply Chain Management (I kid you not!), you can do that. You'd figure that would be a course in an MBA program anywhere else. I bet they don't give out a lot of scholarships.
https://www.marshall.usc.edu/programs/specialized-masters-programs/master-science-global-supply-chain-management
This is a fantastic piece that embodies the principles of opinion writing. I loved the language and piercingly accurate portrayal of the B-level millionaires, and the lengths they'll go to. It really resonated with me, as a student who started to feel the stress of college in my sophomore year.
7
Silicon Valley hires students from Europe who have attended free public universities because they have a better education than American students. But all these corporations are fiscally registered in Europe and cheat to pay zero taxes thus refusing to participate in the budget that finances the European public education .
36
@JPH
Bingo ! There are many, many European (and from elsewhere) students that want to come to an American university for the ''prestige'' just as much as American students want, but how many of those European students go through the public education system in the U.S. ?
Barely any.
5
@FunkyIrishman You are right. the public education system in the US is pretty bad. Nobody would want to go there from Europe.
Again you corroborate... but the prestige...is not education.
Some European students come to the US to do special studies post doctorate because there is more money in research than in France.
4
@JPH
Students from Europe do have a better education. So do the Russian Postdocs that came here after the USSR went down. The Humanities are poor cousins at big universities and get the leftovers from what universities take out of each Science grant to pay expenses for labs, etc. Some of the money-students fall in love with a subject and turn into real students. Others socialize and make contacts, others get the degree that will be useful professionally. America loses some of the more talented applicants that were turned away. We are going to lose the lead in science and technology we got from making education available to many ordinary young Americans at a reasonable price when our young people were considered assets. But character still counts and those who get a good education in State Universities that aren't a target of the Money do well and make enough for a good life - and invent and get prizes and contribute to society.
2
The author makes a great point that we shouldn't equate the people in this scandal to billionaires or the "ultra-wealthy"--they're wealthy, they're "one-digit millionaires," but they are not drowning in power the way we imagine them to be. They have <1% of the wealth of a Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates. In fact, these people have incomes closer to the most impoverished of Americans than to the titans I mentioned above. The ultra-wealthy do not need to resort to such criminal activity; they just donate a library, or a laboratory, or a dorm, and their children coincidentally arrive as freshmen the next year. This scandal really highlights the power differential between millionaire and billionaire, in the way many scandals in the past have highlighted the broader differences between how the law treats those below and above the poverty line. Privilege in the upper-echelons of wealth is far more stratified than we often acknowledge.
7
Unfortunately, more importantly than Uber wealthy get into elite schools, it is that the Uber wealthy incompetent feel entitled to lead the way. And that leadership is passed heritably, not meritocraticly. Much as our leader in chief. Having graduated from one of these elite schools, I am grateful for professional and graduate schools admissions processes. Having participated in those professional school admissions processes it is hard to buy a way in as one of the commenters stated. And I know that legacy is no guarantee for exceptional talent and that those exceptionally talented shine brightly among their peers and will do well despite not having attended the elite schools. The elite schools will have to be cognizant that powerhouse state schools are producing very talented, educated individuals. It behooves us all to continue oversight and prosecution of corruption and processes which circumvent integrity. Including gerrymandering, voter fraud, emolument, obstruction, party over country. It behooves us to continue to call out lies, fallacy, and inaccurate use of language to obscure facts. It behooves us to reject slogans or sound bites as a substitute for discussion of the complex world we live in. I am hopeful that our current circumstances will change as the multicultural groups and people I speak with and see in comments have not become inured by our current status, are tired of it, and ready to have change.
12
A very good Op-Ed. But there is another aspect to our current obsession about must-go-to colleges. Why are only a handful of such colleges at the top of the list? One reason is that public universities are being squeezed for money by state governments. Here in my area, the Universities of Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana University are great schools, but now they are struggling for lack of funds. Their tuitions are climbing so that many qualified state residents cannot afford to attend them. And these schools don't have the financial wherewithal to compete for the best scholars. If we had many more universities on the must-go-to list, maybe there would be less cheating to get in. There would be a demand for good students.
36
@Jeff
The universities of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan are as good as any undergrad school: there is nothing that can be learned at an "Ivy League" school that cannot also be learned at one of these schools. But state legislators do underfund the state schools because of the "tax cut" mentality, and citizens of those states let the legislators get away with it.
21
@Jeff - this presumes that the reputations of institutions at the top of those lists, such as the one in your backyard that happens to be my alma mater, actually correspond to the quality of education you receive there. That wasn't my experience. I actually learned a lot more at the tiny state school in PA where I got my master's degree.
6
@Jeff Jeff is not knowledgeable that the flagship state schools are now all closed to students of those states who went through the atrocious public schools of those states. He is not familiar with the lengths those elite flagship schools go to lavish scholarships on high SAT/ACT out if state (coached and tutored of families of wealth) Merit scholars. The hardworking, striving child of the workingman/woman is not considered "rich" enough for the schools their tax dollars built.
10
Not every organization in the US is recruiting and promoting the privileged, even if some colleges and companies are.
A vice president of a Fortune 150 manufacturer I knew would ask job candidates how they paid for their college expenses. Their chance of being hired were improved if they earned some or all of the money on their own.
Many schools and organizations are also favoring self motivated types and those who have had to overcome socioeconomic, cultural and other obstacles. High academic test scores and GPA are not great predictors of later success.
Pushing a kid into a university where they are likely to be in the bottom half of the class is a bad idea. Author Malcolm Gladwell cites a study that shows its better to be in the top quarter of a second tier school than the bottom half of a highly selective school because of how it shapes one's self esteem. (the exceptions are real college athletes, whose self esteem tends to come more from the sporting field than the classroom).
Privilege appears safe for now, but it might not always be the healthiest for the personal development of the next generation.
7
@Look Ahead,
"High academic test scores and GPA are not great predictors of later success."
actually, they are. that is why Canadian schools (and other international ones) don't really care about all the other extracurricular things a student has done. they are very upfront about saying they just look at grades and test scores- at least they were when we visited the University of Toronto.
10
@Look Ahead
Do you know how "special" you must be before you walk into an interview with the VP of a Fortune 150 Company?!?!?
Joe, Jane commuter college - who most often pay for the education - don't get those interviews!
VP's only interview (if they do them at all!) the creme de la creme. Those specially recruited by top level Corp recruiters, to maybe get the privilege of a VP interview.
Not some grad from a fourth, fifth tier college.
Your friend was...to put it mildly, pulling your leg.
Re; grades, and test scores. You're off by several horse shoes. It depends on what grades, what tests and ages. Grammar school grads...may not mean much at all, for a middle of the road student who then goes to high school and blossoms. Or the same for an average high school'r who goes on to college and finds a passion subject.
But decent grades and test scores, most often give students the confidence to go further. We all need metrics of our performance. And we all respond differently to them. Look around you at work and how adults react to job metrics you'll see who were well-adjusted, or not as students.
Its also more about how adults react to the students. How the teachers negatively react to the lower performers. And how they exalt the higher ones, as extra special. How they allow other students to treat them. Add, Parents and their often lopsided reactions - and yes, grades/test scores can not be good predictors of their future.
Its all about context.
2
In a recently published article, according to the Dept. of Education, ten years after starting college, the top decile of earners from all schools had a median salary of $68,000.00
But, the top decile from the ten highest earning colleges raked in
$220,000.00.... make that $250,000. for Harvard, #1.
The top decile at the next 30 colleges took home $157,000.00
It is entirely possible to get a good education at the many schools
that don't count as the top in the country's brand-obsessed system.
It appears the people involved in this behind the scenes scenario had the money and greed to jump the lines for their kids to earn more down the road and add a 'prestigious' school to their resume.
Shame on them.
10
@mainesummers
Shame also on those who pay just for the name of the college their workers attended.
2
Jared's father bought him a Harvard education. Jared's father-in-law handed him a top-secret security clearance. Which is worse? Even a Harvard degree won't guarantee Jared millions of dollars of business with Saudi Arabia...
31
@Logan
I think that's where that top-secret clearance comes in...
3
@Nancy - And that's the game they play. A guy not smart enough to get into Harvard, not prudent or judicious enough to get a top-secret security clearance, but the Dads step in to save the day. A downward spiral of top-level incompetence, greed and graft. Better guys are serving cones in an ice cream parlor.
1
The idea that funding for a high school should be determined by its zip code, which is practiced in the US, belongs to the middle ages.
30
as far as we know, of parents of the tens of millions of college applicants over the last decade, a tiny subset were involved.
Farhad is painting all upper middle class people as "other" as worthy of derision for existing. His remarks are dehumanizing and full of contempt for millions of people that he doesn't know.
He generalizes. He paints broad brushes and pretends "those people" are all alike in personality and habits and feelings of entitlements; they're not alike in those, nor in political views.
Let's be wary of holding our beliefs too tightly.
Let's be wary of those spreading division and polarization and envy and hate.
20
@Joe Yoh
Thanks for your calming take on the story. Because celebrities are involved, the story becomes so juicy as to be irresistible. I found myself falling into the very trap you described. You led me out of the rabbit hole. This latest scandal represents a handful of outliers and we shouldn’t be drawing conclusions about celebrities or anybody else based on the handful of misguided souls caught up in this latest news cycle.
5
@Joe Yoh
Methinks thou doest protest too much. No where did this writer say or even hint that all upper class parents do this.
@Joe Yoh
Farah does no such thing. Maybe you're just feeling guilty.
And the irony--that the colleges that the parents are committing crimes to get their children in are not the best colleges for their children. There are any number of colleges and universities in this country where people can obtain a wonderful education. But a degree from those schools won't have the same cache as a degree from an Ivy League school, and certainly won't get you an interview at Goldman Sachs.
18
@Richard
And some of those kids clearly don't belong in university at all (not that there's anything wrong with that).
2
There are two thrusts to wealth since the age of Reagan:
The first was to dismantle the New Deal guarantees that labor would be at the table. Most workers, whether unionized or not, benefitted from better wages, health care and often a pension too. So while workers and communities became merely commodities to exploit, once widespread "success" was attained, then came...
The second part: statesmen were driven out as politics traded free speech for paid speech. Tax policy meant taking away the last props of meritocracy. Public education was underfunded and the prospect of even an affordable education at a subsidized state university became less attainable.
The ladders to success and social climbing were being kicked away. The most significant word in the article is "permanance". We have completely lost the sense of us. We are no longer bound by honor, but by ever higher levels of self-seeking at others' expense. A permanent upper class.
When I was younger, I remember a civic interest and duty in providing for all. Of course, those who taught us that lesson lived through a great depression and world war. In the minds of too many, those lessons, learned from real loss and acting together to create the prosperity once shared, are completely lost. And with that loss of perspective, we have lost the promise of what it means to be an American. As if those with less are stealing what we believe we "deserve". Greed is never the answer. Generosity once was. Can it be again?
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@Tom
What a fabulous comment - Bravo (((clapping)))
I think we can get there, but it will have to be done without the pillar of religion to stand on anymore. (that has its own other hierarchy) The new society will have to be born out of rejecting wealth as the all be all, and that ''prestige'' in society will be how much you are contributing back into it for the most amount of people.
The titans of wealth are trying to do it now, but they are proportionally using OUR tax dollars to do it. (first by how they gained their wealth, and then by how many tax breaks, shelters and trust mechanisms they use for the sake of publicity and massaging ego and profile)
It is going to take a massive ground up change to how we elect and think about government, and then to replicate it across the globe. (with dismantling many, many of the borders that we have now)
There are so many roadblocks... but we can do it.
21
@FunkyIrishman. Thank you for your kind comment. I would add that it will require that society determine priorities to benefit all. That will mean changing tax policy and producing tangible results to show such policy works. While your "titans of wealth" are showing some concern, it is hard to imagine they would forego spending on "their" priorities rather than fully embracing ours.
These titans, after the Great Depression, were shamed into compliance. After the Great Recession they took umbrage (after being bailed out no less) and did what they could to subvert regulation by paying Chris Dodd through higher campaign contributions than even perennial favorite Chuck Schumer. As we write, stress tests are being dismantled.
Until enough voters can surrender their Pavlovian training to always oppose government and reclaim it rather than disdain it, I see a split polity as holding the line for those who believe the wealth they gained with our tax support and the sweat of our brows is not to be shared simply because we are not worthy to be them.
11
@Tom Should you add stacking the Supreme Court with conservative judges. Referencing the court's decision weakening unions by striking down the "fair share dues" from those not in unions but who benefit from union gains.
4
My question, which I haven't seen discussed, is what happens to all those kids CRIMINALLY admitted to those schools?
I believe they should all be expelled, NOW.
67
Some of them become President.
Recall that Trump made special effort to keep associates/staff from revealing grades and SAT scores.
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@Slann
It is not clear if any (or all) of the students were involved or knew about the circumstances of their admission.
If students admitted under these circumstances are otherwise in good academic standing at the current time, they should not (and probably cannot) be expelled
Expulsion from institutions of higher education are generally done for student violation of standards and improper conduct.
While it is possible that the students knew of the bribery schemes that facilitated their admission to a given college, they should not be punished for the actions of their parents.
3
@KiKi
I disagree. Students who gained admission by cheating should be asked to leave the institution, period. Even if someone else cheated on their behalf.
20
The solution, as it has always been, is clear: In order to keep tax free status, all universities must drop loans and instead be repaid 7% of all graduates salary for 7 years.
Rich students can not pre-pay (their starting salaries at Goldman will be part of the pot just as someone's $25k/year as a barista will be part of the pot).
This solution has something for everyone:
-No more ridiculous spending on athletic complexes
-No more spending on bloated college administrators who do not educate students
-Significant decrease in fake majors that don't lead to employment
-Schools are finally incentive to actually GET.STUDENTS.JOBS
This is the only way.
11
@Arturo An interesting proposal. One tweak I might suggest is subsidizing professors' salaries, otherwise the one job that is useless for colleges is students who become the college's staff.
6
@Arturo
Athletic complexes are built, courtesy of alumni contributions. Why should a college need to get students jobs: that's not the purpose of college. Plenty of people have employment in majors that are unrelated to their college major. But they enjoy life much more than people employed in jobs where they have no interest.
Our government policies strongly favor the concentration of wealth in the hands of a small portion of the population. The dominant political party, which happens to represent a minority of the American voting public, has been beating the drum to eliminate the estate tax - the last obstacle that stands between some semblance of merit-based socioeconomic mobility and a permanent, hereditary class of the superrich.
Until Ronald Reagan and the ‘supply-side, trickle down’ lie came along, our fiscal, tax and social policy put some brakes on what greed, avarice and fraud could accomplish within the bounds of the law. With deregulation, drastic reduction in marginal tax rates on personal and corporate income, the tax-favored status of investment income over work, debt-leveraged investment over equity, deregulation that shifts the external costs of profit-making endeavors to the public, the elimination of consumer protection against fraud and regulation of complex banking and securities trading — the brakes are shot, and we’re on a rapid ride down the slippery slope to toxic income and wealth inequality that will be baked into the system; and that likely can only be broken by a radical rework of the existing system.
We tolerate a system that assiduously protects private ‘rights’ to profit and socializes the costs and losses to enable individuals and corporations to maximize their private gains. This way lies madness, and the impoverishment of millions for the benefit of the few.
23
Surprisingly enough, the NYT has not failed to see the point here. Let me add only that, until Americans in general stop trading in the magical currency known as "prestige," these problems will never end. But Americans will always be enchanted by the veneer of prestigious institutions, the sophisticated sounds of foreign accents, and the illusion that they, and we as a society, somehow deserve our spot at the top of humanity. But what incentive exists to be reflective and critical of one's own arbitrary position? Thus, we will learn no more from this than the Roman aristocrats who used to send their kids to Greece to get educated away from the rabble.
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@Josh
Well said. I think we are going to have to go even much further and do away with wealth altogether. (especially if we are going to come together as a global populace to have a chance to save ourselves)
Prestige is not going to be currency then.
14
Prestige is only part of it. There are very real, tangible reasons to covet diplomas from these schools. Access to the network of people that run the show and the possibilities that come with that access is enormous. If it was just about prestige it would be no different than desiring to drive a Mercedes rather than a Toyota.
9
@Josh
I wish people would remember that the professors at these college are the leaders in their fields. Want to guess how many of them have won a Nobel prize? The work done at these colleges is changing the world.
1
This is all about marketing. Buying a ticket into the work world.
The entire corruption to money and status is the same for the academic staff .
The real question is the content of education.
US students , even from Ivy league are not at the level of European students who attended free public universities.It is all about pretending and shallow specialized capabilities. There is no profound transversal conceptual knowledge in the US education.
7
@JPH
There's a problem with your law school graduates as well, many of whom can't pass the bar without multiple tries at it.
In Canada, if you manage to get into a law school in the first place, you most likely have the aptitude necessary for the subject. And after 3 years of schooling plus articling, you're not likely to fail your bar exams because you wouldn't have gotten into law school in the first place or managed to pass the 3 years of schooling prior to those exams.
Didn't it take 'John John' something like 3 tries to pass the bar?
Makes me suspicious about his aptitude for law and especially how it was that he got into an elite law school.
2
@Michele K I don't think French attorneys have anything to envy to US lawyers. Attorney by the way is a French word. It is just that French law is very different from anglo saxon law.
But your constitution for exemple is much more inspired by Montesquieu than by english law.
If you don't know even that difference you must not know much about Law in general.
Learning rules by heart ( which is probably closer to the American culture ) is not Law.
May be why your justice system is so repressive on the penal side ( 2 % of the US population in jail ) and corrupted by money.
Very different from the French justice. You still even have the death penalty ! last of civilized nations.
@Michele K
You have absolutely no conception of what law schools actually teach or of what is on the bar exam.
Reportedly, institutions of higher learning are dominated by political progressives.
2
@Ed, "Reportedly" is the key word. The claim that colleges are dominated by liberals would come as a surprise to anyone who has personal experience at, say, Harvard.
2
That really is what it's all about. Not "the right to drive a Lamborghini", or to own a house with gold plated everything, or what have you. That's a myth peddled to people who aren't wealthy.
2
"Excess wealth doesn’t just buy shiny things. It buys power and influence, it buys class and it buys permanence. It buys the corrupt certainty that every one of life’s problems might be evaded through some special side door."
The king of the side door routine is none other than Donald Trump who uses his special code to hire thugs to just kick the door open if the side door sticks.
20
Sometimes I feel, what is the point? Why not have those 2 glasses of wine everyday (and I'm 68).
Daily there is bad news. Now , the poor high schoolers who worked really hard and had their heart set on the top echelon of higher education were probably cut out by someone with power, influence and $$$$$.
The old saying is that life is unfair but we as a society can and should address injustice.
Speaking of stacked decks, don't even get me started about the Electoral College.
25
A good time to bring out the pitchforks and torches and elect a few "socialists" I'd say. Will we hear Republicans bragging a little less about being proud capitalists?
12
Great article and I agree with Mr. Tucker. I've known of situations like this. Paying big $ to get the kid accepted to Medical school. It's been going on for years and years.
4
I really don't care where the extremely wealthy go to college, or how they get there.
We need to focus on where and how the rest of us get a good education, leading to a decent life. I went to community college, then transferred to the local State college. It paid off handsomely.
I don't care what the 0.5% are up to, but the rest of us could use some cheaper means of getting a degree. We should give an admissions advantage to students who can prove they come from a poor background, and to no one else. Period. Stanford and Yale can do what they please, it makes no difference to most of us.
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@Michael Haddon
You are talking about a class-based rather than a race-based policy. We give kids an advantage whose parents and grandparents were dumped on by an economy and culture that viewed them as a means for others to make money from their labor. But to do this is to admit that free enterprise itself can sometimes be unfair. To many, that is heresy.
17
@Michael Haddon
Except it's the Stanford and Yale folks who run our country. That's the biggest problem.
23
@Michael Haddon I think you might be missing the point. When a student who proclaims that she is not even interested in college except for the parties has a rich celebrity mommy pay her way in, that spot could have gone to a student who actually deserved it, whether they could pay for it or not. With any luck, they could have received aid. But we'll never know, because some undeserving brat is there wasting the opportunity. And every other rich kid who couldn't cut it on their own took from those who could have gotten in on their own merit. This culture of greed and corruption affects us all.
26
Re: Singer's comment, "It's the home run of home runs." If any of these "folks" of affluence and wealth had any memory, that metaphor would have signaled: Run, do not walk, in the other direction.
For those of us aware of the metaphor, Singer's criminal offer is the use of steroids for the game of baseball. I'm thinking here of Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and the list goes on. And, now, these ordinary, formerly-pretentious people—and, sadly, their offspring—will have the same ignominious history of those baseball players.
51
From legacy admissions and large donations on one end of the scale to illegal grade fixing on the other end, there is a range of ways the rich turn our society into a zero-sum game.
It galls me that the best normal, non-rich parents can hope for is that our children will work hard so that one day they can work for the children of the wealthy.
"Do your best, son, and one day you may serve those who bought their station above you. You can be their doctor or their lawyer, but never forget, this is their country."
Forget the meritocracy. This aristocratic corruption destroys the notion of community. And we can't even all it unamerican any more.
41
In my experience, cheating occurs at all socio-economic levels. I know parents of dozens of kids (far from single-digit millionaires) who write their child's college essays, grease the wheels with sports, etc.
We have created a "velvet rope" society that rewards exclusivity over all else, in so many aspects of our lives.
12
@Susan
I don't understand doing ANY of the work for one's child (I have several) regardless if you think they are going to get even the smallest of edges. It just goes against any semblance of being a good and moral parent.
Sure, challenge them, prepare them, test them in every way possible (giving them the support , love and understanding ) to eventually having them standing on their own two feet.
The moment you decide to go outside the system, you only let them and yourself down for the 18 years you supposedly nurtured beforehand.
16
@Susan
I don't understand doing ANY of the work for one's child (I have several) regardless if you think they are going to get even the smallest of edges. It just goes against any semblance of being a good and moral parent.
Sure, challenge them, prepare them, test them in every way possible (giving them the support , love and understanding ) to eventually having them standing on their own two feet.
The moment you cheat you only cheat them and yourself for the 18 years you supposedly nurtured beforehand.
1
It goes further than that. We all, I think, know it’s not right to write the essay for your child. But how about reading it and making editorial comments? Many would think that’s not only ok, but actually responsible. We’d be somehow derelict in our duty as parents if we didn’t do this.
29
Lock 'em up. Any fines will just be seen as an additional fee. it is only when being deprived of free time that rich and poor are equal.
15
Spot on.
The problem with the gross inequality in our society is that envy and the corruption of money trickles down.
If you establish that the C-suite is beholden to nothing but shareholder value, that sets the standards for all the strivers below who want a piece of the pie.
As the high and mighty get higher and mightier, those below look up and their own standards of success change.
Nothing would help our country more than to squash the pyramid down into something closer to human scale.
11
Malcolm Gladwell has the obvious answer: a lottery.
Elite academic institutions should establish a minimum SAT score that is reflective of the intellectual horsepower necessary to succeed in a given program, and anyone who can reach that number should be eligible. No athletics. No puffed up extra-curriculars. No legacy admissions.
And the ID procedures for the SATs going forward should be equivalent to State Bar Exams -- fingerprints and two forms of ID. And a felony charge for cheaters.
Opening the Ivy's to anyone reasonably capable of completing a degree would be at least a tiny step in the right direction for reversing 30+ years of increasing economic inequality.
75
@Scott Why would you want to fill our elite institutions with mediocre students? I'm very much opposed to the cheating, athletics, legacies, and such, but others have proposed simply admitting the students with the very best test scores. That makes sense to me. Yes, I'm sure there are many deserving students who are not great test takers, but I'm also sure the good habits or other compensatory characteristics that make those students deserving will serve them well in second tier schools. There is nothing wrong with second tier schools! In fact, the best deals in actual education can be had at Community Colleges, where students enjoy small classes taught by full professors with Ph.D.s, as opposed to more elite universities where most undergraduate courses are taught by grad students and teaching assistants.
@Charlie Clarke
I agree with everything you say here, except that the point Scott is making is that there are actually more qualified students applying to Harvard or Yale, etc than these schools can admit. Qualified meaning top scores on SATs, grades, etc. How do you parse them? Currently we use a extracurriculars. Scott is proposing randomizing it.
5
@Charlie Clarke
I don't think you read Scott's post closely enough.
The lottery isn't for everyone, but for everyone qualified.
6
Singer's is a business after Trump's heart. That is how he works and how he thinks everybody else works.
4
I could not understand why the parents did it. Their children already had what graduates of these schools hope to get with a degree and most do not. They will have real wealth and entry into the inner circles. They already have the connections that these graduates are reputed to get. Getting the degree from prestige school is step 3. These children were already at step 10. 80% of colleges take almost anybody, especially if that anybody pays full cost. Pick a nice one, have a good time (you might actually learn something), get the parchment so you get that ticket punched, and get on with your life leveraging the wealth and connections you already had.
126
@Michael Blazin Status. I agree they were already wealthy and privileged. I believe it was the status of having their child attend an Ivy or top tier school these parents were chasing. Probably for themselves as much as their children.
17
I think a lot of these parents did it for themselves...so that they could brag about their child’s admission
4
@Michael Blazin
You would think. It's like not getting invited to the best or coolest parties. Literally.
1
I think this is the best article of any that I have read about this and I think the author nailed this. I went to a top prep school back in 1980 and got in from a connection from a golden star alumnus who happened to live in my small town. There was no money or quid pro quo it was just a phone call and I got in. Fast forward to today I would have zero chance to get in. The amount of global money that is trying to get there kid in there is insane and it is a very exclusive place with an IVY league rep among US prep schools. A recent alumnus who became a multi billionaire from a tech IPO made a gift that was kept secret to the amount but my guess is close to or around 100 mil. Every 5 years when I go back for a reunion I see another building that someone wrote a check for. . Admissions used to be by first dividing the apps into two categories. There were the legacy and non and I'm sure that they would look back on the annual giving on that legacy. Been going on in more than just my school for a long time and will continue. I met many of legacy kids who were dumped off at the boarding school and the kids felt abandoned and many developed issues including drug and alcohol and behavioral amongst others. I just heard about a local school here The Ranney school where some caller on WFAN yesterday state that an alumnus has paid for 3 tuitions to bring in sports talent and they are number one in the state so that goes on too.
11
@Robert This scandal has also made me me do a lot of thinking about my prep school! As the child of a policeman and a teacher, I got in truly on my own merit (test scores, grades, etc.), but there's no way they'd accept me today. Even then, the school was filled with kids whose parents were politicians, and I remember thinking how dumb they were, yet they went on to Ivy Leagues. One guy whose dad worked under a President got a 1000 on his SATs and yet went to an Ivy League. Another girl's dad was a governor, and she went on to an Ivy League. I was in classes with both of these people and they were truly dumb. I, in the meantime, having come from a troubled home, was an extremely insecure teenager and felt completely inadequate there. I barely studied, let my grades slip (to all of a 3.5 gpa, but that's not good enough when you're poor), so I ended up at a state school. In the end, it didn't matter because I've long since paid off my college student loans (which I'm sure wouldn't be the case had I gone to a private univ.), went on to a top law school and found success as an attorney, but I've always been bothered by these rich people buying their way ahead of me. I'd only known about the back door, so this side door is news to me but not the least bit surprising.
2
The great French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu compared today’s academic nobility (i.e., the students and faculty in the most prestigious schools) with the hereditary nobility of the Middle Ages, with one essential difference. Then, the noble titles of the lords and ladies, with all the prerogatives they entailed, could sometimes be actually bought and sold. Just seventeen years after his death, I think he would have found this scandal incomprehensible.
8
@Donovan No. I think you did not understand or read Bourdieu .And you don't know France. Bourdieu was talking about the Ecole d'administration which are public in France.
Still you cannot buy your admission there.And nobility could be bought only after the Restauration of Monarchie in the 19th century .
Not in the middle ages.
1
@JPH In “La Noblesse d’État” (1989), Bourdieu speaks of those succeeding in the competition exams for admission to ALL the “grandes écoles” as a nobility, taught to think of themselves as different in their very essence from the rest of us, but the latter process, as he explains in the earlier “La Reproduction”, actually begins when they are children, in the home. For them passing the “concours” is not so much passing a test as an act of dubbing, as in the initiation of a knight, because they have really been pre-selected, or consecrated. He quotes his fellow “ulmard” Georges Pompidou: “You’re a ‘normalien’ just like you’re a hereditary prince. . . You don’t become a ‘normalien’, you’re born one, just as people used to be born knights.”
But shouldn't you separate a desire to do your best for your children legally from doing illegal things for your children?
The former still privileges privilege, but not in a way any different from how our "capitalist" "market" society works. Use what you have to leverage the next step.
That is bad enough -- we need more fair-shakes. But it is different from cheating, bribery, and theft.
The wealthy, at whatever level, use their wealth to leverage more wealth -- measured in money, prestige, access, etc. If we want to reduce this, then there are policies for that -- blind bids, quality public education, free quality child care, etc.
For the crooks, the justice system is the answer. And if it is unfair, then work to fix it. Stop electing people like McConnell and Trump who will appoint lousy judges. Vote Democrat and make them live up to their promises.
14
@JustThinkin
If you think a little harder, you'll come to understand that too many wealthy will bend, circumvent and flat out break the law to do their will.
1
@JustThinkin Maybe you should look at the Ninth Circus to see lousy judges.
@Kevin McManus
I don't need to think too much harder to agree with that. Maybe you should read a bit harder to see that my comment did not disagree with this, but only was to make a distinction between the bending of rules and the breaking of them. Wouldn't it be nice to actually discuss the issue, rather than get snarky?
Given how this scandal engenders outrage on the basis that it signifies a defilement of merit, one must ask the following: what is merit? Indeed, why is much ado made about an idea characterized by opacity, and wanting for an adequate definition?
The reason why the illusion of meritocracy is necessary, is because it's further synonymous with the fiction that American society is somehow egalitarian. Earning an undergrad degree from Harvard or Stanford has more social currency than academic, especially how there is general academic parity between an undergrad degree from the University of Georgia and Princeton.
That said, the crux of this article rings true. It's most troubling how increasing numbers think achievements can be purchased, rather than earned. Perhaps more disquieting is the prospect that this is no mere illusion, but is becoming banal.
17
Just another strong indicator that the United States is in Gilded Age 2.0. The president is a toy billionaire and the political economy is dictated by tycoons. Bribery is legal. And politicians are regularly bought out.
Where should those without turn to in an age of sheer avarice?
116
@DeeSmitty
A famous economist once opined that when unemployment reaches in excess of 20%, even law abiding citizens will turn to criminal activity to justify surviving...
2
Obviously socialism. Joking aside, create a more equal society without the forceful deprivation of property rights, seizure of assets, rioting and revolution guillotine style and so on. A taxation revolution and redistribution of resources to help the middle class and the poor, our veterans, our kids, and the elderly.
What is overlooked in the glitterati of the Gilded Age are the masses who are obviously struggling paycheck to paycheck, teetering on the verge of financial ruin one medical bill or one recession away.
5
There is great way to make playing field equal for both rich and poor students. There are multiple successful processes in many countries. For example in India, the admission to IIT (most prestigious set of engineering colleges - like Ivy League). Anyone can take the test. The top scorers get admitted. No sports, donations, legacy. Very transparent & fair.
26
@Cincinnati
Well, I'm sure there are tutors and test preparation services to make sure students with means can maximize their scores on the tests. But, assuming no corruption at the grading level, at least the students who aced the test did so because of their knowledge, not their parents' money. How many low income students are properly prepared for these tests?
6
@Nancy
You have a good point. However, the admission is given purely based on merit. Yes, one can hire tutors etc. to learn more, but that does not guarantee admission (unlike the cases for Ivy leagues thru donations etc.). The sole determination is one's knowledge.
What is wrong with Ivy League etc. admission process is that they advertise that the admission is based on merit but have chosen to define what is merit (knowledge + donation+ sports + legacy etc.).
1
We have to come to terms (and deal with the fallout) that it costs money just to exist within society. Hear me out.
You can no longer loiter in many places and if caught by the police may have to pay a fine or be put in jail. If you are put into jail, then you require money for bail, and if no bail you may have to wait a very long time.
You have to have identification for things related to society and to access even your rights, such as voting. You cannot move around freely without Identification and to get a passport requires even more identification and rigorous checking.
Then we come to education, and more and more of it is being privatized. You cannot just do well within the public school system, and require to be exceptional (even then there are no guarantees) to go further. Going further is the potential to unlocking wealth and making relationships for further success.
The tax system is geared against you as well, whereas if you are just receiving a salary, that you are going to be taxed at a higher rate than if you are richer. You are paying more for the administrative and infrastructure costs of society, even though you do not partake anywhere near proportionally.
From the ground up, from the very first moment you take a breath into this world (exorbitant costs for just birthing you, which may hinder financially your parents and yourself) you are at a disadvantage if you are poor or middle class.
It's not just getting into a college, it's getting into life.
332
@FunkyIrishman It's the cash register that the United States has become. Cha-ching!
19
@FunkyIrishman
The unfairness you describe is exhausting.
If society is going to demand payment in money for every product and service required to live, then society needs to guarantee jobs for everyone, at a living wage.
19
@FunkyIrishman I mean you no insult, but you appear to be the victim of the fixed set of ideas that does not necessarily correspond to reality. I was born into a middle-class home and will die in a middle-class home. My two daughters, unaware of the rigid nature of society, went to elite universities based on their academic achievements and a well-rounded range of activities in high school. We weren't aware that we needed a $70,000 consultant to tell them what to do. Somehow they figured it out on their own. Neither of them ever described someone buying their way into their university. I guess they didn't hang out with the right crowd.
6
As bad as this story is, it does not justify the conclusions reached.
First, as you notice, Singer himself admitted that donations buy a degree of advantage but do not guarantee admittance to the famous elite private schools. Singer's schemes involved faking students' qualifications because those schools were looking for qualified applicants. Singer's claim of a guaranteed "side door" to a particular school was a probably itself fraud on the parents; even truly qualified students get into only some schools. (As for the parents, any con man will tell you its easiest to cheat cheaters).
There are ethical differences between making a large donation to tip the scales faking qualifications. The first provides a benefit for the school and its community, albeit with less than pure motives. The most elite schools still reject unqualified applicants- if for no other reason than to avoid problems when the student subsequently flunks out. An unqualified student does not merely take another's seat, he harms the school, He will not contribute scholastically, and is more likely to cheat.
Singer's affluent applicants are less likely to have harmed the chances of poor or working class students. Elite colleges actively look for disadvantaged students and rate them separately. The most probable victims were middle class applicants , whose genuine achievements fell into the category of qualified applicants but did not stand out from each other in the eyes of the admission dept.
15
"Excess wealth doesn’t just buy shiny things. It buys power and influence, it buys class and it buys permanence."
Mr. Manjoo is exactly right. What many have overlooked is that these wealthy cheats contribute to the creation of a permanent underclass. Many extremely talented and deserving lower and middle class students lose their spots at some of these selective schools, when the wealthy can just buy their children's way into these schools.
Now, many people may say that one doesn't need to go to an Ivy, and a state university education is just as good. I believe this is true more often than not. But what most people don't understand is the incredible access, contact, and opportunities a spot at the Ivies provides. So what is happening is that the rich are perpetuating their favored status by cheating, and poor or middle class kids are shut out of an opportunity to achieve the American dream.
We all know that the middle class has been gutted these past forty years. Rightly or wrongly, a degree at a prestigious university provides young people opportunities that wouldn't be available to those who have gone to most state universities.
And this is why this cheating is so pernicious. It is simply one more nail in the coffin of the American dream and the chance at upward mobility for poor and middle class kids.
85
@Nicholas Rush
Further, these people, by and large, weren't even buying access to Ivies, but mid tier private, and in some cases, public institutions.
6
@Nicholas Rush I grew up on a farm in the Ozarks but ended up as a post-doc at Cornell Medical College. My boss had written dozens of neuroscience pop books but was complaining about having to write another one in order to pay his son's tuition at a New Hampshire prep school. I asked what was wrong with the public schools. He told me I didn't get it. His son will make all sorts of contacts at this school that will serve him the rest of his life. The friends and contacts he makes will get him into the best Universities, law schools, medical schools, hired by the right Wall Street firm or any of the other things he needs for getting ahead. I'm aother liberal in Colorado Springs.
7
@hd public high schools can be pretty awful though. There are legitimate academic and safety issues that lead people to private school as well.
The reason so many are upset is because they thought that admission was based on merit. This is the reason given by those who oppose affirmative action based on race or ethnicity. Unfortunately, events like the one reported in this commentary make a mockery of such arguments.
43
What's missing in all this is the simple idea of learning. Why learn when you can get someone to do whatever it is by just laying down a little money; with an H1-B visa to offer you may reduce the price.
We seem to have concluded that we've come to the end of higher purposes in this civilization. There's nothing left worth any effort; time now to shop for high-quality luggage at a discount. And maybe some of this year's favorite shoes so there's something to put in the luggage.
The Book of Proverbs says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That was then. It's not likely that we can replace it with fear of the FBI. But entropy is unbeatable; in the end we'll have no money, no college degrees and no luggage either.
1
I also hope this opens up a discussion about why athletes should get preferential treatment in admission, even if they are genuine. I have a graduate degree from Stanford and they brag in their advertising about all their sports championships.
I totally believe a side effect of this scandal is that ambitious parents will stop pushing their children to take multiple AP courses, or not devote 100% of their time to win a Science Award. Instead they will hire coaches and try to get in based on athletic ability. Given the phony admission at Stanford was for boating, those wealthy parents will now hire coaches to teach their kids to excel in obscure sports.
20
@Jerry S
Its not just athletes who get preference, it is musicians and artists and specialized scholars; its kids from difficult backgrounds by race or socioeconomics to get a chance at the American dream.
Athletes get dumped on, but the vast majority will not go pro in their field. Their athleticism and their dedication to their sport shows a willingness to sacrifice and ability to do hard work. These same qualities that we see in the orchestra member who will not end up as a professional musician. We want that in our society.
We have lost our way. College was once a place to learn how to think, and problem solve. It taught delayed gratification and hard work. It was an easy marker for someone who could get the job done whatever that job might be. When it was not so cripplingly expensive it was a time to learn how to think.
My philosophy degree makes me a better doctor, and when I lost in sports, no matter how hard I tried, it taught me to learn how to move on from disappointments.
I don't know about you but I don't want a world only populated by STEM. I want colleges to be able to give kids a chance. I am grateful for my lifetime friends I met during those 4 years in one of the named schools.
The criminals are the people who tried to buy it. They threaten a basic premise that there is a chance. They threaten the basic value of the degree. Their punishment to them should be draconian.
What we should not do is punish the kids that deserve a chance.
8
@Jerry S
I guess they'll just ignore the fact that over 50 individuals have been charged with crimes, many of them facing significant jail time?
1
Striking that public universities and STEM-centric schools (CalTech, MIT, Georgia Tech, Carnegie-Mellon) appear to be impervious to this kind of side-door scheme.
I wonder if degrees from these universities will soon be considered more prestigious than those from “elite” private universities because their admissions requirements are obviously more academically rigorous.
Private universities (and K-12 “independent” schools) seem to exist to promote certain class privileges moreso than to educate and elevate.
I wonder if the notion of “educational scarcity” is a merely scam foisted on American middle-class voters to promote dissension and conflict with the working class for the ultimate benefit of the wealthiest, most socially isolated one-percenters among us.
16
@Jennifer A.
I don't think it is obvious that these STEM-centric schools you speak of are either "more academically rigorous" or that they are "impervious to this kind of side door scheme". Just because they aren't implicated in this one doesn't exclude them from others.
6
@Rob
Except they are more academically rigorous. Admitting an unprepared student at those schools would be like throwing a kitten into the Atlantic ocean.
3
@Jennifer A.
Wasn't UCLA one of the schools? University of Texas?
These folks who use "side doors" are not buying the best education for their children, but prestige and post grad half body into golden doors. What is sad is that our state and private colleges provide learning opportunities at the same level as Harvard, etc. and to succeed you have to earn it. No gentleman/woman C's.
The lesson here, if not already recognized, that those that innovate, administer, or improve bottom lines are graduates from non-Ivy League schools. We should not sell our many fine less eulogized institutions short.
3
Corruption and bribery are not problems due to wealth. They thrive even in poor countries. I fact these problems are much more acute in less wealthy countries where even the poor are forced to pay bribes for everyday transactions. Soon they are ingrained in the national culture.
America prides itself on being a nation of laws, where the law treats everyone equally. The monitoring institutions and the justice system has to ensure that this sacred trust is preserved. Universities should also have zero tolerance for this behavior.
26
One problem at a time. College admissions need to be fixed. In an era of money and the Internet where SAT scores, extracurriculars, recommendations, sports involvement, photos, and essays can all be faked, and are uncheckable in an environment of 50,000+ applications a years (and don't even start with overseas students from e.g. China with fraudulent but unverifiable material), it's time for a radical change. Make college admittance strictly on the basis of scores from a day of testing in math, science, reading comprehension, social science, and the humanities, plus a 1000-word essay written on the spot in response to a prompt. Fingerprint test-takers and give them a code number. Let colleges choose on the basis of the test results without knowing more than a code number, and then do a match-day like with medical residencies. Verify admits with their fingerprints. It won't solve every problem, but it'll be a whole lot better.
149
@Observer of the Zeitgeist
Excellent suggestions! I particularly like the on-the-spot essay. You're right that it won't solve everything, but it would be a great start.
22
@Observer of the Zeitgeist
Why should someone's ability to succeed be based on one day's worth of activities? This doesn't make sense given 4 years of hard work and high school achievements. In addition, there is no evidence that ability to write a 1,000 word essay on the spot correlates in any way to college performance or success beyond college. There is however evidence that the SAT is predictive of college performance and this is why colleges take those scores so seriously. We have to remember to use measures based on evidence rather than what sounds good.
10
@Observer of the Zeitgeist Should admission to elite colleges be the exclusive province of the highest scoring test takers? That approach likely would bring a host of social and political problems.
7
What is sad about this is that the celebrities and the 1/10th of the 1% who do this care nothing about their children. If they did, they would let them make their own ways.
For these people, getting their children into elite schools is all about validating themselves as perfect Masters of the Universe.
And it doesn't end with the admission. George W. Bush proclaimed that he was a 'C' student at Yale. Since when do 'C' students get admitted to Harvard Business School? I guess since their daddies are rich, famous and powerful.
I have asked my member of Congress to introduce a simple bill:
'Schools that give preference in admission to relatives of alumni shall not be eligible to received federal funds.'
Dan Kravitz
Dan Kravitz
46
@Dan Kravitz
Quite right, but one proviso - in a serious school, where A's are not handed out like candy, it is very possible that an A high school student becomes a C university student because normally, most of those university students would have been their high school's A students, so the competition for grades is now that much tougher.
If grading on the bell curve, most former A students will not remain at the A level.
2
@Dan Kravitz
One can only imagine what the Kennedy family paid for their kids to go to the Ivies...sheeeezzzz!
GO Bernie...
It should be against the law for athletic ability to be
considered as part of the admissions decision. Also,
legacy advantage should be outlawed. Only academic achievements, test scores, and noteworthy skills should factor into admissions decisions. And of course, the children of
donors should have no advantage over the children of janitors.
168
@Tall Tree
And of course, the children of
donors should have no advantage over the children of janitors.
---
Next: donations drop by 80%.
Wow, what a great idea. Not.
9
@Tall Tree
Your proposal seems reactionary, overreaching, and unlikely to be constitutional. Also, why do you think that athletic ability is less deserving than abilities: academic, artistic, musical etc.? All are controlled by the central nervous system and require a great deal of practice to perfect. I hope you also realize that many sports require a sophisticated understanding of technique, rules, and strategy, as well as strong character, social intelligence, and leadership.
In contrast to you, I greatly admire genuine scholar athletes (obviously I'm not referring the non-athletic frauds involved in this scheme) for their ability to maintain the discipline required to excel both in the classroom and in athletic competition. I also think that, in general, Americans don't participate enough in sports, which contributes to health problems.
BTW, did you know that Neils Bohr played soccer for the Danish Olympic team? Or thank Katie Ledecky is an A student at Stanford?
10
@Tall Tree
If 5 families' children get in each year in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars for the school, I think that is worthwhile. Those dollars subsidizes everyone else's tuition as well as pays for research, prestigious faculty, and new facilities that all students benefit from.
9
If you need to understand the depth of entitled depravity and callous disregard for honest effort, just take a peek at Lori Loughlin's daughter Olivia Jade Giannulli's Youtube performances, especially the ones that hold a college education in such high esteem.
What a disgraceful performance from a child of uber privileged wealth. Same goes for her parents. The apple definitely does not fall from the tree.
276
@BMAR
They behave as if they came together to produce some great gift to society. What arrogance.
This is what a celebrity culture brings.
38
@BMARas painful as it was to watch (the YouTube) thank you for pointing this out. Wow - just wow.
3
@BMAR
One word came to mind when I clicked on her youtube video (god help me for having done so...truly like watching a train wreck).
Insipid
One word when the story broke about her parents --and all of the parents: Hubris
3
The irony of all this, of course, is that many who gamed the system are the same individuals who, in public, rail against "elitism". I guess hypocrisy has been around as long as human civilization but this raises it to a new and disturbing level. This only adds credence to those who voted for Trump since he was viewed as being anti-elitist (which is wrong). It seems that a large number in the wealthy class ensure they and their children remain wealthy by attending elitist schools and befriending other elitists. So many working and middle class people in our society revere the success of the wealthy class and have been duped into believing that if one is wealthy then they must be better and smarter than the rest of us. Wrong! Too many wealthy individuals and families, like Trump's, have become wealthy through unscrupulous (read illegal) means not by because they are better or smarter than you or I. They are simply more nefarious, unethical and are criminals.
67
@Ron As Tevye said, "When you're rich, they think you really know."
Well, sometimes that true, but studies have shown that the general prevelance of sociopathy in the general population is about 3-5% (ttps://eyesofasociopath.weebly.com/statistics.html), while that of CEOs is about 20% (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/2016/09/16/gene-marks-21-percent-of-ceos-are-psychopaths-only-21-percent/?utm_term=.3f345366c723).
Clearly, the general population is deficient in the the sociopathic arts that provide such advantages in our society. Institutions like Harvard, Yale, and Stanford should open explicit Departments of Sociopathic Studies to train less-naturally talented students, often crippled by the lack of proper training at home, in these behaviors that propel success in our meritocratic economy.
11
@Ron How exactly do you know that:
'many who gamed the system are the same individuals who, in public, rail against "elitism"'?
I'm guessing you only recognized 2 names of the 50.
1
@Ron
This is, of course, what happens when you start with an ethos of Social Darwinistic Calvinism.
We have, subconsciously or overtly consciously, swallowed the idea that the rich must really be superior (members of the Elect), because otherwise they wouldn't be rich.
And by extension, if you're not rich, you're not smart, and obviously not worthy, so why should we even attempt to help level the opportunity slope?
1
I wonder if the students involved feel shame over what they and their parents did? Disappointment that their parents did not have faith in their ability to succeed on their own merits somewhere at some level? Or are they only angry that they were caught (everyone does it!) or that this harms their personal brand?
64
@MEM
It's been reported that in some cases the students don't even know their test scores were doctored. The parents pay for it and allow their children to believe they succeeded on their own merit. Talk about coddling. Unbelievable
3
@MEM
Doubtful re: ones like the media queen, who seems to share the same (lack of) values as her parents allegedly do.
And as someone else pointed out re: the others - can they really pretend not to know what was going on when they had to pose for fake athletics pics and the like?
It seems to me that if you are so intellectually incurious as not to inquire of your parents re: what's going on, you probably don't belong in any institution of higher learning.
But back to your shame question - can attention-seekers feel shame?
1
It feels like a lot of ideas pushed today are started with a premise and then shape the story to fit the premise. Are people finding more loopholes today to pay their way to a solution? Maybe but having more than one case would be useful to prove make his (seemingly trying to cash in on trends) point. He points to the uber rich always having the backdoor and the Kushner's paying $2.5 million to get Jared into harvard. While its reported a family paid $1.2 million to get their daughter on the soccer team and admission into Yale. Are those two so different? People paying $1.2 million are almost certainly part of the 0.1%
4
@Jon T That was the price for Harvard in 1998! Today 2.5 million wouldn't get you in, according to the Crimson article linked in the piece.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/18/day-three-harvard-admissions-trial/
2
I find it ironic that people are complaining about affirmative action yet they say, "if I had the chance to buy access, I would." The ultra-rich class is enjoying themselves because they know in the US - people only see race and not class. Not until the folks in the cities and rural town realize they have more in common then the one percenters. Of course, these days the young people want to be a Kardashian.
15
@Yolanda Perez I'm so glad you mentioned the Kardashians. In 600 years, when the survivors of the coming fall try to analyze what happened, the book will be short. Chapter One: The Kardashians. Chapter Two: Trump.
6
Lots of columnists in the NYT and elsewhere complaining about this problem. How about some suggested solutions?
For example: A federal tax on college consulting services and everything else related to this wasteful industry of getting wealthy students into elite colleges. And a tax on the fat endowments of Ivy League schools and their equivalents. Basically they get stripped of their non-profit status.
The money collected is then returned to the states for the exclusive funding of their state college and community college systems.
Good or bad idea? Don’t know. But let’s start proposing solutions instead of just endlessly griping about this problem.
225
@Scott
Well we can do both - gripe and come up with solutions. Here are a couple that would deal with the root underlining problems :
1. Vote in as many true Progressives as possible to enact ANY of the solutions to equality
2. Make the public education system the best in the world (again) preparing ANY student to have the capability of entering a ''prestige'' college or university solely based on merits
3. Make higher education (at least 2 years) subsidized @100% for all and subsidized further based progressively as to need
4. Enforce laws on the books as far as fraud and graft to actually make them a deterrent
5. Change tax laws as to not allow massive endowments for said universities. (some in the tens of BILLIONS)
Just a thought ...
41
@Scott
"Fund state colleges?" The ones with the 65% graduation rates (within six years)?
You must be joking.
BTW: colleges involved include UT-Austin and UCLA.
3
@Scott
And while we're at it, let's strip away the fig-leaf that grants non-profit status to churches. Talk about unfair advantages.
31
Wealth also buys some folk fine healthcare, wonderful housing, shiny transportation, as many mates as will have them, and the ability to realize their potential even if that potential is sub zero.
Wealth can pull strings and inflate grades, even inflate the amount of that wealth itself, in order to inflate egos. Obviously, having wealth and power handed to a child, doesn't make him a man or confident. Certainly not particularly smart or competent.
Viz the thing in the White House who must constantly reassure himself and whoever he can get to listen that he's the biggest whatever-est in the history of the world.
43
@George Dietz
Because deep down he knows the truth.
His father did him no favours, just as this current batch of parents is doing to their kids.
1
And this, dear Farhad, is the underlying force behind Trump: the status anxiety of the professional classes.
The betters among them do attempt to treat their social inferiors with a modicum of respect, but one that only hides an inevitable condescension and frequent contempt.
And their fear, not altogether unrealistic, that their children can fall back under the hierarchical waves.
Those below, have known this for generations, re-enforced by the dishonest business model of the shock jocks and industrialized propaganda of Fox News.
This has been the classic misdirection of the owners of the Big House on the Plantation, with the new digital Plantations taking on that role.
The young developers at Google, Facebook, and Amazon have just an inkling that they, too, will ultimately be disposed of for younger, cheaper models, unless they ascend to the managerial class.
The sociopathy demonstrated by the parents in this latest scam are really no different that those using the more conventional techniques, as you say, of large donations and building endowments.
What's really needed now, in our culture, is the founding of explicit Departments of Sociopathic Studies, where children who haven't achieved the acculturation of home schooling in the sociopathic arts, can achieve equity in our pseudo meritocracy.
9
@Eben; Let us not forget that it was Ms. Clinton's disdain for us mere mortals that gave us Trump.
@Eben I think at Harvard the course of study you recommend is called the Business School.
Well said. And money doesn't buy moral, integrity and dignity.....the real class.
38
@BB Totally agree. And what example do these people think they are indoctrinating their children with?
The local coverage here in the Bay Area of vintners, and various others of the wannabe-more-rich classes, has one of them crowing on FB last spring about his daughter going to USC -- an entirely bogus 'achievement" of course.
Hope the kids develop greater moral fortitude as a result of this exposure than their ethically-untethered parents.
3
@BB
Its very brave of you to come out publicly as a loser.
As our President said, to public approbation and a stadium's-worth of raucous bleating, "cheating means I'm smart".
'Morality, integrity, dignity' are code words for "I'm somebody you don't need to worry about", a loser.
You want to matter? Get money. Then more money.
Otherwise you're one of those worthless Americans running around jibbering about 'happiness' and 'quality of life', and 'justice' for God's sake. A waste of good American flesh.
In our faux-empirical culture we have a statistical direct measure of the worth of a human being: cash.
All this blather about getting a good education at a myriad of institutions is meaningless because no matter what or how you studied, no matter your GPA, there are important places you will never go without 'Harvard' scrawled across your précis.
Its our new aristocracy, the one Adam Smith and Tocqueville warned us against at the risk of national ruin, asserting its privilege and inherent superiority.
Part of what is so disturbing about this system of bribery enjoyed by multimillionaires is that they appear to genuinely believe it is no big deal. It should be offensive to every family in America that taught their kids the way to succeed is hard work and integrity. How have so many of us become inured to this?
365
@randy tucker
It's pretty well documented that people look up the income spectrum when they make so-called morality decisions. So the petit rich aren't looking down at normal people when deciding whether it's moral to cheat...they're looking up at the truly rich. And everyone knows the truly rich cheat all the time, on everything, in every possible way. So it probably seems like no big deal if you're in the petit rich, because the people you look to for "moral" guidance are all doing it too.
153
@A - and children/students look up to their parents for "moral" guidance. Whether the kid is named Olivia or Jared, they inherit the morality they learned by example.
47
@randy tucker
Actually, cheating is the norm at all levels of our society. Integrity is the exception nearly everywhere, and our narcissist/materialist values are the reason.
25
So I am not sure I agree with the premises. The heart of the charge is that the defendants engaged in bribery and fraud. This is not about equality. The rich and powerful are entitled to hire the best lawyer they can to appear before the judge, but they are not allowed to bribe the judge. Mr. Manjoo's article obscures this very important line, and it shows he really does not understand what these charges are about.
9
@Paul H. Aloe
"but they are not allowed to bribe the judge. Mr. Manjoo's article obscures this very important line, and it shows he really does not understand what these charges are about."
He very distinctly demonstrates where the line is and how it's abused.
You...are the one who doesn't understand what these charges are about.
4