If he had such love for his children he would not have shown them that Bribery is a worthy endeavor
36
Funny how in a culture of thriving savage capitalism best portrayed by their malignant President, some Americans are scandalized by the "survival of the fittest" principle practiced by some ... Fear, doble standards and hypocrisy rule American way of life...
23
I’m amazed that these parents had to pay to get their kids into USC. Not only did they get marked on a curve with inflated grades at their private schools and their tutors but USC? It’s not even a great university. The corruption at this institution must be rampant. This scandal only scratched the surface.
And their kids must be really knuckleheads. Thanks Daddy.
49
I’m upset by the leniency shown in this case. Hundreds of thousands in bribes, four children gaining illegitimate entry over many years, deserving children being cheated out of placements. It shows once again that there are two systems of justice in this country in which the wealthy go largely unpunished.
36
White collar crime such as this is laughably punished. Black man gets arrested with a few grams of cracks gets minimum 5 years. Breaking and entering? 10 years easily.
These crimes should be punished with far more severity. What this mean did is stealing from the poorer member of societies unable to buy their ways into a better life through merits only.
51
For every undeserving applicant who cheated their way in, there was an honest, capable student who was denied.
One wonders if they can sue somebody for damages.
Another point; there is a subliminal message in all this that life without an Ivy League imprimature is barely worth living. Nice message to send out to the 99.9999% of the students who strive to get their education elsewhere.
32
Wall street is run by crooks like these and they control our retirement nest eggs.
34
I wonder how his kids felt knowing that they got admitted to colleges without any personal merit despite all the wealth, prestige and power of their upbringing.
23
These folks don't know how to do it --- you talk to the Dean, not the tennis coach. (I'd like to donate $300,000 for the new sports complex ... And, oh, by the way.... )
9
So did Mr. Hodges four kids get chucked out of the colleges that they were admitted into or does Harvard and Yale still have them on their student roll in the hope of soliciting donor money from the parent?
9
"...money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and honest services mail and wire fraud." And Hodge gets nine months. Can there be any question about why there is so much resentment of the outrageous class privileges and minimal consequences for crimes by the rich, particularly if you are white?
26
Philanthropy and good works are now truly get out of jail free cards. Wall Street is disportionatley run by cheaters.
Cheaters who started out on third base in the birth lottery but just cannot play by the rules.
24
Good parents will do anything for their children.
The people accepting the bribe should be the ones
getting fired or going to jail.
7
I've had countless clients who have done less and received higher sentences than this miscreant. It's as if a fog comes over a courtroom when big money is involved. Chutzpah -- humbug.
27
Mr. Hodge is so insulated from reality by his wealth that he thought his charitable giving would erase his punishment. What Mr. Hodge was seeking is called an indulgence. Indulgences (wherein a cash payment is involved) were outlawed by the Catholic Church in 1567 but you can still earn one according to a February 2009 NYT article. So it seems the only amnesty Mr. Hodge can receive because of his charitable largess is through his Parish for his soul and not the legal system for his mortal self.
12
Now that wealth may have to go toward a Trump/whoever Indulgence for Failed Privilege Comeuppance.
Too bad. So sad.
4
Yeah, sure. Deplorable. But it's kinda funny that we just "totally exonerated" Donald Trump for extorting Ukraine to cheat on the election, but we demand maximum punishment for this dad trying to bribe his kids into college. If Hodge had been tried in the Senate, he would have been acquitted -- especially if he'd made a few campaign contributions. Why are we holding overindulgent parents to higher standards than corrupt Republican presidents? In the same breath that we condemn this rich guy's parenting, we should be decrying the unfairness of no judgment at all for Trump.
28
"Douglas Hodge was accused of pushing to get at least four of his children into elite schools. His punishment is the heaviest of any parent who has been sentenced in the scandal to date."
"Pushing"? That's not the word I would use. Or anyone who is not trying to euphemize would use .
9
It's a hard road. You can put a roof over their heads, clothes on their back, a nice car to drive, but it's a huge mistake to try to make them someone they're not.
6
I doubt his kid needed that kind of donation to get into Loyola Marymount.... of SoCal for that matter. Georgetown mabye... it's the stomping ground of the Washington power-elite.
The real bad actors in this whole thing are the admissions brokers who ostensibly made quid-pro-quo promises which, if not in writing, were patently unenforceable. Had their children not been admitted to the schools, then they would have been the VICTIMS of fraud! So in seeking to prosecute these parents, the schools are ipso facto admitting that they took these payments into consideration when granting acceptance to the children. They are avoiding making that connection by painting an unbelievable "our left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing" picture where coaches and other insiders who had the ear of admissions committees were just not paying attention to how those coaches got the money to pay for XYZ... whether it was 1st class upgrades for their recruiting trips, or a new vacation home. I don't buy it for one second. The admissions committees are the ones that need to be held accountable. To someone like Hodge, it's quite clear that giving that kind of money, he would have been given a full treatment if he approached the school directly, rather than going through the admissions broker. If he thought it was an illegal quid-pro-quo, he ad other options that would have not cost him a cent. However he is pleading guilty rather than fighting the charges and that is a shame.
2
I still think that the crime is what is legal. These parents did something that was the extreme but logical outcome of a process that is shaped by their wealth and potential contributions to the university. The school provides the imprimatur that ratifies their parenting and the child's academic and social standing. I am not dismissing the corruption to exonerate the parents, but reminding folks how widespread this transactional view of education remains.
4
I will never understand why these parents would undercut their own children in this way. The message loud and clear to these kids are that they are incompetent to make their own way in this world, and that their value is only measured by the prestige of the school which they attend.
I would prefer to have a child who was liked by interesting people, and spoken of as trustworthy and ethical, to one whose value was measured by the quality of their marriage, or the stature of their work title.
16
Exactly which prison(?) will this person spend his time and how much time will he actually serve there? The separate justice system enjoyed by the rich also includes separate prisons for many. I wonder whether white collar criminals would be so quick to commit their crimes if they sat in jail awaiting trial and went to a ' same prison for everybody' when they are caught and convicted.
I think that the myth of America being a classless society is never more exposed than when viewing its system of justice.
25
The kids aren’t blameless in this either. Getting scholarships for sports they never played prior or after. They were part of the scam and were legal adults at the time.
This stuff stops if kids start becoming afraid of jail time as well as the parents.
24
It will just be confinement for him and not all the extrajudicial punishment the rest of us endure for minor drug and property crimes.
10
I am personally sickened by the different set of rules and punishments suffered by the poor compared to those of affluence. You can steal more in an Armani Suit and spend less time in jail than you can get for shoplifting from Sears. 4 Cases and he gets 9 months. Why bother, I guess they should all get a pass - they're rich, they don't know any better.
21
RE: "the lawyers said, Mr. Hodge was a stay-at-home caregiver to his two youngest children"
So it would be considered punishment for a man to stay at home (palatial I'm sure) with his kids?
Re: " I was driven by...my deep parental love.”
It's love to not raise your children to adults who live by intelligence and integrity? So what if they got into 1 college or another... it's what they do afterwards that they will be known for.
5
It is sad—and confounding—to me that these parents, who have so much money that they can bribe colleges to enroll their children, who have enough money to send them to good high schools, hire tutors, etc, do not have the (moral, emotional or...) resources to raise children that can get into these institutions on their own.
19
Once again I am amazed by the ability of the system to focus on retail corruption, and ignore the wholesale corruption that is greater than this by factors of millions. What this guy has done is utterly irrelevant in the great scheme of things.
Why aren't the bansksters who brought us the collapse of the economy in 2008 rotting in prison for life? People actually died as a result of losing their homes, their jobs, brought on by their actions.
23
I just feel that the College Officials who took the bribes should be in jail.
The parents should be paying fines but honestly — the people who violated their oaths and betrayed their communities work for the institutions.
Ruthless stage mothers and the like are to be expected at the admissions door, that comes with the territory.
This scapegoating of parents is cyncically designed to capitalize on the jealousy the middle class have of the rich (justified but still petty) and it's a smoke screen to make the Elite Schools appear as victims — but they're not — the children were the victims of corrupt school officials.
4
@Arthur Disagree, the only victims here are the students who didn't get in b/c their places were bought by the fraudster parents of entitled kids. Americans as a rule feel entitled; rich Americans have it in spades.
15
I noticed this is a different judge.
The previous judge - in my opinion - was too lenient.
I still think this 9 month sentence is too lenient - especially for this serial cheat.
I don't think just because he has donated in the past or even done charity work excuses him from a severe penalty.
Clinton served 2 terms and he had to surrender his law license which could be his living and pay a hefty fine.
He was not excused.
Heck, Nixon resigned.
The judges of course should consider mitigating circumstances - but this guy appears to be a serial cheat.
These otherwise parents in good standing and in riches - obviously thought he could get away.
Enough is enough.
12
It's ironic that philanthropy bought a lighter sentence in the sentencing a man for buying college admissions .
9
Exactly which prison(?) will this person spend his time and how much time will he actually serve there? The separate justice system enjoyed by the rich also includes separate prisons for many. I wonder whether white collar criminals would be so quick to commit their crimes if they sat in jail awaiting trial and went to a ' same prison for everybody' when they are caught and convicted.
I think that the myth of America being a classless society is never more exposed than when viewing its system of justice.
3
I find it hard to understand how Hodge's children could not get into a good school on their own. They most certainly went to excellent high schools, had tutors, took expensive college prep courses and didn't have to work a part-time job that ate up study time.
20
Sir...tell your children to study harder.
12
Wealthy people who are greedy too. Not content to have their kids go to college on their own merits, these greedy people bought their kids way into college. Remember that really wealthy people don’t get that wealthy unless other people suffer under them. Being a philanthropist while cheating is the worst kind of hypocrisy.
15
When the wealthy get caught doing something illegal they always say they were driven by love, stupidity or whatever they never think "hey, this is illegal, unethical etc.," as long as they want to do something - it's supposed to be ok.
18
I love my kid beyond reason....and yet have never tried to "help" him get anything by cheating for him.
21
Trying to bribe a college to get your kid in seems like much less of a crime than someone in a position of authority soliciting or accepting bribes to let someone else's kid in.
Aren't the people in the admissions system the real criminals here?
26
Says the millionaire...
4
“Mr. Hodge’s lawyers have also disputed the prosecution’s assertions that he tried to engage in the fraud a fifth time, with a fifth child, saying that he was seeking to make a legitimate donation in that case.”
Right. He took much the same actions as with the other four. But, this time the kid had what it takes to get in on his/her own and didn’t need daddy to grease the skids? Imagine the 4 time bank robber walking in to make a deposit. It could happen, I guess.
12
All you have to do is look at who’s running the country to understand where this sense of entitlement comes from. It’s disgusting, and it’s ruinous to society in general.
41
How may does it take to Tango?
Last time I checked the answer was still two. And yet nary a word on the behavior of the colleges and universities that were co-conspirators in these filthy matters. To further buttress this argument, one quickly notes that there are precious few names that pop up on the academic side of the equation. USC seems to be a popular player in the business of trading admission tickets for dollars. Georgetown (being in the heart of Washington D.C. where everyone knows the true meaning of "quid pro quo") is another.
Might be nice to see a college/university official spend some time in the joint. Just to prove a point that the parents didn't have a lock on extremely poor judgement. Might also actually diminish the possibility of future "mistakes in judgement".
Ahhh the clarity gained by a few months in quiet reflection.
28
This man probably, for the same money, could have gotten his children in by simply make a flashy donation to the institution he wanted. But I'm guessing it was simply more fun this way, engaging in a black market scheme.
17
@Woody If you make a flashy donation to an institution, the IRS is in a position to ask where the money came from, thus taxes, and it's easier to track the money in general. Like where is it coming from? The islands, or questionable charities, or where?
2
If I were the judge and heard that ridiculous sob story I would have given him another nine months in jail.
41
"The judge said that were it not for Mr. Hodge’s record of philanthropy and other good works, which his lawyers had sought to lay out in detail, he would have sentenced him to more than a year in prison."
There we go again giving these people a pass just because they throw a couple of their breadcrumbs back to society. The truth is that most others would also donate signifiantly to charitable causes if they had the same wealth, but alas, they are too busy trying to make their car and mortgage payments. And btw, had Mr. Hodge been born in China, he would not have anywhere near the wealth that he does. He was luckily enough to be born in a developed country, with the educational, economic and judicial systems that such a country affords. And which he made great use of, to his own benefit. It should be his obligation to give a substantial portion of his loot back to society.
29
@Father of One
" The truth is that most others would also donate signifiantly to charitable causes if they had the same wealth, "
Seriously, who do you think you're kidding? It's easy to be magnanimous in theory. This guy did it in practice.
5
I find all the tut tuts to be pure hypocrisy. We are supposed to condemn this man because he "only" donated a few hundred thousand dollars for admissions preferences when he should have donated more? And we are supposed to feel sorry for the "victims" -- the colleges themselves?
It costs absolutely no money for colleges to stop this. Not one penny. All they do is put all the applications in a single pile and let admissions staff choose the most qualified to attend without knowing anything about whether their parents donated a building or are celebrities. Students who have extraordinary non-academic accomplishments on their own will be noted based on whatever is in the application itself - there is a place to list special accomplishments - but neither a coach nor someone in the fundraising office can identify them.
Donating money to a college gets something in return - preference in admissions. If it did not, and colleges truly believed that parents were donating out of the goodness of their heart, then let them prove it by stopping giving admissions preferences to the children of large donors or anyone else. According to the reasoning that there was "nothing of value" given to the donations that are apparently "legal", the same people would be donating the same amount whether it helped their child or not. Right? Right?
Actions speak a lot louder than words.
19
There seems to be an indirectly proportional relationship between money and morality.
The more money you have, the less morality you exhibit.
Compare with the "salt of the earth", who are modest of means but generous in character.
15
@Rick
Fantasy. Look at Bloomberg and Gates.
6
@Ricardo It's not fantasy. Gates did some questionable things before he became a philanthropist. People from Seattle knew him pre-philanthropy.
There's also research showing that on average, wealthier or more powerful people have less empathy and how wealth reduces compassion. Like anything, there are a few outliers -- like Warren Buffet or George Soros (whom my brother worked for) -- but on the whole, that's the finding. What this means is if one IS wealthy, one should be aware of such issues and try to combat them personally.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduces-compassion/
https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/the-science-of-scrooge-why-wealth-kills-empathy.html
3
Nine months? Nine months?!! How about nine years? The prison sentences being handed down are way too low. The sentences are not telling rich people that they can't buy their kids an education ahead of poorer and better-qualified students.
I apologize for the double negative. The sentences are telling rich people that they can buy admission for their children.
20
Every time I read about some parent who paid "to cheat on college admissions exams and bribed college coaches to designate students as athletic recruits" so their kid could get into a prestigious college, the very first thought that immediately comes to mind is this - how could that parent think so little of their kid, not to mention assume their kid could not get in on his or her own merit and talent?
If my parents had been in a position to do what Douglas Hodge had for me, I would not be thankful. I would be hurt, insulted and mad as heck for their lack of faith in me and my intelligence.
29
It must come as a shock to these people that in this one single aspect of their lives they can't simply buy a first class ticket.
14
Donald Trump will probably offer Mr. Hodge a place in his cabinet; Hodge's code of ethics and general morality seem right in tune with the current administration.
18
This whole situation is reflective of larger rot in society. So many things wrong here.
The notion that college is about status and networking and "name" brands, not about learning. The idea that you "help" your child by bribing their way into places where they can't really compete and don't belong. The idea that any scam is fine as long as you don't get caught. The premise that money buys anything and everything and that even the most prestigious, historic institutions are willing to be bought.
And let's add the notion that savvy, big league institutions like Yale, Georgetown and USC were innocent victims here, admitted all these star "athletic" recruits but somehow no one--not the athletics department, not the admission office, nada-- noticed that these specially recruited sports stars never played for the teams that had brought them in. And then there is the pretense that the "innocent" teenagers involved were bright and savvy enough to be, for ex, big-time "influencers" on social media but not clever enough to notice that there was a scam surrounding their college applications.
The whole thing stinks to high heaven.
34
Not mentioned in the article is whether either Georgetown or USC rescinded the diplomas bestowed upon Hodge’s children. It is difficult to believe that they were unknowing innocents in their father’s fraudulent behavior. The recision of the academic “fruits” of the criminal conduct would also serve as a powerful deterrent to this despicable behavior.
22
" it starts at the top, with us, the leaders of the financial industry. Both as firms and as individuals, we need to personify trustworthy values... Willful violations of the rules should not be tolerated... [What is needed is] a stronger emphasis on ethics and integrity."
Douglas Hodge 23 October 2012. "Restoring Trust in the New Normal," Remarks to SIFMA Annual Meeting, Viewpoint
24
Once again, I see two systems of justice.
The 1 percent,
And, the rest.
25
An offer of $525,000 for two students just to be admitted to USC is a great opportunity for USC and its students. It creates at least the same number of scholarships/fellowships for low income students. You might argue that there are only a fixed number of slots available, but that is in fact baloney. Universities are incredibly elastic when it comes to enrollment.
7
@Heart of Lightness
But it's morally wrong on many levels.
I can see how your conscience might be so light as your heart.
5
What I don't get is why, regardless the apparent quid pro quo, athletic scholarships are not only offered, but also touted.
How many truly intelligent students are rejected in favor of the physically gifted?
Who is playing/paying who?
13
These people not only stole from colleges, they also stole from their children. Picking a college that you like and working to get accepted is a life experience. So is finding your way after graduation. These parents buy admittance to the college they want. After graduation, they line up a job for the child with a colleague, buy them an apartment where the parent chooses. And maybe line up a spouse, perhaps providing financial incentives. These parents are just ripping off colleges, they are infantilizing their kids and creating ersatz adults with no accomplishments nor self esteem.
204
@Rick - getting into a top college or university is very competitive, frequently with lifelong privileges. I am not sad for the children of wealthy parents - they have a lot of insulation from harsh realities; also how dopey, delusional, or naive can you be at 18 or 19 to believe you are that excellent at athletics that you should be recruited by a top college when you're not? Our children are anthropologists on digital media and know the currency that are in play when applying to colleges. Save your concern for the children crowded out of competition by those Mr. Salts paying Veruca's way into USC.
17
Given that these people have so much money that their children will never want for any of life's necessities (and in many cases, will get to acquire whatever they want, even beyond "reason"), a college degree is not going to raise the standard of living of any one of these kids.
It sounds to me like many of these kids are seeking a degree in "Partying," rather than a common academic discipline like science, engineering, literature, languages, or history. Some of them are probably going to go for postgraduate degrees in "Partying."
The parents have inadvertently given these kids a major lesson in life: if you cheat, even with money in your pocket, you may end up paying a heavy price.
11
A slightly different take on this... these schools are so much in demand and have so many qualified applicants that you would be pressed to tell the difference between the first qualified and the 100th runner-up. How do you think students become highly qualified in their sports? It takes dedication and money.
I have a relative with a hockey scholarship. The whole family is brilliant to genius IQ. The father was passionate for hockey. The child spent a decade playing hockey as did a sibling and the father. The mother organized hockey trips for high school age teams.
The child goes to University and is no longer in the same environment. There are many distractions and it's not unusual for some students to fall out. If they can pay full freight, why should they leave?
It's not that different for academic scholarship or leadership scholarships or achievement scholarships. My dad had an academic scholarship to Harvard. He had to pay full freight in his junior year. He had married and was working. I was a volunteer, interviewing leadership scholarship applicants for a couple of years. Some applicants were naturals, their leadership was so much a part of them that they often couldn't explain how they did it. Others were carefully prepared fakes. Since we interviewed them in a short series of two person teams, they were sorted out. Doubtless, there were more leaders than there were scholarships.
3
What I cannot fathom about these cases is the parents' contention that the kids didn't know what was going on. How does a child enroll at a school that is expecting them to play a sport that they don't actually play without encountering some confusion?
67
@magpie Excellent point. Are these kids so clueless and lacking in self awareness that they actually think they earned a spot in a selective school with their mediocre academic history? They were certainly in on it. And given that they were likely all 18 when they signed the application, complicit in a criminal act.
12
His "love" tried to rob the children of their true birthright -- to experience being independent and learn how to succeed. If a parent can't see that as valuable, and of the child as capable, the deficit is in his / her own thought of the child's potential.
8
Considering the amounts of money involved and the fact that they cheated another person out of a spot at the college, should the punishments be longer and stronger?
15
Institutions admit many, many more students than they expect to enroll, even elite institutions. USC, for example, admits roughly 7,000 freshmen to achieve an entering class of 3,500. If someone is admitted in an athletic slot and doesn’t attend, the institution is not going to go out and admit one more non-athlete. No one was cheated out of a spot.
1
Can students only have "transformative" educational experiences at elite colleges?
13
I still think this is much ado about nothing, inflamed by a sensationalist press and a desire by the plebeians for an elitist come-uppance. But really, in 2020, we want to pretend that America is some egalitarian paragon on the hill? That money hasn't always bought (and continues to buy) access, whether to schools, neighborhoods, careers, and of course, love?
8
Some people here say that nine months is too much, but that is out justice system. A cancer patient got sentenced to ten months for stealing $100. People get sentenced all the time to years in jail for minor nonviolent drug crimes. Maybe we need sentencing reform but this former CEO shouldn’t be let off the hook. He probably voted for these tough on crime politician that raised sentencing guidelines.
12
Nine months seems awfully light for a repeat offender who spent 10 year# getting various children into the schools of his choice. I suppose this Hodge will pack his tennis rackets.
18
Why are only the parents prosecuted? Seems like the college officials who took the bribes are equally at fault
12
Wikipedia says 11 coaches were indicted
2
Throw the book at them. They knew what they did and remorse for being caught is the only real remorse they have.
12
so turmp can try to bribe ukraine and gets no punishment whiel this crime which is SO MINOR gets him 9 months in prison? as if he is a risk to public if home arrest
3
@nlcatter
What happened with Trump is a travesty. Having said that, these crimes are not minor.
2
Hodge tries to bribe the judge by saying he'll help provide education for poor children if he gets a lighter sentence. He cannot seem to turn off his corruption.
12
America loves an apology. Why don't these scofflaws get that? In vogue these days to rationalize one's misdeeds.
1
I’m so glad I didn’t have parents like this!
8
“I do not believe that ego or higher social status drove my decision-making. Rather I was driven by my own transformative educational experiences and my deep parental love.”
Well that was certainly a “Hodge-podge” of specious excuses for criminal behavior.
14
“I did not set out to bribe or deceive anyone,” Mr. Hodge wrote in a letter to the judge. “My actions were motivated at the start by the false promise of being able to help colleges and universities and their athletic programs through donations, while at the same time helping my children. Once enamored of that idea, my deepest human failing was in not being able to step back from it — and to extricate myself — once Rick Singer’s scheme, with its quid pro quo payments and deceptions, became clear to me.”
Right, you were snookered from the start and THEN when you found out,you kept doing it b/c ....you're a first liar and thief. Nothing more. Common criminal. A years long prison sentence is required.
8
How is Douglas Hodge any different from Charles Kushner who wrote a $2.5 million dollar check to get Jared Kushner into Harvard when his grades weren't good enough for admission?
15
it’s only different because no one ever falsely claimed Jared was a D1-caliber athlete or took the SAT for him.
Harvard accepting him was Harvard’s (mercenary) decision. If that’s the kind of student Harvard wants, so be it.
All the more reason to look for a college that’s a good fit for you—and one with need-blind admissions—not one with some cachet of elitism where your fellow students would be as annoying as Jared.
6
What a hypocrit. Driven by “Deep familial love?”... More like teaching your children by example that if you have enough money the game can be fixed. Sure, most parents want what’s “best” for their children, but aren’t paving the way with bribes and dishonesty.
10
He doesn’t believe that ego drove his actions
8
If he got 9 months, what should all of those college admissions officers who discriminate against Asian students and misrepresent what they are doing get? It’s hard to justify any prison time for these parents when colleges across America don’t have a merit based system and so admit lots of students who, based on GPA and test scores, do not qualify and are preventing those with higher GPAs and test scores from being admitted.
4
This guy didn’t raise very smart kids. None of these parents did.
7
I wonder if these parents listed the “donations” on their tax returns? Don’t you know who you’re donating to? We do. Of course these were bribes.
7
I wonder what Fred Trump did to get Donald into Wharton? Nevertheless, his educational experience did little to help him spell, use a map, or speak in full sentences. You think they will someday name a building after him?
9
He needn't worry. All he has to do is write another check and Trump will pardon him, and maybe even throw in a Medal of Freedom.
8
This is sad but what is worse is the environment The Corrupt Impeached President has created where cheating at everything is fine. The problem is that these parents are being held accountable but Trump and the GOP are not.
3
Why only nine months in jail?
3
If you are smart enough to run Pimco you smart enough to understand the influence scam you are involved in. These folks should be locked up for a long time, not extended further privilege due to being an elite.
4
Who says there's no good news these days? I found it touching that Hodge's concern for college athletic programs didn't get in the way of his helping his own kids.
5
A lot of people resentful of people with wealth and privilege, and now that one has been snagged trying to help his kids, they'd like to tear him limb from limb or at least lock him up for a very long time. And the prosecutors can smell that. Sorry, this will not make the world more fair and he'll be back on his yacht before you can say "Tahiti", and money will still be buying influence all over the world and laughing at all of us. HSBC laundered nearly a billion dollars for the Mexican and Columbian drug cartels, no one went to jail, they paid a fine and they're all squared away. But if you're happy nailing this guy, by all means enjoy the moment.
1
The problem for these people is not what they did, but the scale of it.
Donate $5K or $50K to attempt to influence and you are a criminal.
Donate $50 million and you have a wing named after you and your kids are “legacy” candidates. Perfectly legal.
In theory, the bigger the bribe, the bigger the penalty should be proportionately. But that’s not how the system has been rigged.
4
Boy, these people need to learn how to parent. How they do it is how we get entitled narcissists in the White House. Encourage your children, love your children, but let them learn from mistakes and earn their own way. I just do not understand why that is difficult to know.
9
It is conspicuous to me that these parents--most of whom have higher education and all of whom have tremendous wealth and opportunities--are getting wrist-slap punishments for crimes a lot more financially and socially significant that the crimes for which many poor people get incarcerated every day. Yet somehow a remarkable number of people seem to feel sorry for them or believe they should be able to buy their way out with a large charity contribution or a big fine.
This guy Hodge paid four separate six-figure bribes, two of them in the half million dollar range. What do you think would happen to a black or Hispanic guy from the Bronx who got caught bribing a traffic official with say $3,000 to make a DUI go away? ($3,000 you'll note is less than one percent of the bribe level Hodge paid.) What do you think would happen if he paid a $3,000 or $5,000 bribe four separate times? You and I know that he'd probably be going away for ten years.
Second point: I'm tired of NYT taking a dive when it comes to some obvious implications of these crimes. For example, we get told with a straight face that the kids had no idea what their parents were doing on their behalf. Gimme a break. How could they not know? These kids were the applicants! They posed for pictures pretending to play sports they don't play. They submitted SAT scores they never earned. And btw what about their application essays?
20
"Rather, I was driven by my own transformative educational experiences and my deep parental love.”He forgot to say-"I didn't mind stepping on the backs of honest people without the extra million dollars+ whose children had better credentials."
11
Finally some real, meaningful justice. The sooner he is in a cell in an orange jumpsuit the better. 270 days. Excellent!
1
Nine months !!!??? These people cannot accept life as it is---must "buy" their children's way tp "success" It is one of the worst things they could have done for them. And besides that, they would shamelessly elbow out so many young people less financially fortunate than themselves who were vying for the same admission slots.
It is entitlement and hubris personified.
5
Forgive the cynicism in my reactions at various points in the story:
- founded an orphanage in Cambodia”” ....so his daughters would be guaranteed placements as volunteers and be close to Thai beaches.
- wasn’t his ego for his children going to elite schools but his valuing of education at such..... yeah, right. I got this bridge for sale if you are buying that story.
However, the claim for leniency that truly stretched credutly - hats off to the lawyer in his team that came up with that one! - is that he is A STAY-AT-HOME FATHER so that his wife could run a foundation! Pleeeazz... I can picture him at home “caring for the children”... through a nanny/au pair (or two) plus a house-keeper. It’s a slap at all the fathers who actually do that - I know a few.
Without meaningful JAIL sentences, wealthy people who abuse the system through illegal practices will continue to do so because their money will buy the way out.
The judge was too lenient.
Harrison
10
It's good they cant buy immortality...not that they won't try...or we'd be stuck with their narcissistic arrogance forever.
5
“No one should be in prison for a nonviolent offense” Former Vice President Joe Biden 9/12/19
1
Third Democratic Presidential Debate 9/12/19 “No one should be in jail for a nonviolent offense” Joe Biden
1
Mr. Douglas Hodge got 9 months in prison after admitting guilt and pleading guilty to money laundering and fraud for getting four of his kids into colleges by nefarious means.
Can't wait to see what happens to Ms. Mossimo Giannulli and Ms. Lori Laughlin, who did exactly the same things for their two daughter, as Mr. Hodge did for his kids. They are betting they can beat the wrap, and are spending another $ million" on high price ambulance chasers, and are pleading "not guilty" to what they did.
4
USC and Georgetown. If it took cheating to get into those schools, his kids were obviously weak.
It does tell you something important about Catholic schools and their constant self-congratulations about "virtue ethics" and "social justice" and "ethical leadership." Catholics may not be worse than the rest of us, but it is obnoxious how they constantly pretend to be better.
Last observation: don't let any racist whites complain about African-American kids getting into good schools through athletic scholarships. At least they play on the school team.
9
The blind obsessiveness in the country about "elite" schools is out of hand. Besides, Georgetown, USC, Loyola of California are so elite as to risk spending 9 months in prison? Hardly.
6
Mr. Hodge, you are getting what you deserve. As a college prep tutor, I’ve seen first-hand the years of hard work it takes for my students to be accepted to a competitive college. These kids don’t just study, they play multiple sports, do volunteer work, tutor other students, serve leadership roles in high school—all while working minimum wage jobs at McDonalds and Burger King. Still, many of these deserving kids don’t make it—because people like you use your money, power, and celebrity to give your lazy, less-intelligent, unmotivated children a college education they don’t deserve. Yes, I am angry! Shame on you, Mr. Hodge. Shame on you!
13
Meanwhile the parent in the White House got no prison time for running a fraudulent university, and got away with putting his unqualified children into powerful government positions.
10
If Mr. Hodge was a person of color, he would have received 9 years instead of 9 months, says this caucasian.
11
The crime is that Hodge had 7 children at a time when we're drowing the planet in people.
4
Sleep well, Lori Loughlin.
6
His kids will live with this forever. When they go to their fancy cocktail parties people will point them out, turn to each other, smirk, and say he or she got into USC or Georgetown because of Daddy's bribe.
Of course the rich are less frightened by the prospect of shame or they would not engage in the corrupt activities that get them rich in the first place. So maybe things will work out for the little Ivankas and Jareds.
6
did someone ghost write Mr. Hodges speechify? Here's some questions. Did you talk with your children about their future? OR did your kids talk about college and were their grades good OR how about tutors OR did you discuss possibilities such as working first then college OR volunteering OR community college if the kid was unsure OR did you parents not have any faith in the ability of your child? Hodges, you did this for you, first of all. Another bragging right.
4
Am I the only one shocked by what the judge said in the 6th paragraph in this article?
1
@Jake
Shocked, of course. Surprised, no.
When rich people give money to charity, they do it for two reasons - bragging rights and a tax write-off.
Altruism isn't in these people's vocabularies, their existences are purely transactional in nature.
3
I wonder how it feels to raise 7 inferior children who couldn’t qualify for college admissions on their own merit - or lack there of. Their father (actually both parents) obviously had no respect for any abilities they might have. The children now know their parents think they are imbeciles. They are now tainted, though privileged human beings for the rest of their lives. Of course, being an imbecile didn’t stop the current occupant of the Oval Office.
5
The part about this whole scandal that I've truly never understood is why the parents thought "getting in" to elite schools was the whole enchilada. Getting in is probably not easy--but neither is the ensuing tsunami of coursework when you are under-prepared. When the kids actually attend the classes and get a look at the workloads the other students expect and can tackle, that's when the real struggle begins.
2
I don’t understand why Americans suffer with corruption and exorbitant healthcare and education costs when the answer is in plain sight: immigrate.
Canada has excellent colleges at a substantially lower cost and none of these “oh you played the tuba in an orphanage” passes for wealthy applicants.
Norway and Germany have excellent schools, for free to international as well as domestic students, where you don’t even need to learn the language as the instruction is in English for the most popular degrees.
Even France and Spain where you actually need to learn the language have excellent colleges, especially in engineering and science. Free, no tuba or orphanage points but only competitive entrance examinations. Spanish opens up Latin American markets, French opens up north- and west-African markets.
US colleges seem to lose intrinsic value by the day as their face value soars towards the six figures in tuition a year.
Thankfully engineering and science graduate schools are immune from the tennis-tuba-orphanage scans as they recruit on competitive examination and peer-reviewed publication only.
9
This kind of thing is not limited to elite universities in the United States. When I was a young man in the 1960s I attended an elite boys-only high school in Toronto called the University of Toronto Schools. As the name suggests, it was affiliated with the University of Toronto, having been founded in 1910 as a teaching laboratory for student teachers at the university. UTS was taxpayer-funded, and had a reputation for academic excellence. Admission was ostensibly based on academic ability, which was determined by the results of an entrance exam which every prospective student had to write. It was only many years after I had graduated that I realized that this was a complete fiction. A vast number of my schoolmates were the sons of professors and senior officials at U of T. Many others were the sons of men who had attended the school 30 years before. How many deserving young men were denied a UTS education because of this corruption is anybody’s guess. UTS has since lost its taxpayer funding, and legacy admissions are now commonplace. But the U.S. college-admissions scandal reminds me of what went on at my high school in Canada 50 years ago.
5
Nine months seems a bit much for a first time offender who has given a lot of his money to benefit others, who did this to help his children and who pleaded guilt and cooperated.
Nine months unfortunately tells the other parents they have little to risk by fighting the cases. And if they go to trial, with good lawyers, they might be able to win some cases and undermine the whole prosecution.
I think the prosecutors got greedy on this one.
1
As a parent who has been through the elite college admissions process at a top private school, what really leaps out at me is that he founded a Cambodian orphanage where his daughters volunteered. That single factoid shows someone who is already long in the habit of molding reality into new shapes for the benefit of his family (OK, and some Cambodians benefitted, incidentally). How someone who is rich and powerful enough to skew the system in umpteen ways for his kids before they apply to college could feel the need also to cheat and lie? What a bullet-proof bubble of privilege they have enjoyed...until now. I hope he spends his jail time contemplating how to rebuild trust in his family and really help others.
4
I don’t quite understand all the outrage. This always gone on. Always. The rich kids have it easy. The middle class kids have to be smart and talented. The poor kids have to be smart, talented , and work a 20-30 hour a week low wage job.
10
The plea bargaining strategy by the prosecutors is the sort that is widely attacked—-offering deals too good to refuse in order to get a guilty plea. But here the tactic is favored to shame the parents. Opposition to the prosecutors’ strategy is hypocritical The public likes or dislikes the same tactics depending on their prejudices.
"Transformative Educational Experiences?" Whatever it was that he learned, it wasn't about ethics.
6
Parental love..is letting young adult children learn how to fend for themselves in life, including how to deal with set backs and disappointments. Then they are ready to deal with life and that is one of the greatest gifts you can give them.
5
I have to wonder how much of this isn’t really about loving the kids, but about needing to be able to tell your friends that your kid got into the best school? (Just kidding, I don’t really wonder.)
7
Don't soften those crimes with moral relativism. All of the parents involved deserve punishment. The process has so many corrupting influences at so many levels - and so many that are fully legal - that cheating is even more egregious.
4
Take away the children's degrees. They would be out if they had cheated on a test.
Then end collegiate sports. Ok, not frisbee.
5
"I do not believe that ego or desire for higher social status drove my decision-making." This is a person that is blind to the fact that he bribed and cheated to jump the queue, thereby denying four better qualified applicants a place on their merits and an educational opportunity that the criminal himself called "my own transformative educational experiences”. This was not a plea. It was a demonstration of not knowing, even now, the nature of the nauseating crime. Nine months is not enough. Not nearly enough.
7
Honestly, all these parents know the difference between paying a consultant and making a bona fide charitable gift to a college or university. Nine months sounds pretty good; he should take it, shut up and be grateful it’s not longer.
5
9 months for fraud. 1 year for a joint. One law slaps on the hand the wealthy when they get caught doing what they do. The other targets the poor in order to fund the private jails. No our justice system is not broken, evil or a joke, it works just as it was intended.
8
Mr. Hodge is arguing that he participated in this bribery because of his love for his children when there are many legal ways to do so. With his wealth he could have hired private tutors and tennis coaches for all of them. That his children did not qualify on their own merits makes me wonder if he told them they could go to any college they wanted and didn’t have to kill themselves to get straight As or practice a sport. Enabling laziness is not helpful to kids and especially when many poor students are working their tails off to compete. It sends a message to his children that their privilege means they don’t have to work hard. What parent wants to raise entitled brats if they love their kids?
4
1) These are cases of prosecutorial over reach. Shouldn't the U.S. attorney be looking at crimes of a more serious nature where the public is at risk?
2) Getting these underachieving kids into "brand name" universities is more about the parent's ego than a child wanting to go to USC.
3) The universities are complicit. Have any of them returned the illicit funds? Not likely.
3
I sure this decision will leave a lot of people wondering what happened to the legal system in this country. I think it's appalling that someone as rich as Mr. Hodge should have to go to jail. After all, he didn't defraud, swindle, or steal from any other rich people.
3
A great read, thank you. The hilarity of the closing paragraph blew me away. This guy -- Mr. Hodge -- used his wealth to make bogus charitable donations to get what he wanted. Then, after getting caught, his lawyers say he will "use his wealth" to do essentially the same thing, make charitable donations to get a lighter sentence. You can't make this stuff up.
8
I wonder if Republicans are following this saga of admissions for wealthy kids. I guarantee this is just the surface. Just one scheme out of many not yet discovered.
The Republicans form think tanks and elect judges to keep minority kids out of the elite colleges but keep their collective mouths shut when it comes to this cheating scandal and legacy admissions.
This country is lacking in wisdom and common sense.
1
His kids should lose their degrees. They don't need them anyway, since his personal riches will keep them in gated mansions with servants for the rest of their lives. Whatever they want they can have. Why give them a degree that others had to scrape and save for?
2
I'm sure it was his high ethical standards that lead to his success at Pimco.
6
I'm really not sure what the rest of us get out of this hugely expensive taxpayer-funded exercise in schadenfreude. It doesn't make a whit of difference in this country's ridiculous income inequity. It doesn't change how college admissions work -- rich people still have 1000 advantages that aren't illegal. It's an attempt to say that rich people are above the law, but in the American judicial system they are ARE largely above the law and this case does extremely little to change it.
2
Kind of funny that a rich guy who says he was driven by his own "transformative educational experiences" didn't manage to raise a child who couldn't get into college without criminal means. His children should be stripped of their degrees. Ignorance of accepting stolen goods does not allow the recipient the right to keep them.
1
So what penalties will Georgetown and USC be paying for being corrupt institutions of higher learning? I suggest taking away their tax exempt status for 5 years.
5
Please be fair to these people's kids as parents' cheating does not mean kids were unfit to be selected.
1
@ Blackbird
Actually, the parents’ cheating does indeed indicate the children were unable to be selected into these institutions based solely upon their own merits.
Otherwise the parents would not have cheated.
In the meantime children who would have been selected, based solely upon their merits, were denied the slot which had been rightfully earned.
3
@Blackbird Also true, Highly selective college admission is essentially a lottery. Thousands of qualified, capable students are rejected every year. Daddy Hodge bought up almost all the lottery tickets.
5
"But he added: “I do not believe that ego or desire for higher social status drove my decision-making. Rather, I was driven by my own transformative educational experiences and my deep parental love.”"
He tells us all in one sentence that he still doesn't get it.
326
@Mary
In reality though, the CEO of the world's largest bond manager doesn't really worry about raising his social status.
5
@Todd
There's a difference between being wealthy and having social status.
15
@Mary As a parent, albeit one who lacks his resources millions of times over, I can accept that he feels he did it out of love. It's hard to watch a child fail. My kid, while not having the advantages these kids had, has had plenty of his own where he knows his mother and I wouldn't do anything of this sort to make up for his lackluster efforts.
10
I knew a father who tried this and his son went ahead and got in and then obtained multiple graduate degrees entirely on his own, never knowing what his dad had tried to do. That son has had a truly satisfying career based on having just followed his own heart. Had he done otherwise, he would have never ended up where he did when all was said and done. Privilege would have never accomplished what he did.
3
Hodge’s idea of love for his children means paving their paths for them, opening doors for them, essentially presenting them with gifts they haven’t earned and that they will never have an opportunity to earn. He perpetuates arrogance and the fraudulent appearance of competence. Our country, any country cannot survive where a system supports fraud at every turn.
291
@BBC Jared Kushner's father did exactly the same thing when Jared's grades were not good enough to get into Harvard. He took out his checkbook and gifted them 2.5 Million to pave Jared's path to success.
63
@BBC Are you saying they'd become Trumps?
9
@Jacquie
I presume that Trump's parents paid off Wharton.
Trump isn't bright enough to have been admitted to or have graduated from Wharton on his own.
14
Being a college admissions officer at any one of a hundred great colleges and universities must be one of the hardest jobs in the world. People forget that applicants are still just kids, eighteen years old. Has the glittering applicant already peaked, burned out from too much pressure, too much of everything already? Is the ordinary applicant a late-blooming gift to society? I wish everyone, parents and students alike, would just relax. Go to school. Do your best. Live your life. Make some modest corner of the world a better place. That's more than enough.
14
@Jim56
I would think it’s one of the easiest jobs. No pressure. If a lawyer or doctor makes a mistake, it matters. What is a the effect of an admissions mistake? I don’t hear about admissions administrators being fired for poor performance. It’s like being a beauty pageant judge, how can you go wrong?
2
@Shamrock My thought was that it must be hard to know you are doing a good job not just any job, that you are not missing a diamond in the rough, etc.
1
The light shines brightly today on the abuse of power, by the wealthy (1% er's), to circumvent the established process by using bribes to get their children unfairly into elite colleges. It seems this is the new norm, at present however, local law enforcement and state courts are not diminished/corrupted in there abilities to hold these folks accountable. I wish this past week our federal government would have shown us the same integrity and honesty.
307
I can rest assured that this is how Republican Douglas Hodge ran his company too. No one has a bigger sense of entitlement in America than the wealthy Republican class.
25
Yes he did run his company like that. I had a friend who worked at pimco, hired for the face value of his science PhD at the top school in his field, but doing donkey work. He couldn’t understand what they guy across from his desk actually did to earn $25 million a year, except be friends with the boss. Pimco and companies like it have no competition. Deregulation in the 1980s opened the door but now barriers to entry in monopolies that dominate the US economy are higher than ever. At best places like pimco are inefficient, but many are corrupt and a drag on the country and the world economy.
8
The underlying fact that causes all of this is schools like Stanford that win up to 5 NCAA championships annually obviously gives preferential admissions to top athletes. Not just a couple of athletes, but enough to throughly dominate all other teams in almost every women’s sport. Remember, you can have a perfect academic record and your chances of being admitted to Stanford are slim. They can only have a competitive team without a couple of preferential admissions. Instead they have the entire starting lineups as preferential admissions in every sport.
2
@Shamrock
And that’s their prerogative, as a private school. They have to distinguish somehow among so many high school valedictorians with perfect test scores.
To be an athlete of that caliber takes dedication, hard work, talent—and is in no way incompatible with academic achievement.
That’s different from taking bribes or accepting a student whose test scores or athletic achievements are fake,
1
The good news is that schools don’t use race or ethnicity rather than strictly merit for admissions.
3
"Mr. Hodge would use his wealth, his lawyers suggested, to try to make amends for his crimes, saying that he would “redouble his efforts to provide educational assistance to children from disadvantaged backgrounds, at home, across the country, and around the world.”"
So his lawyers are outright saying he should get a lower sentence because he has money to donate?
22
@Alex
If wealthy enough, you can buy your freedom. It happens in the criminal justice system every day by those who can afford the best attorney v. those who have to depend on a public defender. (Which means prison and poverty or take a plea deal and give away your innocence for a lesser sentence.) It's not a perfect world.
3
I am one of five boys, raised in humble circumstances during the 1960s and 1970s. My father was a High School principal and my mother worked in a different school's counselor office for the entire time I was in junior high and high school. My father went to college after he retired from the army but my mother was never able to do so. It was our parent's dream that each of us obtain a college degree. With my parent's connections in the educational community they could have opened some doors. They did not; they would not help us with our college applications, telling us if we truly wanted something it would come to us by virtue of our own hard work.
Each of us now have an undergraduate degree; four of us have master's degrees, one brother has two earned doctorates. We attended higher education where my parents had little if any influence. I know that my parents valued their integrity such that they would never attempt any such thing. They gave that gift of personal integrity to each of us. As a professor in a private university who is at this moment interviewing applicants for undergraduate and graduate admission, stories of these parent's actions make me almost unbearably sad. They have demonstrated their own core values for all to see. Their children are now aware that their own place in higher education was stolen from someone else. That burden will be with them all their lives, and future employers will absolutely be aware of it.
24
Let’s hear it for your folks!
2
My parents were Depression-era kids who went to high school, served in WWII, got out, married and went to work. They never went to college. They had 5 kids & their lifelong goal was that we 5 kids would graduate from college. All 5 of us were first generation college students, and now have bachelor’s degrees, 3 have master’s degrees and 1 has a PhD. All on a salesman’s and grammar school secretary’s paychecks. Three out of the 5 of us went to state schools. All 5 of us have been employed our entire careers. My parents had a comfortable retirement for 20 years.
I tell this story because there is absolutely no reason these rich, successful parents need to go about paying off people to get their kids into college. It is pure vanity to be able to brag about how their kids are in elite schools. They should all do jail time and be fined/forced to endow scholarships for kids whose parents are not as fortunate and who did not rig the system.
45
@Jaime LaFrance - I'm not justifying what they did, but to generalize that going to an elite school is all vanity devalues the better education you obtain and the smarter students with whom you interact. Not to mention the contacts that you make and the fact that it's additive to a resume for job seeking purposes. Maybe people want a more luxurious lifestyle? Maybe they want to retire at 45? Did your parents do that? Is your parents route good enough for everyone?
2
@Jaime LaFrance You're describing what some intelligent, motivated students are capable of - perhaps Hodge realized that his kids just weren't capable of the same.
3
So those who made the rules of the game and judge others mercilessly by those same rules are now cheating to circumvent said rules for their next generation, who would then fall back on said rules as reason their rulership is justified?
Got it.
13
Mr. Hodge is sophisticated enough to know that if he wishes to make a charitable donation to a university, there is no need to use a middleman who is not employed at such institution. So no one should buy that argument from his attorneys.
And why didn’t he just pony up and make those donations directly? The fundraising department of a school does not operate in a vacuum.
26
“In a Vacuum.” Probably one of the most overused phrases in the U.S.
And what about the fates of the four students who were pushed out of the places they earned at these elite schools by Mr. Hodges' entitled, unqualified children?
Are their lives going to return to what they would have been if they had received the benefits of their own hard work?
Mr. Hodges has no remorse, no understanding or interest in the real consequences of what he and his children did. All he can do is lie about his intentions and whine about his punishment.
23
@Shar
The 4 who lost a place in line do not suffer irretrievable damage because they didn't get into that specific elite school. That belief is the product of brainwashing. Ultimately, success is based in how one meets his or her responsibilities.
Nine months? How about nine years!
21
@Steve
You don’t get 9 years as a first time drug dealer next to a school.
1
“..I do not believe that ego or desire for higher social status drove my decision-making. Rather, I was driven by my own transformative educational experiences and my deep parental love...”
So I guess I need to accept that as a college educated parent of two teenagers, I did not have a transformative educational experience and apparently I don't love my kids enough.
Disgusting.
31
Parents do things like this for themselves, not their children. They've thrown ethics out the window and are pathetic role models for their children. Mr. Hodge is lying to himself and hasn't done any personal reflection if he thinks he did this only out of love for his children.
349
@Ellen agree! “Transformative educational experiences” are available at institutions across the land. If that was truly his concern he would be supportive of any school his children were admitted to. But no, they had to have the name brand schools.
25
Let's do a compare/contrast with our justice system:
Cancer patient steals $110 in groceries and gets a 10 month sentence (fortunately the lieutenant governor of PA intervened)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/01/us/ashley-menser-cancer-shoplifting-pennsylvania.html
These guys steal one or multiple seats at elite universities and get... less time... the same time (that they won't actually serve).
And the NYT wonders why Bernie is so popular... the riffraff are tired of the ever expanding two-tiered system (justice system and more generally) we have going in this country.
53
I don't understand. Did this man raise such a bunch of uneducated reprobates that they could not get into these schools based upon their own merits? If he did, then shame on him.
34
Corrupt is corrupt. Degree hardly matters. So he’s four times as corrupt as someone who “only” paid to get one child admitted? And what has that student learned? That the rules don’t apply to him/her? No amount of education will turn someone with that mindset into a moral person. The whole thing stinks to the high heavens.
10
The only amends I can think of is to strip this mans children of Degrees they did not earn.
12
@Nick - We don't know if they actually earned their degrees. It is possible that they paid others to write their papers or, if they actually wanted the education, paid others to tutor them. But without any direct knowledge, they should not be stripped of their degrees. They will be under a cloud the rest of their lives, or as long as the collective memory of us. That might be very short.
1
@Nick
Isn't the work the students did a different story than how they got accepted? What if they worked just as hard and sincerely as anyone else?
I am disgusted by these actions but also find it hilarious that these parents have spent hundreds of thousands on schools like Georgetown and USC - they aren't even in the top 10!
My mother and father worked in Chinese restaurants as a waitress and a cook, respectively. They had none of the wealth or privilege that these criminals have, and yet I was able to matriculate into Harvard through hard work. I have no sympathy for the parents, or frankly, their dumb children.
51
@David
I hope, as a Harvard graduate, that you're capable of more complexity than that. "Hard work" is only one component of getting into Harvard. I am sick of the grotesque misuse of terms like "merit" and "deserving" to describe admitted students to highly selective colleges.
I have known and worked with dozens of Harvard students and others who attend highly selective colleges. There are dozens of elements that add up to admission, none more so than going to a pathway high school. I do not pretend that the 16 students who were admitted to Harvard from our public high school worked any harder than many other applicants, including you.
5
@Cousy You're right.
Not only do you have to work hard, but you also have to be very smart. I did not want to be boastful, but thank you for pointing that out.
2
$260K a pop to get one's kid into USC? USC? I mean really! With that kind of savvy, I'll just let my gardener do my investing before this guy.
24
@Alf - PIMCO HQ is in Newport Beach, and this guy has a mansion on the beach there. This is fairly close to USC and would allow his kids to drive the new sports cars he bought them home on the weekends. The kids probably wanted to go to USC - it is a great status thing and had nothing to do with "wanting to go to one of the best universities". "My kid plays for 'SC'" is what he was after. This kind of nepotism is one reason I decided to live overseas, "off the grid".
4
Amusing to see all the ink spilled about Asian kids being displaced in college placements by less high achieving black young people. And surprise, surprise it's really low performing (relative to the pool) white kids from wealthy families. Some because of the illegal acts described here — and more pervasively by legacy admits which may be legal but are morally questionable at the level of seats they claim.
20
@Beth
Indeed. And Black students who attend highly selective colleges face judgment and second guessing at every turn by their Chinese and white peers, whereas the wealthy white kids who get in through the "back door" are accepted as normal.
5
You'd think, with all that money, he'd have aimed higher than USC.
33
The article should have recorded how many children the other parents have. If you only have one child, then yea, you get caught bribing for one child, my guess is these people did not have 7 children like this Hodge fellow...and that is the reason he is the "worst" offender. Seems to me they are all equally horrible people.
6
Should we be taking a close look at Hodge's company Pimco? If Hodge was willing to cheat to get his kids into college... well, who knows what he was willing to do in the financial world?
33
Well, when you're a 1%-er, it does seem you can do anything and get away with it. Too bad the system doesn't work with well with the Senate and the Oval Office denizen. There wouldn't be enough room is our prisons to hold them all.
8
"....money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and honest services mail and wire fraud...."
I'll bet he's been doing this his whole life.
10
Good! No one is above the law!
1
Except our current WH occupant.
1
@Richard Or at least no one should be.
So with all this drama with the impeachment and the GOP Senators voting to acquit a degenerate thief and incontrovertible traitor, fingers point at Mr. Hodge?
7
Assuming there is one, at least you can't buy your way into Heaven, I think?
He did not set out to bribe or deceive anyone?
Get him a dictionary, please.
9
People with great wealth learn that money buys almost anything: the biggest house, the flashiest cars, the private jet, the most exotic vacation, the gaudiest jewelry...and on and on, including get-out-of-jail passes when they transgress. Just like first graders who compare how many Crayons are in their boxes, they get satisfaction from winning by comparison. Old wealthy families quietly sent offspring to Harvard and Yale for centuries, as legacies. Now the Hollywood set, eager to one-up their peers with their supposedly brilliant children, are in on the game. Too academically unqualified themselves to have graduated from an elite college, and, thus, not in possession of legacy cards, they and complicit schools succumbed to these schemes. Douglas Hodge’s case is different. He has degrees from Dartmouth and Harvard; his children likely could have been admitted as legacies, if he was simply looking for Ivy League bragging. Perhaps he had a business rival whose child was turned down by Georgetown, and Hodge wanted to “win” yet again. Or maybe his children really wanted Georgetown and USC, but weren’t good enough. Well, shame on all of them. Legacy admissions should end and special admits should be closely monitored.
196
@Iowa Gal In So Cal I could not have said it better it's entitlement it's saying my kid can't make it but he's got to make it to the top because I'm a big shot and I want him to be a big-shot oh my God how could any kid with the skills to make it to the top without Papa's money ever make it to the top with people like this they
14
@Iowa Gal In So Cal
"Too academically unqualified themselves to have graduated from an elite college, and, thus, not in possession of legacy cards, they and complicit schools succumbed to these schemes."
Your comment is based on the assumption that those who have not gradated from elite colleges are not academically qualified.
I was admitted to a number of Ivy League Colleges.
I am a graduate of CUNY.
I know many extremely intelligent individuals who are graduates of CUNY. You have failed to consider that choosing not to incur hundreds of thousand of dollars in student debt is a sign of intelligence, rather than of the lack thereof.
19
This man cheated to have four of his children admitted to Georgetown and USC. Were they so unintelligent and/or unacademic that they couldn't have gotten into decent colleges or universities on their own merits? The parents who cheated like this weren't driven by love. If you love someone, you accept them as they are and help them meet their potential. You don't misrepresent them and lie for them. How awful for the children who really weren't in on the scams, to find out now how little faith their parents had in them.
23
Mr. Hodge should have gone the sure shot legal way to get your average kid into a top private college: donate 100 million before the kid applies to the school and build a building on campus with your family name on it. The kids who really have tough odds getting into these liberal, elite colleges are white lower to middle class kids who apply for financial aid. These colleges shun white families who can’t afford to pay the full price of $70,000 per year or so. But, who really wants to go to these politically correct elite colleges when you can go to your top state college for a fraction of the cost and be among kids of actual diverse opinions and majority humble economic backgrounds.
7
This just burns me up. Folks are always complaining that some unqualified black student, took their spot, due to Affirmative Action, but seem to have no problem with this. Even the Asia students, who sued Harvard, will say they deserve a spot over a “less qualified minority student”. The numbers of minority students, that are not Asian, attending the most selective schools is a abysmal, yet for some reason no one has a problem with rich white students attending these schools. Their presence is never questioned.
As a single mother, I did everything I could to give my black son an edge, so no one would ever question his right to be at an elite school. I moved heaven and earth, to send him to private schools from K-12. He attended an independent college prep school in the Detroit area. One of his classmates was the daughter of a fortune 5 CEO. He had a 3.6 gpa, 31 ACT and 33 super score. Did he have a perfect gpa or ACT? No. His scores were definitely in the median for some of the schools he applied. He was denied by Georgetown and Columbia. We accepted it. Many of those students have a 4.0 with perfect scores on the ACT. However, he was at or above the median score for Michigan. He is legacy many times over. His father attended and 3 uncles. They denied him early admission and waitlisted him for regular admission. They finally accepted him in May, after he had accepted with another university.
As usual, there is no meritocracy, only money matters in this country.
15
Interesting legal strategy:
'Mr. Hodge’s lawyers have disputed the significance of that request and said none of his children were aware they were being falsely presented as athletes.'
Just as with the Trump spawn, being stupid is a defense? Surely these kids knew they weren't prime tennis or soccer recruits.
7
Slap on the wrist.
7
Based upon her total refusal to accept guilt, Lori Laughlan deserves a long sentence.
17
What was Doug Hodge thinking? He has more money than he knows what to do with, but he chooses to bribe an interloper instead of bribing the college directly? Is that his sin - trying to save a few bucks by cutting the colleges out from the grift?
He would have been much better off if he bribed the colleges directly, as was done to get Jared Kushner into Yale and Donald Trump into UPenn. Heck, cough up a big enough bribe and they'll name a building after you.
All this infamy for simply bribing the wrong party; such a pity.
12
I would understand going to such lengths to get your kids into Harvard but USC and Georgetown are not outrageously hard schools to get into. With all the wealth and privilege these kids had access to they must just not be very smart.
14
@M. It's possible that they could have done it on their own but Daddy couldn't resist meddling.
it's interesting that almost none of the comments focus on what it says about the kids. How would you feel if you knew that your parents thought you were too dumb to get into school on your own and they finagled your way in based in a skill set you never even pretended to have, like soccer or tennis? I'll admit that I did not attend an "elite" school but if I wanted to bribe my way in, I don't think that Georgetown or USC would be my choice.
6
They should have given him five years.
7
"Mr. Hodge is a stay-at-home caregiver to his two youngest children" -- have they no shame?
9
When a person says he's remorseful, but blah blah blah . . . that's not being remorseful. Mr. Hodge still has a lot to learn about remorse and also about parenting.
10
The Ivies and elite universities are strip mining their own reputations. How soon before "Ivy League Graduate" goes from meaning "good, smart person who will do quality work for you" to "dumb, rich person with rich friends to milk for money"?
11
"I have in my heart the deepest remorse for my actions,” Mr. Hodge told the judge. But he added: “I do not believe that ego or desire for higher social status drove my decision-making. Rather, I was driven by my own transformative educational experiences and my deep parental love."
Seriously? He said that?
No, sir, this was all and only about your ego-driven desire to cheat your kids' way higher social status. You should be counting your lucky stars you got only a nine-month sentence and not the two years prosecutors sought.
But, either way, I have no doubt you will emerge from prison no more self-aware than when you entered it.
10
One almost thinks it would be easier for those schools to keep a couple spots open for admission that families could bid for on open auction-- or for the schools to sell expensive tickets for a lottery. At least there would be more transparency.
9
Would asking their kids to study, be imaginative, and work hard be too much to ask? How will they get through adulthood if they're used to their parents buying school and jobs for them?
5
@Linda
I agree but until Wall Street and top law firms start hiring from non selective schools, you have no chance of getting the best jobs no matter how hard you work.
@Linda
I would think with daddy’s money.
Jail will be good for this guy and his family. It’ll open up a whole new world outside their sad little bubble of striving and let them feel humanity in all its splendor. I do hope the kids don’t have to wear a scarlet letter for the rest of their lives.
5
Where is the line drawn when a parent helps their child get into college? Donating to their Alma Mater? Asking a friend to write a letter of recommendation? Colleges have in the past and still do encourage parents to engage in this behavior. One has to look no further than the Obama, Kennedy, Schumer, Biden, Bush and DeBlasio families to understand that the college system is gamed by powerful and rich parents to help their kids.
3
Difficult. It is difficult to accept the prison sentences of the parents who paid bribery money to schools or conspirators to get their children into competitive colleges and universities. Under the scrutiny of what is going on in the Trump administration when lying and cheating, and maybe bribery, is not ill advised or unaccepted, but expected by the President and his Whitehouse to meet their prerogatives , it seems that these parents are accused only of having wanted the best for their children comes up short as a crime. Someone should tell them all they have to do is make as large a contribution as they can to Trump’s re election campaign, and they will receive pardons ALL!
1
Mr. Hodge doesn't know what "deep parental love" is, I guess. Because it involves a desire that your child develop moral character, especially in the face of adversity and injustice.
7
I am convinced that the university that you attend has little to no effect on your life and these parents have bought into the myth that this choice is life and death. There is no evidence ever advanced that makes the case here. Perhaps it's about the vanity of the parents, so they can brag about the schools their kids attend. When the children involved learn about the bribery while in college or after graduation, the bond with the parents are forever damaged, telling their kids they are not good enough or smart enough to be loved.
2
Fortunately, university reputations remain unscathed through this sordid affair, although with so much money involved it’s no surprise, given the way money prevails in today’s democracy.
1
What also has to be investigated is that if these children of the super wealthy, whose parents paid "consultants" to get them into elite universities that they were unqualified to be admitted under their previous high school grades, SAT scores and achievements, did it stop just at the admission process? I hardly think so. This behavior and this cheating most likely occurred during their entire time of enrollment. For instance helping to "edit" term papers or pay others to write them, or even purchase them off the educational black market. When faced with tough assignments, did Mom and Dad's checkbook come out to get them through those difficult times? You'd have to think so. I'm sure the cheating didn't just stop at the admission process.
5
So-called "elite" colleges represent America's caste system, designed to perpetuate wealth in families. They are no "better" than most state universities, and probably worse at educating students overall due to restricted diversity and grade inflation that the NYT has previously reported on. They do provide political connections to promote future economic success. Unless the popular view of these colleges changes, parents will continue to do what they can to gain admission for their children, including making financial donations the colleges are so dependent on.
4
Now when will the DOJ begin to go after the colleges involved? The recent case for Harvard where it seems they were discriminating against Oriental students but who unsuccessfully sued them says plenty about the university ethos. It demonstrated that they were opaque about what they did and refused to come clean about the process including whether the ethnicity of the admissions decision makers bore any relation to the demonstrable inequalities of the process. The university’s claim that they were simply aiming for the ideal milieu of diversity is completely subjective. Making decisions on the basis of unmeasurables is unaccountable. Perhaps this is related to Harvard's continued slide down the university rankings. (down to 6th this year in the Times Educational Supplement’s university rankings).
2
Send your children to community colleges in Queens, Brooklyn, Los Angeles or the Bay Area. They might learn something valuable that will enrich their entire lives, and you won't have to bribe anybody to get them in or mortgage the house to pay the tuition. Plus, those places can actually get your kids good jobs.
3
Why wasn't he penalized with any fines; financial crimes deserve financial penalties as well as time in prison.
2
@search3000
Joe Biden “no one should be in jail for a nonviolent offense” Third Democratic Presidential Debate Sept. 12, 2019
How has the present youth sports complex, pay to play, become any different than the college admissions scandal? Aren't these ethos trickling down to the "general managers" and parents of U-12, 16, 18 programs? When will someone investigate all the interworkings of the greed behind the rise of traveling youth sports teams?
1
With our current capitalist system, which tends to reward people of wealth and privilege and give them outsize influence (the Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court is a perfect example), coupled with the exposed activities of this current and corrupt administration, it seems that America has become one huge quid pro quo.
1
"I do not believe my desire for higher social status drove my decision..." If that was the case, he wouldn't feel it necessary to even mention it... unless of course, he's worried about his social status.
5
WOW! Only nine months in prison for "money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and honest services mail and wire fraud."
I would not be surprised if he does half of that.
I know folks who served serious jail time for far less crimes. They were Causation and African American individuals. What they were not was wealthy, influential, successful nor highly educated.
Such incredible injustice across the board, on both sides.
6
@Marge Keller
Joe Biden “no one should be in jail for a nonviolent offense” Sept. 12, 2019 Democratic Presidential Debate
For those still trying to make sense of this college admission scandal, The Meritocracy Trap, by Daniel Markovits, is a must read. As the subtitle makes clear, the meritocracy trap indeed Devours the Elite!
2
Oh puhleeze ! Driven by his own "transformative educational experiences" and love of his children. Give me a break. These people are buying a name, at the expense of their children's happiness. Indeed, if you are not really qualified to get into school A, B or C, then all you're going to get out of college is a diminishing sense of self worth. Not only might they feel inadequate in comparison to their fellow students, they sure as heck know that their parents had no faith in them or their capabilities. How is that an expression of love? Answer: it is not. All of these people are buying status and networking opportunities, both for their children and themselves. That can backfire on even the most qualified of candidates.
224
@Sarah Not sure i agree, likely half the people rejected by these schools are academically and experientially qualified to attend. Just because your qualified doesn't mean you get in.
7
Mr. Hodge built his career buying securities not just on promises, but on the basis of thorough examinations of the claims and conditions of the issuer. To imagine him less concerned about the risk factors of his charitable giving and education investments is to imagine Bernie Madoff as a skilled investment manager.
5
These entitled rich people thought they were special and didn't have to follow the rules like all the rest of us "little people" in getting our kids into college. Cry me a River . Elite colleges fall all over themselves trying to entice the richest and the most powerful; they throw a bone once in a while to smart, hard-working middle class and under-served kids so they can say they are fair. However, the elite colleges need the rich and their kids to contribute to their high endowments and "eliteness" and the rich and powerful need the further superiority that their specially- admitted Harvard kids will bring to their place far above the rest of us. Throw all these parents in prison so they can reflect on how their self-importance and arrogance didn't work this time and rescind the degrees of their kids, and let them go to community college or state schools like most Americans. Require that they get a student worker job on the 5:00 AM weekend shift in the cafeteria tuition They should also pay the student loans of the kids who fell off the list when Mr. and Mrs. "I'll-give-you money" for my kid's admission came calling. The hardworking, bright students who should have been admitted based on their merit, not Daddy's money, will be the ones who will end up contributing to society in a far greater capacity then those entitled kids that got everything handed to them anyway.
9
You have to love the philanthropic angle that was argued by his lawyers! With that kind of cheek, this guy could be a future President!
7
Well finally someone with billions pays the price for his evil deeds. Can trump be next?
4
Makes one wonder what Fred Trump had to do to get his son into Penn/Wharton. There is NO WAY DJT had grades to get into that school.
20
@Cardinal Fan
And what he had to do to get jr. to stay in.
1
Why didn't he just contact the college's endowment fund executives and offer to make hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal donations with the (wink, wink...quid pro quo) goal of gaining admission for his children. The Kushners apparently paid Harvard $2M and lo and behold, Jared was admitted...all "fair and square".
7
Mr. Hodge and his lawyers make compelling arguments in regards to his charitable work. It's truly unfortunately some of it was to mask an ugly and illegal effort to gain greater positions of privilege for his own children that already have so much.
What a shame.
3
They should all get at least token jail time, as a warning to other Richies.
Meanwhile, I see the insane amount of work my child and her classmates have to go through to even be considered as viable for admission to these universities.
God forbid, they get a B in a course or two!
5
Reality Check if kids had jobs payed living wage wont need to go to these for profit colleges. 20 million jobs could gone to americans alnoe in computor industery in last 20 years. Amazing how quick people will point blame on others for our own doing.We are own worse enemy .
If ever an article validated the two-tiered justice system in our country this is it. What a week when 45 gets off and The New York Times acknowledges what everybody now knows.
3
I wonder if it made the kids involved in this feel kind of inferior and cheated once they got to school with a bunch of others who made their way in legitimately knowing that their mommy and daddy wouldn't trust or allow them to as well and felt they needed to buy their way in.
1
@John Doe
No, It does not. They have lots of company with peers who have gamed the system vis a vis th family money and privileges ranging from prep schools that feed into top schools and expensive tutoring and psychological / learning " reports" that give them access to special testing accommodations. They do not feel any of it is out of the ordinary for the world to which they belong-- they love every minute of it and feel no shame.
1
I'm shocked that wealthy people would try to leverage their money to ensure that their kids attend top universities in order to continue to garner the attention they so badly need from their rich friends, and to show off their offspring as some kind of trophies. Really...what a shocker!
1
Wow, four out of seven kids were helped into college. If I were one of his kids, I'd be very hurt that he didn't think I was good enough: his ego needed me to be in an elite college. There are tons of good college's out there. If the kid is not in the college you wanted use the old "XYZ U has a superior art history department and that's Jr's. passion" story.
1
Just goes to show even if you have millions it doesn't mean your kids are smart.
5
Disgusting, but no different than Mike Bloomberg buying admission to the Democratic Party primary.
All bow to the wealthy !
7
All this fuss and still no one who caused the financial crisis gets punished!
6
It must be very difficult for these exceptionally wealthy people to reckon with the exceptional mediocrity of their progeny.
5
"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
Proverbs 22:6
Great job Dad.
2
Didn't Jared's dad pay Harvard 2.5 mil to get him in.. But that's okay because there was no middle man. Meanwhile, we still don't have Trump's taxes. The rich will always cheat and buy their way into the same clubs. I still don't understand why people are paying for USC. Dr. Dre's post was the most pathetic.."My daughter got accepted into USC all on her own"...(after I donated 70million dollars)
8
With all of this guys money he couldn't make a mega donation to a college or university to give his kids an edge - sort of like what Trump's father did to get him into Wharton? Speaks loudly to Hodge's character that he needed to find nefarious means.
9
We punish for specific acts. But the act, by the upper classes, of corrupting our entire society goes unpunished.
9 months is a slap on the wrist.
19
It all starts and ends at the Boards of Trustees of these schools. Exclusivity is on sale here. They have rules, written and implied. I am a descendant of slaves.
In 2017, one of my relatives received an offer of a place at U Penn. He would get a discount of about eleven thousand dollars on an annual cost of seventy two thousand US dollars. In the same year, another school, U. Miami offered twenty thousand discount on an eight thousand US dollar annual costs. In 1991 and 1992, his relations were at similar schools with costs of about twenty eight thousand dollars.
These children did not have access to the undercover techniques which are available to 21st C. white and wealthy people.
I feel absolutely no pity for these people who turn their children into modern day imitations of Icarus. The schools? There's nothing too demeaning for them. They were financed by slaving profits and run by "religions" and their members who sought promotion to slave plantation owners. Many of them are nowchanging slaving owners' names on their buildings and elsewhere. These pending convicts and the schools to which they aspire seem to be a good match.
5
how are these people different from the Kushner's who made large donations so their sons would be admitted to top tier (Ivy league) schools?
4
@xyz
The Kushners didn't pretend Jared was an athlete or fudge his SAT scores. They didn't employ a third party to negotiate bribes with coaches and to create dishonest applications. They just made a very large donation. I'm not saying it's admirable, but it is different.
6
@xyz - As far as we know, Kushner didn’t pay for testers and false credentials. And I stress “as far as we know” because his father certainly wasn’t above breaking the law to get an advantage. The amorality and lack of ethical values is in the blood....
2
@Linda
just slightly more sneaky. but with the same end result.
Now we need to turn out full investigatory attention to athlete admissions at Universities large and small.
4
@Simon
Start with Stanford. If you are an outstanding women athlete, you are admitted.
2
@Shamrock
Start with them all. Nation wide investigation.
1
Big Deal? The little people would get much harsher sentences. The US justice system is a sham. The entitled always do well and will continue forever. Money buys justice. The scales of justice are not blind; just a myth propagated by the power elite.
Just look to Trump. He says he's vindicated. What a joke. Do you really think most Americans believe that justice is fair? To those in power or wealthy we "the people" are just pawns.
8
Sure it wasn't greed or ego, but Mr. Hodge's own "transformational experiences of education"??
Did his daddy buy him into school too?
Corruption is corruption is corruption.
3
I have a kid on academic scholarship to one of these schools. I am furious that: 1. These parents took a spot out from under another deserving student and 2. That they, along with some greedy internal athletic staff, have given these schools a black eye.
6
These *children* didn’t know they were not college level athletes when admitted to these huge universities? With their privilege, they assumed that the world is designed to give them anything they or their parents can buy. These kids are adults now and deserve to be named and called out for cheating and duplicity, as well as their parents.
5
It’s unfathomable to me how any parent could do this.
Not only how could you live with yourself knowing you’ve stolen the life of your neighbor’s child to give to your own? I suppose wild animals do this all the time.
But how could you in one stroke forever, until the end of your or your child”s days, surrender having a real and honest relationship with him or her? I suppose wild animals don’t care about honest relationships with their offspring either.
But wild animals have broken no law.
What LAW have these unfathomably morally blind parents broken?
I don’t understand. If I bribe the local kid to mow my lawn before my neighbor’s what law have I broken? (I’d hope my neighbors would band together, tar and feather me, and ride me out of the ‘hood on a rail. And lord only knows how the kid will learn his lesson.)
My question is a simple legal question. I’d appreciate any elucidation. Thanks.
How about twenty four months in jail or a fine of twenty four million dollars or ninety percent of his families wealth, whichever is greater? People who use their immense wealth for illegal purposes should pay a fine immense enough that it hurts. Then it might be a deterrent to other wealthy crooks.
6
The sentence is ridiculous, putting people in jail for helping their kids doesn’t change the fact that business culture gives big rewards to degrees from certain schools.
1
“One of the most active and prolific” people involved. What value-neutral, sanitized words ‘active’ and ‘prolific’ are to describe behavior that is in fact unapologetic, brazen, corrupt, entitled, heedless, arrogant, unfair, wrong, crooked, illegal, harmful, unethical and contrary everything supposedly good and rigorous about the American educational system. Well, the one positive thing he accomplished is to make his own identity a posterboy for this attitude of entitled corruption which now rules us.
6
It’s the arrogance that drove them to believe they deserved to steal another kid’s education and it appears it will be the arrogance that propels them to test the court system. Good luck, not!
1
How come I can't think up glib excuses when I do something wrong? Hodge writes to the judge, “I did not set out to bribe or deceive anyone. My actions were motivated at the start by the false promise of being able to help colleges and universities and their athletic programs through donations, while at the same time helping my children." Wow. Are we supposed to feel sorry for this guy? He successfully cheated with 4 kids and tried to get away with cheating for a 5th kid. Couch it any way you want, you are a cheater Mr. Hodge.
3
Such a lot of malarky on the part of this guy and his lawyers. He deserves jail time, as do Lori Loughlin and her husband. And not two weeks. Two years is generous. This is bribery, money laundering and cynical abuse of the system.
3
In New York, if you stick up a bodega or a donut shop, you can get 8 1/3 to 24 years. This guy engaged in a fraud that spanned years, involved five of his children and two or three universities and he's looking at two years?
8
This guy seems like the perfect Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate or Presidency.
4
The repercussions of actions such as Hodges are their children's false belief in their own abilities.
Case in point: Jared Kushner. His father gave Harvard millions to accept Jared although Jared's own prep high school said that he was not academically qualified. Now Jared believes he is capable of doing anything! As Jared himself recently said, "I read some books so I now consider myself an expert on the Middle East!"
6
The integrity of many on Wall Street obviously is the same in their personal behaviour as well as their corporate behaviour.
Cheats and steals.... AOK !
This is why Liz or Bernie need to be in the White House.
Spoken as a graduate Finance Major at Columbia Business School.
There is a major lack of ethics or morality on Wall Street. And, oh by the way, they lie a lot - and nobody stops them anymore.
4
How many months will he actually serve?
3
"...I was driven by my own transformative educational experiences and my deep parental love.”
Can you believe this? He's justifying bribing people to get his kids into top schools because of his great love of EDUCATION? Nine months, which will end up being, what, six? Not enough.
6
These parents--including Mr. Hodge--have given their children every advantage in life that money can buy. They've gone to the best schools, had the best enrichment opportunities, gotten tutors and test preparation assistance, and been freed from many of the distractions middle- and working-class children must manage. The competition is already unfair as these children get a huge legal head start in gaining admission to a selective college.
But that's not enough. It's never enough for people who are deeply invested in status and will not accept that others should best them at anything. Please remember this whole sick episode the next time someone talks about the myth of the self-made person.
22
Y’all ever notice how the people most vocal about bootstrapping and people needing to do things themselves and not rely on assistance from others are also the ones trying to rig the system for their families?
It’s really sad how many people fall for it too. While these millionaires receive massive subsidies and tax breaks from the government and negotiate back door deals for their kids that exclude deserving students from admissions to elite schools, they preach publicly about personal responsibility and not relying on the government or authority for help.
Makes my stomach turn. Now where’d I put my pitch fork...
45
Hopefully, this will convince parents of children with great privilege to go the old fashioned route - donate money to the school gymnasium or build a major building.
9
It would have been cheaper to just donate a building or endow a chair like other rich parents. Seriously, children of alumni get preference particularly based on donations. Merit is a factor but universities are based on financial giving.
7
'I'm rich. Let me buy my way out of jail". The only thing he's sorry about is getting caught. Hope he gets the 2 years the prosecution wants.
11
Let's be honest here. If Mr. Hodge were to be able to work out a deal where through mandated "charitable" work and giving he were able to aid a thousand, or even just a hundred deserving, underprivileged children attain better educations in return for more lenient sentencing, I think I'd be all for it. Also, people buy their kids way into schools all the time, it's just who they pay and how sleazy about it which differs.
I'm from a fairly poor family and went to an Ivy League school on a tuition fellowship an generous scholarships. In class I'd sit next to "Legacy" students who, sometimes, were almost clearly there because of their parents status and "generosity" to the school. I didn't mind because I knew them being there meant the school could afford to have me there as well while I paid next to nothing. So did a few of my friends.
Nothing in the world is solely meritorious, it's just not how humans operate.
Mr. Hodge paid once, make him pay again, and again with his wallet. It would do a heck of a lot more for society than having us taxpayers pay to put him in a cushy cell for 2 years.
7
Why aren't we hearing more about the elite colleges who employ the people who accepted the bribes? They must have noticed that some of their athletes weren't that athletic, especially the ones who had rich parents. If athletics are so important to the schools that they give special consideration to athletes, shouldn't someone have noticed?
18
Let's not be naive. Poor people have to work especially hard to earn a seat in a college or university and take out high interest loans which have to be repaid over many years. The elites, however, game the system. They probably also arrange for their children to land incredible jobs too, like on TV talk shows, or no show board of directors seats with companies they know little or nothing about, where they do no work whatsoever, and get paid large sums of money. The corruption is stunning.
9
@Richard Ivanka and Jared come to mind
1
Based on the comments, people seem to believe the victim of this fraud is the public generally, and the theoretically deserving applicants who were denied admission as a result of the scheme.
It's not. Read the criminal complaints.
These people bribed university employees and thus deprived the universities involved of their honest services. In other words, if Hodge, et al had simply written a check to the university and purchased admission, that wouldn't have been a crime. The exclusive universities involved are private charitable businesses. If they want to let rich people buy admission, that's their choice.
The public can demand transparent, meritocratic university admissions... just as soon as all universities are public institutions.
In other words, never.
1
@Sam I Am There isn't a single university in America that does not benefit from [lots of} public funding in one form or another.
2
Certainly the high schools these children were at were highly complicit. The high school counselor in every single case knew what was going on. Why don’t we ever mention the high schools, many of which traffic in this kind of privileged access every day.
9
rich people ahead gave money to universities in exchange for places for their kids. now they went knew step further, and have it to the decision makers.
I am she that these ostentatious thought they were acting in the best interest of their children. shouldn't they go free?
Mr.Hodge, as head of the financial firm Pimco knew exactly what he was doing and that it was bribery.Because he was at the pinnacle of the financial world he knew the rules about transferring money -he cannot plead ignorance.I am glad that he got jail time but in the long run it would have benefited society more if he could have been fined several million dollars to be distributed as scholarship funds to,schools which have paltry endowments but have many students who need financial help.Many wealthy men have given colleges and universities gifts of 20 million dollars-too bad sentencing guidelines did not allow that opportunity to Mr.Hodge.
5
Did any of these parents ever stop to think about the message they were sending to their own children? Nothing like telling your kids that you don’t believe they’re capable of succeeding on their own merits. That’s some great parenting there!
10
I can't understand why a loving parent would not want their child to attend a university that is a good fit for them. Lying and cheating to gain admission to an institution where they might struggle academically is doing them a huge disservice. Out of frustration, lots of kids abandon their dreams and switch to less demanding majors, setting them up for a life of unhappiness. Had they gone to a school where they could excel in their choice of study they could have achieved their career goals and avoided settling for something less.
6
@Dan
These kids will not struggle academically at these schools , which tend to grade more generously than some tough state schools. Also, don't you think they can have tutors that do their work, accommodations galore, etc. at the college if they do " struggle"? Believe me, the kids are as corrupt as their parents and used to entitlement. They most definitely do not feel unhappy, nor will they.
3
To me it is simple. If these crooks' childrens were so highly qualified to get into those schools they would not had to resort to bribery. I am the some of middle class working people. I was accepted at the best state run engineering school in California (one of the top ten in the nation) based on my grades. My two daughters got into a prestigious private college base on their grades and personal achievements. My eldest daughter was just accepted to law school, again based on her achievements and grades.
I hope these payola parents all go to prison not only for their criminal activities but for the theft of opportunity for those superior students who did not get into those schools because of these parent's crimes.
3
The greater problem is the a significant number of upper class Boomer and Gen X parents simply do not have enough faith in their children to let them be who they are. This lack of faith and respect for their children’s autonomy is the insidious poison at the heart of helicopter parenting, which these dreadful parents practiced to its logical illegal extreme.
Take Oliva Jade Giannulli, a once highly motivated young entrepreneur who was actually prospering in her make-up and fashion business. If had been her mother, I would have been utterly delighted by her initiative and that she was earning her own living at such a young age. I most certainly would not have insisted that she attend USC, or any university, if she had zero interest and already doing so well in her vocation.
And, now that’s been robbed from her by her status obsessed parents who clearly had no clue as to how their child was already on the path to success as defined by her own interests and sense of personal agency. This is what disgusts me more than anything else.
7
Welcome to the new world where gaming and cheating is only a problem if you get caught and 99% didn't. Even then the punishment is minimal. I'm sure the kids are in school somewhere else and probably at a better school than their grades warranted. This has been going on forever, the endowment fund didn't get funded for billions of $$$ without a reason. SMH
3
@C Right. There certainly was never any cheating in that ''old'' world in which we grew up.
2
The bigger picture is that our society, founded on the principle that all people are created equal, is shot through with walls and webs designed to hoard power, including the power to determine who will have power in the future. Graduates of expensive private unis are not uniquely qualified for leadership, nor do they have better educations than graduates of top public schools. What they're paying for is access to an exclusive (in the negative sense) network.
We need strong public policy to counter this, to spread power more evenly and discourage hoarding. Every low-power individual given more power strengthens the nation. Every high-power individual given more power weakens it. We all need to use the powers we have (voting, and organizing in the workplace) to counteract the hoarding of wealth and power that has choked our nation for 40 years.
6
It does seem that if these parents devoted even a fraction of the money and time spent on this to helping their children to be more intellectually curious and to fostering values like self discipline and a sense of duty, these kids could be accepted and thrive in highly competitive American colleges and universities. The cost would be limited to the actual price of admission, and the kids would a hundred times better off.
136
@Voter: Being an intellectually curious person myself, I nurtured this quality in my son, starting from his early childhood. My son grew up thirsting for knowledge about many different subjects.
When he applied for college, he was admitted to five different Ivy League universities and chose Princeton. (Note: I have no money or connections.)
I think the university admissions committees were able to perceive that my son was truly intellectually curious and not just putting on a show to get admitted to college. (I should add that he chose challenging classes in high school, studied hard, and got good grades.)
My son also participated in interesting extracurricular activities. But again, he participated because he was truly interested, not because he expected some reward.
So it seems that at least some college admission officers can distinguish between a phony applicant and the real deal.
5
@Voter why spend effort when you can spend money? That's the entire MO of this class of folk.
If they wanted to see their children actually accomplish things, they would need to use standards that also apply to poor children - can;t have that
2
People in positions of wealth and privilege have always used their assets to give an edge to their kids. If i was in the same position, may be, I would have probably done so too.
To minimize the need for bribery our public schools should greatly improve their standards and performances so that every parent rich or poor would want to send their kids there. The French have been very successful at it.
17
@ JG. Apparently you don’t understand that the wealthy do not support public education and fight against any attempts to better it. Republicans hate public education.
2
It's worth examining that USC and Georgetown were the ones that were most susceptible to the Varsity Blues schemes.
It's pretty clear, IMO, why. Both have a huge sports culture. Both are under-endowed compared to the colleges that they would like to compare themselves to and will go to unusual lengths to court donors. Neither was particularly prestigious a generation ago and have madly crawled their way to the top tier, mostly by targeting wealthy students.
Families considering college should truly think about these matters before applying. At our high school, neither of these colleges is considered desirable.
60
@Cousy All colleges and universities court wealthy donors (see Harvard and the Kushners), why single out USC and Georgetown for that? In this case, Mr. Singer found a single coach at Georgetown, and a few coaches and Athletic Dept administrators at USC to bribe on behalf of his clients. Incidentally the Women's soccer coach at Yale was bribed as well. Is Yale considered "desirable" at your high school?
5
@Mrs A
Just making the point that USC was the epicenter of this scandal, with Georgetown right behind. And sports is not nearly as culturally important at Harvard and Yale.
3
Basically, Mr. Hodge is a four time offender and was caught during his fifth criminal act. An offender here was recently sentenced to 30 years for his third robbery (without a weapon) the total "crime spree" netted less than $400. Now these people are committing multiple crimes and the "longest sentence in the case so far" is two years? Great example of American Justice.
If the students were not bright enough to know what was happening, how did they graduate? Restitution for the crime should include removal of the student from school and removal of any degrees fraudulently granted.
234
@Robert K - Dallas how did they graduate ...
well, maybe they were better at physics and geometry than they were at clever comments.
@Robert K - Dallas If the parent of a poor person of color was caught cheating at anything, they would throw the book at him. A swindle involving that much money would land a parent like that in jail for many many many years. And every black person, every lower income person, indeed everyone in America knows it.
8
@Robert K - Dallas thank you. You really nailed the worst part of our justice system. Contrarily to common belief justice is not blind. It sees how much money you have and punishes you accordingly.
7
Why aren't the colleges being indicted for fraud? Colleges depend upon their wealthy applicants to support their massively expensive real estate and employees. No one will ever convince me that the colleges in question had no idea of what was happening with the enrollment of these super wealthy children. It's time the colleges are held accountable for their roll in enabling the crimes to occur in the first place.
178
A “Universe City” is supposed to be a diverse place of advanced learning that expands one’s universal understanding of the world — philosophy and politics, mathematics and science, art and language, culture and society, history and government. University is meant to create critical thinkers who are capable of both empathy and objectivity, of both nuanced and global perspectives.
Unfortunately, university has become a privatized, profit-driven CEO/ shareholder (wealthy alumni) model based on the worst aspects of greedy capitalists. They are churning out automaton business students who are taught conservative right-wing business practices. Universities have also become professional sports teams — mostly, though, they are places where the privileged wealthy buy their way in and cheat others out of opportunities in order to maintain their own privilege — it’s where their children learn how to perpetuate the injustices created by the social and business associations among their moneyed class.
There was a time when employers trained, educated and promoted employees from within. Now the middle class is expected to amass tens of thousands in education debt and earn an MBA to be qualified for an entry level position, but those jobs go to foreign H1B workers anyway... so there’s that. University should be regulated and universally free as they have in other advanced nations.
16
@Misplaced Modifier Not to forget the despairingly large number of university students grasping for unpaid internships.
2
The NY Times has written several articles demonizing families who gamed what is a completely corrupt system - never examining the corruption itself.
Why do schools place so much emphasis on sports teams? Almost every sports program loses money and subvert the academic mission of a school. Students spend 30% less time studying than the 1970s and with A averages with grade inflation.
Why are schools allowed to offer spots to children of wealthy donors, or celebrities?
Why do schools pay so many administrators so much relative to 10, 20, 30 years ago? My Ivy league alma mater increased it's administrative ranks by 50% while the student population was static. The real dollar costs have more than doubled at the same time.
Nobody cares about these elephants in the room that are destroying education. No, we fuss about wealthy people whose crime was NOT directing their cash to the schools. If they had, then there'd be no legal issue.
79
@Matt
Some of us *do* care.
We care about the commercialization of American Higher Education on many fronts, including on the part of the colleges.
9
@Matt Well put and both of my children, accepted to USC and other so called top schools, chose instead to go to solid public schools where they could thrive among the top kids at those institutions, win coveted paid internships with top global companies and research positions in their chosen academic fields. The cost delta of their 4 years in these schools will end up in their pockets after graduation...and they remain intrigued by their peers who are attending these top schools who are not experiencing the same real world exposure our kids have experienced. That is unless you count party weekends to NYC, the South of France and of course private islands in the Bahamas as important life experiences
4
@Matt While hiring and paying administrators more, colleges are relying more and more on poorly paid, part-time, adjunct instructors. Parents and students are paying huge amounts in tuition to be taught by a part-time instructor who barely makes more than minimum wage. (I made 9 dollars an hour teaching and grading research papers for 60 students.)
11
This has ALWAYS happened. Your grandfather built the library at [X school] for a reason. Schools have always been clubby, legacy-built. There're just new ways surfacing about how it happens... a lot of cash and a lot more lore.
11
I am less concerned about these high profile cases than by the everyday ways that parents game the system, such as SAT prep courses to gin up a test score, sending a child on a service trip to Africa, paying thousands of dollars to an college admissions coach to polish the application, or to "edit" the application essay. These legal methods give additional advantage to those who can afford them.
37
He couldn’t step back. He ran one of the worlds largest funds and when the moment of truth came he folded like a cheap suit. Glad he didn’t have my money under management. As for this scandal, anyone would do the same for their children. Love. Sentence him to teach entrepreneurship in the inner cities. Put his knowledge to work for good. Jail would be a waste of resources.
13
@Tom I would certainly not want this man teaching anything, he is corrupt to the core. Nor do I accept your claim that "anyone would do the same for their children." You speak for yourself on that point.
3
@Tom I imagine another potential offender in the future looking at your proposed punishment and thinking- "well the worst that can happen is some community service and maybe throw some more money at it if I get caught, looks like a no-brainer!". It seems like some jail time (in addition to fines and community service) would serve as a better deterrent to this sort of behavior.
1
Plain and simple: punish these folks for the crimes they committed and the abject indifference to the wrongs perpetuated. Nothing more but certainly nothing less. Privilege availed these individuals of every benefit in life, but the harsh realities of wrongdoing should not be excused by the same. I applaud the actions of the prosecutors and implore them to hold steadfast in their furtherance of a just result.
19
While what these parents did was wrong, the bigger question is why they believed only a small number of colleges have value. (Looking at you, NYT.)
I blame the schools that encourage applicants in order to keep their acceptance numbers low. I blame elite school graduates, who are overrepresented in the powerful and wealthy, and wish to retain that status. Why on earth are all the supreme court justices graduates of only a handful of schools when there are a number of excellent law schools throughout the country?
When the subject of an news article attended an Ivy League school, the New York Times often mentions it. That is seldom the case with folks who went to state or relative unknown schools. The Times does us all a disservice when it perpetuates the idea that “success” is all about the school, not the student.
97
@KLM : I live near a prestigious American university, and one of my friends in the 1990s was pursuing his Ph.D there. He was brilliant -- had published his 1st book at 25 -- witty, attractive, and personable, because of a glut in his field when he hit the job market, he didn't get snatched up by one of the top schools.
He wound up teaching, and earning tenure, at a so-called "middling" state school -- where he did ground-breaking work and where his students were thrilled with him and thrived under his tutelage.
The glut of brilliant professors means that that the faculty pretty much everywhere is terrific, meaning that one can get a good education pretty much anywhere and a great one from at least -- at least -- 200 American universities and colleges.
6
@KLM The Times should make a point of mentioning that Jared Kushner graduated from Harvard every time his name comes up, especially when he's discussing how he can create a viable Mid-East peace plan since he's read 25 books on the subject.
Oh, and a hearty thanks to the University of Pennsylvania for educating the Trump family.
4
Notice that this entire scam is dependent on the existence of athletic programs? And exactly what does the college athletics industry have to do with giving and getting an education?
I spent my career as a college professor, and from the inside college athletic programs are irrelevant at best and a corrupting influence at worst. Scholarship money is handed out to recruits incapable of doing college level work. Resulting in athletics administrators who harrass faculty trying to get grades changed. Student athletes subjected to punishing training regimes have no time for homework and can end up with bad health problems. (I had a student in the swim program required to do 7am outdoor practice sessions. He got pneumonia.) Money is lavished on everything from special tutoring programs to glitzy sports facilities that in no way benefit ordinary students. Am I shocked that you can buy your way into prestige universities via bribes to athletics programs? Nope.
59
@kb I remember the moment I'd used up my 350 photo copy limit as English graduate student, while down the street (same school) an 80 million dollar sports arena was being erected. I stayed, and finished my degree, but honestly I could have walked out then.
22
And yet donating millions directly to a college in an obvious exchange for admission is considered fine, just the way the world works. Legacy admissions are par for the course everywhere. Nepotism is rampant everywhere. These parents should be prosecuted for breaking the law, but I think it is eminently unfair to subject them to this amount of public persecution. In terms of buying their kids’ way into elite colleges, these parents are mostly minor offenders. Small fry. If we are truly concerned about fairness, the real culprit are the universities themselves.
13
@NYC
What is way worse, and what most people don’t know, is that almost no one gets into Stanford now in any round, unless the student is a special category. One of those special categories is parents who work at Stanford. Doesn’t have to be faculty. Talk about incestuous. This is a closed system, and it should be broadcast.
1
These parents knew exactly what they were doing.
I don’t think anything more needs saying.
20
@TheraP
As did/ do the kids. As someone who works with college bound kids -- the wealthiest of which readily claim that their parents know the " right' doctor to diagnose them with " processing disorders" to get accommodations on the ACT/SAT---their sophistication and moral ease is stunning. They never feel they don't deserve it. No need to worry about their self esteem.
3
Strange how people with so much resort to 'buying' admission to college for their children.
We simply raised our children to work hard, and do their best. They got into 'good' schools on their own.
14
I just don't get this. Hodge was rich enough to bribe his children's way into those schools the old-fashioned way--by paying for a building or endowed professorship
He's apparently cheap. I guess we [the taxpayers] can save him a bit of money on living expenses for a year or ten
34
Interesting reading this article just after reading former Congressman Steve Israel’s piece on the transformation of elected Congresspersons from “never Trumpers” to craven defenders of him, twisting truth, decency and law to do so. The common thread is: immoral acts follow when humans rationalize each step of compromise and corruption.
Mr. Hodge’s rationalizations of his thoroughly corrupt, illegal actions are disturbing because he probably believes them. He cheated because he’s very rich and taught his children they can cheat because they’re rich, regardless of whether they were fully complicit in their fraudulent admissions. I hope the court puts him in jail for the maximum time requested.
If folks like the rich parents involved in the admissions scandals and their corrupt counterparts in Congress and the White Hoyas continue to serve their own greed and power first, history tells us ordinary people will eventually strike back. It won’t be pretty.
19
This whole thing stinks of plutocracy, the world's oldest form of government. Try teaching your kids, for crying out loud. My wife and I don't have much money, but our kids have gone to top schools because, wait for it, they study hard and a very bright.
This isn't moral rocket science.
One more thing: I would show leniency in sentencing. The main architect of the plan should spend decades in jail, however.
8
Oh my goodness, this is "rich" (in more than one sense of the word.)
The unfairly piled-upon Mr. Hodge only did what he did because he is so financially charitable? He would use his wealth to make amends for his crimes? No sir, what you are trying to do is USE your wealth to avoid the consequences of your crimes.
Aside from the prison sentences, colleges need to revoke degrees or expel the students (colleges can refund tuition or donate the funds to scholarships for economically-disadvantaged students.) Aside from the high likelihood that most of the children knew (anything else beggars belief), they got into the school via fraud, they should not receive a degree, period. Otherwise this kind of fraud is sure to continue happening.
22
So after years of dire warnings, the terrible consequences or slippery slope of ‘moral relativism’ is now ‘oh never mind’.
9
Two years isn't enough punishment -- let alone two weeks! (laughable!) -- how about 10 years? at hard labor?
Why don't they let the ordinary students who were DENIED admissions a chance to testify?
Any kids who graduated already with these false degrees, should have those degrees STRIPPED FROM THEM and made invalid, as they were fraudulent from the get-go.
ONLY with prison and the loss of credentials, will this stop. Otherwise rich parents will simply consider a two week stay in "country club prison" to be the price of getting little Muffy or Biff into Harvard.
13
Our country has installed a grifter as President, and Congress has acquitted him of his crimes despite his obvious guilt. Why should private citizens be treated any differently?
It is time to apologize to the parents who corrupted their own children, and to grant each of them the Presidential Medal of Freedom for living up to the highest ideals of the Trump administration.
27
These criminals should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law just like a normal working class citizen would be.
14
Really, how is this all that different than being admitted as a legacy (like GW Bush) or being admitted because of a significant financial contribution (like the children of Dr Dre) or being admitted because you will generate revenue for the university (like Zion Williamson)?
It begs the question what’s the purpose of a university?
10
Very few of these parents exhibit remorse. In the end, I’m curious how much humiliation and damage will their children suffer.
5
@Lisa Most likely, not much. Humiliation requires self-awareness and a sense of shame. These folks are only upset they got caught (and aren't having much luck buying their way out of jail) and their children are all being taught the same lessons.
3
It’s remarkable that this man and his lawyers continue to rationalize, attempt excuses, and even outright lie (yeah I’m sure he thought the 5th time was a legitimate donation) and yet they seem to expect he will be given a light sentence.
9
What they did was wrong.
But more worrisome overall, as prosecutors strive to punish those who have done this we have a president who daily stomps on others' rights and opportunities and swaggers along doing so.
I agree whatever prison time or other punishment these parents get, over a significant but otherwise pales in comparison to the crimes Trump and family enjoy every day, but how we can be so split between prison time for throwing your weight around to get your kid into college vs. using our country to your own advantage after being elected is worse.
10
Douglas Hodge is going to “redouble his efforts to provide educational assistance to children from disadvantaged backgrounds, at home, across the country, and around the world.” ...and World Peace.
3
These parents are just buying bragging rights so they can tell their wealthy friends that their children attend an “elite” school. The children seem to be a mostly clueless bunch who expect to inherit money.
13
Part of what this entire scandal has proven is that these “elite” universities may not be so special, after all. Apparently, all you need is money to get into them. If the only reason many students get admitted to USC is because of the ability to cheat or buy their way in, the degrees received by those who got in legitimately through hard work and study have been devalued.
13
I feel for the children of the parents in these cases because the parents' acts have exposed their children to a value system and to actions that has resulted in diminishing those children. While the federal criminal courts are not family courts, one wishes that the judges would extract assurances from these well-off parents at sentencing that they have made provision to pay for extensive therapy for the children that their actions have harmed.
7
@Houstonian You are assuming that they have been 'harmed'. These children were raised to believe they are 'special' and regular rules don't apply to them. This is the end result. I believe many of them had a far better idea of what got them into college than they are letting on.
4
@Houstonian How about paying their college tuition, room and Board instead?
@Froxgirl Meaning the students who were shut out because of these cheaters' children gaming and gaining admission.
Zero sympathy here. Wealth should have brought some level of intelligence, understanding, compassion and gratitude in their life circumstances in these parents. Clearly, they learned little in life and considered cheating for their children to be a good example of how these children should grow up and become productive contributing adults.
Best they all serve prison and represent by example to their children, other parents and children and institutions what happens when wealth is used to corrupt. My children ask what can be done towards their college admissions - and I said study, work hard and be a good citizen.
126
Maybe he learned a lot in life. He learned to cheat. Maybe Pimco should review his records there. This behavior doesn't pop out of thin air.
6
I have no sympathy for any of the parents involved in this mess. As a result of their wealth, their children had educational opportunities throughout their lives that most other kids could only dream of. With that type of advantage, if they couldn't make it into elite schools on their own they don't deserve to be there.
793
@Blair
And the schools that accepted such bribes should lose their accreditation and be barred from receiving any federal student financial aid.
90
@Blair I also have no sympathy for their children. They know that this scheme was wrong, but they went along.
40
@Blair
I completely agree. On top of that, if you are a child of a wealthy and well-connected person it doesn't matter as much where you go to college. We all know privileged dopes who are doing just fine. But if you are poor and/or a minority, getting into an excellent college may be the difference between a life of just getting by and middle-class prosperity or better.
60
I don't fully get what this loving father's deal was... With that kind of money, I would guess he could've gone the accepted and legitimate way about it - by sponsoring a building for a school. Would've likely cost him a little more money - but would come with honors and recognition and having his name on a plaque... AND getting his kids quietly admitted without anyone raising a fuss about it.
It honestly looks like a pattern of behavior of someone who PREFERS to get things done in ways that are shady and sketchy; likely for the sake of both saving a few bucks, and the thrill that comes with cheating the system breaking the rules...
If I were IRS, I would be interested in taking a closer look at the books of the company this gentleman used to run.
246
Hodge was clearly making donations so his kids could get into college. What I find most convincing is the argument that he assumed this was legal -- clearly it was perfectly legal for Jared Kushner's father to make a donation so he was admitted to Harvard, and it was perfectly legal for a father at Harvard to purchase a house for the fencing coach at $300,000 more than its' value to help his son get admitted to Harvard. In fact, in many cases part of the donations DID go to the university's athletic department (a fact that gets lost) and it hardly seems the fault of the parents that Singer took a cut first which also happens when fundraisers get a cut from so-called "legitimate" donations to universities that result in applicants getting a huge admissions boost.
I also don't understand why the parents getting off lightest are those that paid a huge amount of money to have a Harvard grad take their child's standardized tests for them. There is no possible way to justify that as anything other than cheating. Yet they are looked upon as less criminal as parents who gave their donation to the athletic department instead of the university to insure their child's admissions. Exaggerating their accomplishments as athletes is no different than exaggerating their accomplishments in "starting their own foundation". They should be all be expelled, but it isn't a crime.
32
@RJ
Cheating on a privately administered test is not a crime of about a quarter of college undergrads would be in jail by now.
1
Throughout the entire saga, it appears that either coaches at Georgetown and USC - or the universities themselves- were willing to accept money from most of not all of the accused. It also appears that while other schools and/or other schools' coaches were approached, they declined. This does not say much for either the individuals of for Georgetown and USC. However- it also begs to look at college and university practices of accepting large donations, naming structures and subsequently admitting donors' children who may or may not have been qualified(see Harvard and Jared Kushner).
49
The money these wealthy cheaters are donating to various charities should not be a point of consideration in their sentencing. If they choose to donate some of their outsize wealth for causes, that's fine, but what their lawyers are arguing for is a whitewashing of crimes in exchange for their money. It's a get out of jail free card and reinforces the attitude that their money entitles them to break the rules and get preferential treatment. That mentality is what brought these cases to bear in the first place.
106
I understand that this is a stunning example of privileged people rigging the system in their kids favor, but where is the outrage and the sweetheart stock deals, the finally crafted tax loophole laws, the indiscriminate use of non-compete clauses, that the 1% use to cement their place at the top of the dog pile?
99
@Ek : Oh, it's there. But this is much easier to understand (I'm reasonably bright, but I can't follow the tax code or any corporate legalese), plus the topic (where will our kids go to college?) is one that affects tens of millions of parents in this country.
Were the schools and orphanages in Cambodia established out of a sense of noblesse oblige? Or was it done to give the Hodge sisters a way to say that they had started a charity and had x number of hours of community service? It’s actually a triple threat, so to speak, because it gave them an essay theme for those college applications.
59
Hodge: I donated 30 Million of my own money. Surely that should give me a pass when I happen to break the law a couple of times. Also, I will donate more money, therefore I think I can expect a little more leniency than poor people who just break the law and dont give back anything.
The guy is a walking quid pro quo.
368
“I did not set out to bribe or deceive anyone,” Mr. Hodge wrote..." It's very illuminating how people can make up a story in their head and be so devoted to it that they think it's the truth. Or maybe this guy is just baldfaced lying. But the former does happen and I think this is a very scary thing that humans are capable of doing--not too different from imagined voices telling you what to harm someone.
21
The colleges DEMAND money from wealthy parents. Every parent with a little bit of wealth knows this. The more wealth, the larger the DEMAND.
The shakedowns should be outlawed.
8
@Joshua I'm not aware of colleges that require information about an applicant's income or wealth if that student is not applying for financial aid.
I have no sympathy for people who feel they've been "shaken down" by a college. If you have that kind of wealth and can't figure out how to navigate life without being extorted than I have a difficult time mustering up pity for you.
1
@Joshua It's called 'just say no'
1
@Jason
If an applicant is not applying for financial aid then the college can, and does, assume the applicant's family is relatively wealthy. The next step is just to determine how wealthy.
No one ever asks how the Universities had no accounting of these student "athletes". You give a Coach the authority to give away admissions(worth lots of money) no questions asked and no one even pays enough attention to see that none of them are actually showing up for the sport? The fact that a scam right on the surface could even be perpetuated is the most bizarre aspect of it all.
152
@Edward
How many kids get admitted as band members and then don't show up for the band? Some kids change their priorities after they arrive on the college campus.
6
So damaging to a young person to realize that his/her parent doesn’t believe they could be admitted to a college on their own merit. Crushing.
75
@Catherine
I don't think you understand the college admission processes. The kids of wealthy parents don't get admission based on just their academic merits. They are often in line behind similarly qualified applicants with third-party scholarships, legacy (alumni family) , affirmative action considerations, diversity considerations, etc ...
2
I understand the process quite well. My two adult children went to the UC system here in CA and my third son to Brown . The process between public and private at the time was focused primarily on academic merit and personal merit.
3
@Catherine: I disagree. These children were raised with the idea that they were better and more deserving than anyone else. They knew full well that they were not qualified for the schools they wanted to attend but that they, as the wealthy class, have the right to get whatever they want. You can't tell me that any child who has someone else took the SAT or submitted a false application doesn't understand that they are cheating. They see themselves as entitled to whatever they want whether they deserve it or not.
17
Maybe one day this nation will awaken to the fact that so-called White Collar crime is the most serious crime by far and treat it accordingly. It should be called Filthy Dirty Crime.
Doubt that?
" According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), white-collar crime is estimated to cost the United States more than $300 billion annually. Although typically the government charges individuals for white-collar crimes, the government has the power to sanction corporations as well for these offenses."-- Cornell Law School
We come down like the proverbial ton of bricks on the inner city kid who steals a dvd player or tv. Net cost to society (a hundred bucks, give or take) but the cost of incarcerating the person for petty theft runs in the hundreds of thousands per year. Meanwhile, our billionaire and millionaire classes never pay for anything they do wrong or they get the proverbial tap on the wrist (three months at a deluxe "prison" for overt corruption and manipulation? )
Forget college. We need to send the nation back to the school of logic. One class of criminals bilks of us billions. It's the same class that never does prison time. Fix that and a whole host of wrongs fixes itself.
133
Welcome to the new Trump world. The rule of law has taken a back seat and we can rationalize our actions as never before.
33
@A reader:
Forget the back seat! The rule of law has been thrown out of the car and kicked to the curb.
2
@A reader
The crimes occurred during the Obama administration. Prosecution started around the same time that Trump was elected.
Criminals will always try to cheat. That's the way it goes.
Shouldn't the children who already finished college get their degrees rescinded? They didn't know that they were being falsely presented as athletes? Give us a break.
And even if they're totally in the dark of what was going on, those degrees are the fruit of a fraudulently acquired benefit.
47
@RH Agreed. With their family fortune they won't end up on the streets. I'd be interested to know their current professions.
1
Wow. As someone who has worked in university fundraising for many years, it is unbelievable to say the least that a philanthropist who has given $30M to various causes cannot distinguish between an actual charitable gift and a quid pro quo. Mr. Hodge is, quite simply, lying. No doubt this is his mind's way of justifying his own dishonesty and to try and obtain leniency from the court. He should not receive it.
736
@SD
I know of one $100-million-plus donor who explicitly demanded of the dean that his friend's son ( a none-too-impressive candidate who was half-hearted about medicine -- it's the parents who want a doctor son) be admitted to medical school. And he was.
I often think there's probably out there some diligent kid who probably was doing science fairs and volunteering at nursing homes and other arduous things to prepare a good record so they'd be considered for med school, but got bumped out by this slacker's admittance.
91
@SD Exactly. Why not just donate $5 million to UCLA's soccer program to renovate the locker rooms? That would've guaranteed his kids would be accepted into the school, and he wouldn't have had to cheat his way in.
Given his wealth and connections, I guarantee that option was mentioned to him. But, he decided to "save" some money, only spending $525K on bribes to get two of his kids in.
Ultimately, this was about saving money. Or so he thought.
43
@Earthling
And did the kid make it thought medical school? I'm guess that he did not.
12
“My actions were motivated at the start by the false promise of being able to help colleges and universities and their athletic programs through donations, while at the same time helping my children." Unless Mr. Hodge has a degree in alchemy from Trump University (or the presiding judge took a law degree there), Mr. Hodge is in trouble.
74
@Martin Daly Why should only he be in trouble - it is the schools and their admissions office that should be in trouble. There is a giver and taker of bribes.
8
@Martin Daly
Isn't that the justification used by all the billionaire parents whose purchase of university buildings helps their child get admitted as long as they hit some low level of being "qualified"? Remember, the very fact that their children's applications are put into a special pile for evaluation is clear evidence that the university knows that most of them would not be admitted if they weren't in that pile.
And what is more shocking is that not only do those university donors get "charitable" tax deductions, but they also get their name plastered on buildings which makes it a nice public relations expenditures, too.
10
@RJ: Absolutely agree. I'd extend your principle to all "naming rights", e.g. public libraries, corporations, etc. If Gillette has to pay for its name on a stadium, why should Mr. & Mrs. Hedge Fund get a charitable deduction?
6
I'm convinced there are different degrees of fixing the system for getting you children into college. Just paying a tuition into college differs from one school to another, the accepted method of gaining entry. That's fine with almost everyone. What about tutoring and scholarships, OK, but some controversy. Now there is the cheating the system and evident fraud. Buying a degree for ones slow children, is there also, just harder to find.
4
I'm equally troubled that Hodge found officials at these so-called universities who can be bribed, and the apparent normal graduation of his children. As a retired educator, I would have thought that students who could not meet the normal requirements for admission would eventually have been exposed by their poor academic performance. Explanations of why that did not happen are almost all depressing: grade inflation? Perhaps. Less than rigorous criteria for graduation? Quite possible.
40
@SPQR When my daughter visited one of the Seven Sisters colleges, the dean told the parents that virtually everyone who applied could be successful if accepted but that there were far more applicants than slots. That is the reality of elite education; it is not that those not accepted could not do the work. (Oh, and I am a retired professor, if that matters.)
88
@John In an information talk for prospective applicants, the dean of admissions of a top 5 US university told us he can set aside all the freshmen admitted they and offer those places to the next best batch of applicants and find no change in the level of academic performance. That's how many qualified applicants there are relative to the places available in the most elite colleges and universities.
26
@SPQR There is a possibility that they graduated fair and square. I'm not seeing any evidence that his kids were so slow on the uptake as to being completely incapable of going through college. The loving father in question bribed their way into ELITE colleges. Which may mean that they were perfectly qualified to get accepted into regular, less "elite" state universities on legitimate merit. And, as an educator, you will likely agree that anyone smart enough to graduate from an average school should also be able to graduate from an Ivy League one, once admitted there.
I work for a school with a very recognizable name - as fancy as they get, really. I can attest that while some students here are indeed exceptionally bright, many are fairly average, just like everywhere else.
25
Mr. Hodge knew exactly what he was buying..... He is not some unaware or easily led person having held the the top job at Pimco.
I think what has been missing in this story is the harm Mr. Hodge has caused. There are 4 students who worked hard and did not receive a place at their dream schools. Somehow these parents have been able to sweep that under the carpet and claim it is victimless.
I also believe in most cases these students knew full well that they did not earn those places on their own merit. Children in high school know their grades and scores and compare themselves constantly with their peers. This would certainly happen at the elite schools most of these children attended because of their wealth.
316
@Lady Jane
Unfortunately, what is missing is the harm the universities themselves have caused by allowing big donations to influence the admissions process, which causes a lot more than 4 students who worked hard and did not get a place at their dream school.
Remember, Singer acted more like a professional fundraiser -- but he took a ridiculously large cut of the parents money -- and then some was used for the purpose that the parents believed as a donation to a university athletic department fund.
What these parents had been led to believe is that donations will result in admissions. Which is exactly what happens as the Jared Kushners and Trump children who did not earn their places on their merit take the seats of students who had worked hard and had far better academic credentials.
The system is certainly broken, but there is something off-putting about the government claiming the university was "defrauded" because the donation to the athletic department wasn't as big as the donations to their fundraising arms that result in admitting one student over a more accomplished one.
18
@Lady Jane I agree that to the four disappointed and perhaps much more qualified students who didn't get in is something that we can and should use for discussion of what is right and morally acceptable.
Yet to read yesterday that our current administration is opening up National Monuments to drilling and mining is harming far more than four students and far more into the future, yet there is little or no outcry over that equally wrong moral or worse action.
24
@reid We can be outraged at everything Trump does and it doesn't make this any less egregious.
19
It is sad that some parents don't realize that the school is not as important as the attitude the student brings to college with him or her. Even getting into an elite college on ones own does not guarantee success in life. My late former father-in-law built a multimillion dollar business (back in the day when a few million was a lot of money!) on an eighth grade education while his son, a graduate of Harvard and MIT, took the money he earned from selling that business and went bankrupt! I wonder what the educational level was of those guys who invented "hot pockets."
49
I feel bad for these people -- they're rich, but not rich enough to just make a large donation to the university to secure their child's admission.
12
@JS You should know that most universities in the country don't blatantly trade donations for admissions. The large public R-1 that I work for has in fact "lost" donations from disgruntled alumni whose children have not been accepted. Oh, well. The reality is those people were looking for an excuse anyway, and an adverse admissions decision gave them an easy way out. Some of us in higher education do, in fact, operate with integrity - and "these people," are not worth feeling sorry for.
9
What is new?
The world over, the wealthy think that they don't have to follow the rules.
Is America going to be any different? With Trump as President?
Remains to be seen.
48
@Meenal Mamdani
What rules exactly ? Every college reaches out to the parents of applicants, demanding money.
Applicants are required to disclose their parent's finances, and if deemed wealthy, are not offered acceptance on just their scholarly merits.
1
@Joshua
Unless they are applying for financial aid, applicants are not required to reveal their parent’s finances.
2
@Joshua
This is flat out wrong. Applicant's are NOT "required to disclose their parent's finances." That is required only if the student is requesting financial aid.
3
" Mr. Hodge would use his wealth, his lawyers suggested, to try to make amends for his crimes, saying that he would “redouble his efforts to provide educational assistance to children from disadvantaged backgrounds, at home, across the country, and around the world.” "
That's all well and good, and had Mr. Hodge stopped bribing people once he found out that bribery was exactly what the scheme was all about, we could be celebrating him instead of condemning him. Alas, he went in for a penny, then went in for a pound. Moreover, involving his children, disputed, but proved to my satisfaction is reprehensible on its face. You did the crime, Mr. Hodge, now you can do the time.
40
@TRA
Great, let the court determine the amount of his "efforts."
Imagine if he had taken the time and efforts used at writing the checks to get his children into these colleges and instead spend it with his children, nurturing their personal preferences and not worrying about which college they would attend?
For those not capable of purchasing anything we want, it’s called “parenting.”
And it’s actually a really fulfilling thing that doesn’t cost a cent.
85
I still find it hard to understand why universities admit students because of their ability to play tennis or football. My idea of a university is that it is a place where people go to learn and to expand the frontiers of human knowledge. There have got to be better criteria for student aid than having a good serve, even it's real.
535
@writeon1
or dancing at school performances, playing an instrument in the school band, acting in a school play, creating art for a school display, etc ...
What should be considered for college admissions ?
13
@writeon1
Because universities know that alumni support and financial support from large donors are greater through a major sport program - that's why winning teams are cultivated through scholarship and why sport coaches are paid huge amounts to mount winning seasons.
16
@writeon1
Because schools make a lot of money via athletics. The ethos in America has become money, money, money. Forget about learning, knowledge, courage, truth, humility, ethics, etc.
Trump and his ilk are the end product of this ethos: it's all about money. And, oh, power, to get more, you got it, money.
32