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This might be more overt than the usual form, but how does this differ from donating a new building, department, or scholarship fund and subsequently getting yo

This might be more overt than the usual form, but how does this differ from donating a new building, department, or scholarship fund and subsequently getting your kid in? My mother did well in the Masters program at Stanford and I would have likely gotten in if she donated a couple million dollars but she didn’t and I didn’t (despite getting an invitation a year after accepting enrollment at another university). It’s not like we ever had that type of money, but if we did I wouldn’t have wanted that. It seems like they’re targeting this more obvious version of bribery but not digging in and targeting the systemic issue of affluent people buying their children’s spot in college. I really don’t think it’s much harder to prove that an underperforming student who got in because their parents donated a couple million (or tens of millions of) dollars took the place of a more qualified candidate. Maybe I’m wrong...

naveen99 8y ago
It’s different in the scale of the donation. 2 Million dollar donation materially improves things for other students and is tax deductible. $15,000 bribe doesn’t do much for other students except rob them of a spot.
- avar 8y ago
  Some of these schools have endowments so large that no amount of donating to them will move the needle. They don't need more money: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/malcolm-gladwell-revisionist-history_us_578d2c6fe4b0c53d5cfa79e0 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/malcolm-gladwell-revisi...
  - onemoresoop 8y ago
    This is so true but greed enables them to take and take and take. I find this so hypocritical, these universities are shaping the future educating the next generation of leaders and already have more than what they need with their exorbitant fees.. it seems like there's no limit to this as long as there is supply, there is demand.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  This. A guy donates an engineering complex, and every engineering student on that campus gets to take advantage of said complex and its resources. Guy donates a new business school building and every student on that campus can take advantage of said building and its resources. In exchange, the university lets in two girls, their daughters or whatever, who might want to major in Art History and French, and coincidentally will likely be inheriting a few hundred million to upwards of a billion dollars in the future. (Future donors.) It's a fair trade. I'm not wealthy on that level, but if I were calling the shots at a university I'd make that trade every time.
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    Then the university should advertise the cost of admission and make it fair for everyone.
    - temporalparts 8y ago
      I think it is well known that anyone can donate a building for easy admission. It is no secret, just something available to only the top 0.1%
      - wyldfire 8y ago
        > It is no secret It sounds like you agree, then? It should be public.
        auntienomen 8y ago
        It is public. Universities almost always include the donation size when they put out press releases about the new building.
        cm2187 8y ago
        And usually the building bears the name of the donor!
- athenot 8y ago
  Part of the condition for a donation to be tax-deductible is that you claim you didn't get anything in return for your donation. Donating for improvement that affects others is one thing, but donating for a quid pro quo might affect this.
  - wallace_f 8y ago
    Why can't a poor kid from Oakland, or wherever, watch the classes online and self-study, and pay a nominal fee to exam? In other words, is the concept of creating barriers to entry, limiting competition, not unreasonable? In any market, economists say that is anticompetitive, and should even be illegal. Are people paying for education? Or for epaulets? So let's talk about this "materially improving things for other students" in an honest context of what this is.
    - i_am_proteus 8y ago
      They're paying for epaulets. I took graduate courses at a "local" state university before starting a full-time program at a big-name-top-low-number private school. The private school was not a better education, but it was undoubtedly better for my career because of the "epaulets."
    - nemothekid 8y ago
      >watch the classes online and self-study, and pay a nominal fee to exam? We are already far past the point on using exam scores as a basis for admissions. Many of the Ivies, famously say every year that they could fill their incoming class with students with perfect scores and perfect GPAs many times over forcing these schools to consider other factors. The US DoE says there are 16.9m undergrads, assuming ~4m are freshmen, the top 1% is 40,000 students. The Harvard freshman class size is 2000 students. At this point its only natural, according to the "market", that people would be paying for slots.
  - toast0 8y ago
    The tax question here is what is the fair value of the benefit received, the waiving of admission requirements or the granting of admission. I would expect that to be pretty hard to put a dollar amount on.
- logfromblammo 8y ago
  It provides them the opportunity to network with a young, impressionable kid whose parents can afford to throw $15k into a toilet and flush. If you believe the primary purpose of a university is to educate and certify, that is indeed "not much". But if you believe that the education is secondary, and the actual primary purpose is to cultivate a social network of influential graduates and dropouts, and to act as gatekeeper to future opportunities, then that bribe is better than a perfect SAT score. That kid will end up with seed money or angel investments from mommy and daddy, and will be able to hire some former classmates right out of the gate, and they might build a unicorn, which will forever be tagged with "founded and built by a team of University X graduates". In that sense, no one is robbing anybody of a spot. There are genius spots, and rich idiot spots, and the only problem is getting a few from each pile into the same rooms, with a reason to talk about their futures. One way is to coerce the rich kid into studying (or cheating) their coursework by paying off the genius kid. Management training.
- sgustard 8y ago
  Also, a bribe goes into one person's pocket. Buying a basketball team and hiring a coach in order to win is legal. Paying one player to lose a game is not legal.
- stvswn 8y ago
  This is precisely not the reason there's a distinction. The problem is that the $15,000 bribe went to the pockets of someone who was subverting the process (mainly the coaches), robbing the university.
strikelaserclaw 8y ago
I think it is a good thing, if done on a small scale (admitting rich people purely based on donations). It's like pairing smart and driven people with people with money and access to connections.
- tfandango 8y ago
  Your comment really made me think about this a little different than my initial reaction, thanks!
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    That's always been the value proposition of top tier schools. The learning material doesn't change from school to school, the networks do.
lotsofpulp 8y ago
It's different because it's missing plausible deniability for the parties involved. If donations were actually altruistic, they would be anonymous, but sometimes, society needs a veneer of fairness to mask the real nature of the "pay to play" system we have.
Alex3917 8y ago
> I really don’t think it’s much harder to prove that an underperforming student who got in because their parents donated a couple million (or tens of millions of) dollars took the place of a more qualified candidate. It's the opposite actually; if you're giving money to the development office then you're enabling more qualified students to attend the school. That’s why college only costs 50k per year when it costs 150k to provide that service to you.
cma 8y ago
"Legacy" admits with consideration of donations are allowed as far as I understand. It supposedly has a bigger effect than affirmative action, and at many schools we are just a few generations away from segregation now, which somewhat dictates the race makeup of the legacy pool to this day.
alistairSH 8y ago
In the highlighted case, the "bribe" actually wasn't - the mother paid a 3rd party fix her daughter's exams (administered by the local school on behalf of CollegeBoard, IB, or ACT). But, generally, your point is correct. In this case, there was an explicit pay-off/bribe/fraud committed. In the case of the super-wealthy, there's a large donation and a wink-wink/handshake.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
x2f10 8y ago
How do you determine the parent's motives? I can't deny that parents use donations as a pay-to-play mechanic at colleges, but how do you guard against it? Do you ban kids from enrolling in or applying to colleges in which their parent's (or close relative) has donated to? My local college was a blessing to me. It provided me an education, a safe atmosphere, and most of all, confidence. It changed me for the better. I'd like to donate to the college if I were in the position to do so, and because I had such a great experience, I'd encourage my child (don't have one, yet) to go. It this wrong of me?
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  We can start by not naming things after donors. I don't understand how that's not immediate quid pro quo right there, you get advertising for your personal brand.
- alexandercrohde 8y ago
  How about making donations information blind to admissions committees?
- michaelt 8y ago
  how do you guard against it? Do you ban kids from enrolling in or applying to colleges in which their parent's (or close relative) has donated to? Blind admissions, where the admissions committee isn't told a name or enough details to identify an individual. Obviously, people's opinion on that will depend on their opinion on things like admissions essays and extracurricular activities; anything like "I learned a good work ethic helping my father with his senate campaign" will have to go. Blind grading after admission would be sensible too, for the same reasons. Although perhaps difficult in subjects where individual students' work was identifiable even without their name.
XCabbage 8y ago
Donating a building is a payment to the university. The university then gets to decide to admit your child in return. It may not be meritocratic, but it's not corrupt (except perhaps insofar as by pretending the exchange is a donation, the university and donor manage to cheat the taxman). The donor is simply paying the university to provide a service that they have every right to offer for money. It also benefits other students, which is why the universities take the deals in the first place. In this case, we're talking about bribery of specific employees to act against the interests of their employer. That's simply corruption. They might be equally non-meritocratic, but they're definitely not equally dishonest or equally socially harmful.
- TheTruth321 8y ago
  LMAO ... "it's not corrupt" ... This place has turned to horsesh!t ...
- fmajid 8y ago
  Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s not corrupt.
  - everdrive 8y ago
    The FBI can only enforce based on the law.
  - rb808 8y ago
    They're private clubs, not public charities. One of the reasons people want to go to these schools is because they have lots of resources. If you ban wealthy parents and alumni from donating, the school wont be outstanding, so the University has good reason to accept these.
    - darkpuma 8y ago
      Pragmatically defensible corruption is still corruption.
    - mcguire 8y ago
blang 8y ago
According to the documents https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5766243-College-Admissions-Case-Complaint.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5766243-College-Admi... (page 78), giving huge donations are "institutional advancement", it costs 10 times as much, is not a guarantee, and will get second looks.
eli 8y ago
Forging test scores and athletic records seems materially different from a large public donation to the school.
umvi 8y ago
Universities can admit who they want to admit based on any criteria they want, including large donations. This news story is about rich people going behind the university's back to get people admitted via exam cheating and employee bribery.
- onetimemanytime 8y ago
  Technically, the same thing, but one side goes to jail because they can't donate millions. One is legal because of wink and a nod, the other is illegal (as it should be) but both sides tried to do their best for their children. Jared Kushner, the brilliant philosopher went to Harvard at the same his father donated $2 Million to the university. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/21/what-will-help-you-get-into-harvard-super-rich-parents https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/21/what-w... I understand the legality and the law is the law, but let's cut the c*ap, both sides are cheating. The poorer side gets caught because they don't have the money needed to bribe the University, they have just enough to bribe its employees.
  - peteradio 8y ago
    Not at all technically the same. This case involves paying off people to commit fraud. How hard is that to understand the difference.
    - lotsofpulp 8y ago
      Receiving admissions in exchange for tax deductible donations is also fraud, and just as severe.
      - umvi 8y ago
        I'm not familiar with tax deductible donation related law, but in that case, universities need to make sure they aren't breaking the law. Is that what's happening? As far as I can tell, saying "get really good test scores or pay us a million dollars to get in" is not illegal.
WillPostForFood 8y ago
Part of this is paying to have the SAT test center correct the students answers and inflate their test scores.
marcoperaza 8y ago
They’re accused of, e.g., paying insiders at the SAT and ACT to change scores and engage in other such dishonesty, against the wishes of those organizations and the universities. This is fraud. This is very different from buying entrance to a university. Universities are allowed to admit on any criteria that they want (with a few exceptions). They are private organizations.
zipzap324 8y ago
Some of the examples were egregious, bribing Athletic Coaches to create fake profiles for the kids who weren't even athletes or paying people to take the SAT for their kids. Quite different than donating $100M for Admission.
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  Donating so that you get something in exchange is fraudulent, and is different, but I don't see how it's any better. It's also possibly tax fraud, therefore theft from other members of society.
  - zipzap324 8y ago
    Colleges can admit whoever they want for whatever reason they want, there's nothing fraudulent about that. Unfair? Obviously but certainly not fraudulent. The examples I gave however are illegal and obviously different than donations for admission.
shaki-dora 8y ago
I think the key is not to understand this as a crime against other applicants, or the public, or “fairness.” It’s a crime against the schools.
dhimes 8y ago
So, I've seen admissions described by three doors: Front Door: Student performance (scholastic and academic) Back Door: Family donations Side Door: What this article is about. Part of the ruse was faking athletic credentials to get into a more likely of admissions candidates (athletes have an advantage, apparently). So in this case, they lied.
zelon88 8y ago
When you "donate" a building, the school gets to use it. It blurs the line between legitimate and fraud because there's obvious benefits that transcend the arrangement of a wealthy sprog. When you "donate" $1.2m to a "consultancy" you're just committing fraud. Nobody benefits except your kid and the "consultancy." It's much easier to prove that this transaction is fraudulent. So in this case the government is going after fraudsters because the government isn't getting paid, and neither is the school. I'd be willing to bet that the government would have continued looking the other way if a) the wealthy had paid taxes on their bribe or b) there was some indisputable asset one could point to and say "there's my donation!"
stevespang 8y ago
No, you're right. But the ultra rich have "loopholes" since donating a building or a stadium to a college is not against the law, and a backroom handshake deal can still be made to donate millions without it going on the record as an exchange for all your kids getting accepted into that school. Same difference in that sitting presidents don't ask for and don't get paid $millions for giving speeches during office - - yet the record shows that almost ALL of them arranged deals during their presidency in exchange for favorable legislation, so that the minute they walked out of the white house they were jetting off to give these million dollar "payback" speeches.
anigbrowl 8y ago
It differs insofar as when you do it 'above board' more people get a piece of the pie, the pie tends to be larger, and there are more events where the consumption of pie is celebrated. One can argue that the benefit accrues to the university rather than the corrupt individuals, but from the point of view of excluded applicants that difference is moot except insofar as a donation expands the number of admissions or academic resources.
TomMckenny 8y ago
Bribing an employee to look the other way is considered unspeakably evil. "Donating" to the owner to to exactly the same thing is considered good business.

naveen99 8y ago

It’s different in the scale of the donation. 2 Million dollar donation materially improves things for other students and is tax deductible. $15,000 bribe doesn’t do much for other students except rob them of a spot.

avar 8y ago
Some of these schools have endowments so large that no amount of donating to them will move the needle. They don't need more money: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/malcolm-gladwell-revisionist-history_us_578d2c6fe4b0c53d5cfa79e0 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/malcolm-gladwell-revisi...
- onemoresoop 8y ago
  This is so true but greed enables them to take and take and take. I find this so hypocritical, these universities are shaping the future educating the next generation of leaders and already have more than what they need with their exorbitant fees.. it seems like there's no limit to this as long as there is supply, there is demand.
bilbo0s 8y ago
This. A guy donates an engineering complex, and every engineering student on that campus gets to take advantage of said complex and its resources. Guy donates a new business school building and every student on that campus can take advantage of said building and its resources. In exchange, the university lets in two girls, their daughters or whatever, who might want to major in Art History and French, and coincidentally will likely be inheriting a few hundred million to upwards of a billion dollars in the future. (Future donors.) It's a fair trade. I'm not wealthy on that level, but if I were calling the shots at a university I'd make that trade every time.
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  Then the university should advertise the cost of admission and make it fair for everyone.
  - temporalparts 8y ago
    I think it is well known that anyone can donate a building for easy admission. It is no secret, just something available to only the top 0.1%
    - wyldfire 8y ago
      > It is no secret It sounds like you agree, then? It should be public.
      - auntienomen 8y ago
        It is public. Universities almost always include the donation size when they put out press releases about the new building.
        cm2187 8y ago
        And usually the building bears the name of the donor!
athenot 8y ago
Part of the condition for a donation to be tax-deductible is that you claim you didn't get anything in return for your donation. Donating for improvement that affects others is one thing, but donating for a quid pro quo might affect this.
- wallace_f 8y ago
  Why can't a poor kid from Oakland, or wherever, watch the classes online and self-study, and pay a nominal fee to exam? In other words, is the concept of creating barriers to entry, limiting competition, not unreasonable? In any market, economists say that is anticompetitive, and should even be illegal. Are people paying for education? Or for epaulets? So let's talk about this "materially improving things for other students" in an honest context of what this is.
  - i_am_proteus 8y ago
    They're paying for epaulets. I took graduate courses at a "local" state university before starting a full-time program at a big-name-top-low-number private school. The private school was not a better education, but it was undoubtedly better for my career because of the "epaulets."
  - nemothekid 8y ago
    >watch the classes online and self-study, and pay a nominal fee to exam? We are already far past the point on using exam scores as a basis for admissions. Many of the Ivies, famously say every year that they could fill their incoming class with students with perfect scores and perfect GPAs many times over forcing these schools to consider other factors. The US DoE says there are 16.9m undergrads, assuming ~4m are freshmen, the top 1% is 40,000 students. The Harvard freshman class size is 2000 students. At this point its only natural, according to the "market", that people would be paying for slots.
- toast0 8y ago
  The tax question here is what is the fair value of the benefit received, the waiving of admission requirements or the granting of admission. I would expect that to be pretty hard to put a dollar amount on.
logfromblammo 8y ago
It provides them the opportunity to network with a young, impressionable kid whose parents can afford to throw $15k into a toilet and flush. If you believe the primary purpose of a university is to educate and certify, that is indeed "not much". But if you believe that the education is secondary, and the actual primary purpose is to cultivate a social network of influential graduates and dropouts, and to act as gatekeeper to future opportunities, then that bribe is better than a perfect SAT score. That kid will end up with seed money or angel investments from mommy and daddy, and will be able to hire some former classmates right out of the gate, and they might build a unicorn, which will forever be tagged with "founded and built by a team of University X graduates". In that sense, no one is robbing anybody of a spot. There are genius spots, and rich idiot spots, and the only problem is getting a few from each pile into the same rooms, with a reason to talk about their futures. One way is to coerce the rich kid into studying (or cheating) their coursework by paying off the genius kid. Management training.
sgustard 8y ago
Also, a bribe goes into one person's pocket. Buying a basketball team and hiring a coach in order to win is legal. Paying one player to lose a game is not legal.
stvswn 8y ago
This is precisely not the reason there's a distinction. The problem is that the $15,000 bribe went to the pockets of someone who was subverting the process (mainly the coaches), robbing the university.

strikelaserclaw 8y ago

I think it is a good thing, if done on a small scale (admitting rich people purely based on donations). It's like pairing smart and driven people with people with money and access to connections.

tfandango 8y ago
Your comment really made me think about this a little different than my initial reaction, thanks!
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  That's always been the value proposition of top tier schools. The learning material doesn't change from school to school, the networks do.

lotsofpulp 8y ago

It's different because it's missing plausible deniability for the parties involved. If donations were actually altruistic, they would be anonymous, but sometimes, society needs a veneer of fairness to mask the real nature of the "pay to play" system we have.

Alex3917 8y ago

> I really don’t think it’s much harder to prove that an underperforming student who got in because their parents donated a couple million (or tens of millions of) dollars took the place of a more qualified candidate. It's the opposite actually; if you're giving money to the development office then you're enabling more qualified students to attend the school. That’s why college only costs 50k per year when it costs 150k to provide that service to you.

cma 8y ago

"Legacy" admits with consideration of donations are allowed as far as I understand. It supposedly has a bigger effect than affirmative action, and at many schools we are just a few generations away from segregation now, which somewhat dictates the race makeup of the legacy pool to this day.

alistairSH 8y ago

In the highlighted case, the "bribe" actually wasn't - the mother paid a 3rd party fix her daughter's exams (administered by the local school on behalf of CollegeBoard, IB, or ACT). But, generally, your point is correct. In this case, there was an explicit pay-off/bribe/fraud committed. In the case of the super-wealthy, there's a large donation and a wink-wink/handshake.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

x2f10 8y ago

How do you determine the parent's motives? I can't deny that parents use donations as a pay-to-play mechanic at colleges, but how do you guard against it? Do you ban kids from enrolling in or applying to colleges in which their parent's (or close relative) has donated to? My local college was a blessing to me. It provided me an education, a safe atmosphere, and most of all, confidence. It changed me for the better. I'd like to donate to the college if I were in the position to do so, and because I had such a great experience, I'd encourage my child (don't have one, yet) to go. It this wrong of me?

lotsofpulp 8y ago
We can start by not naming things after donors. I don't understand how that's not immediate quid pro quo right there, you get advertising for your personal brand.
alexandercrohde 8y ago
How about making donations information blind to admissions committees?
michaelt 8y ago
how do you guard against it? Do you ban kids from enrolling in or applying to colleges in which their parent's (or close relative) has donated to? Blind admissions, where the admissions committee isn't told a name or enough details to identify an individual. Obviously, people's opinion on that will depend on their opinion on things like admissions essays and extracurricular activities; anything like "I learned a good work ethic helping my father with his senate campaign" will have to go. Blind grading after admission would be sensible too, for the same reasons. Although perhaps difficult in subjects where individual students' work was identifiable even without their name.

XCabbage 8y ago

Donating a building is a payment to the university. The university then gets to decide to admit your child in return. It may not be meritocratic, but it's not corrupt (except perhaps insofar as by pretending the exchange is a donation, the university and donor manage to cheat the taxman). The donor is simply paying the university to provide a service that they have every right to offer for money. It also benefits other students, which is why the universities take the deals in the first place. In this case, we're talking about bribery of specific employees to act against the interests of their employer. That's simply corruption. They might be equally non-meritocratic, but they're definitely not equally dishonest or equally socially harmful.

TheTruth321 8y ago
LMAO ... "it's not corrupt" ... This place has turned to horsesh!t ...
fmajid 8y ago
Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s not corrupt.
- everdrive 8y ago
  The FBI can only enforce based on the law.
- rb808 8y ago
  They're private clubs, not public charities. One of the reasons people want to go to these schools is because they have lots of resources. If you ban wealthy parents and alumni from donating, the school wont be outstanding, so the University has good reason to accept these.
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    Pragmatically defensible corruption is still corruption.
  - mcguire 8y ago

blang 8y ago

According to the documents https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5766243-College-Admissions-Case-Complaint.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5766243-College-Admi... (page 78), giving huge donations are "institutional advancement", it costs 10 times as much, is not a guarantee, and will get second looks.

eli 8y ago

Forging test scores and athletic records seems materially different from a large public donation to the school.

umvi 8y ago

Universities can admit who they want to admit based on any criteria they want, including large donations. This news story is about rich people going behind the university's back to get people admitted via exam cheating and employee bribery.

onetimemanytime 8y ago
Technically, the same thing, but one side goes to jail because they can't donate millions. One is legal because of wink and a nod, the other is illegal (as it should be) but both sides tried to do their best for their children. Jared Kushner, the brilliant philosopher went to Harvard at the same his father donated $2 Million to the university. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/21/what-will-help-you-get-into-harvard-super-rich-parents https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/21/what-w... I understand the legality and the law is the law, but let's cut the c*ap, both sides are cheating. The poorer side gets caught because they don't have the money needed to bribe the University, they have just enough to bribe its employees.
- peteradio 8y ago
  Not at all technically the same. This case involves paying off people to commit fraud. How hard is that to understand the difference.
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    Receiving admissions in exchange for tax deductible donations is also fraud, and just as severe.
    - umvi 8y ago
      I'm not familiar with tax deductible donation related law, but in that case, universities need to make sure they aren't breaking the law. Is that what's happening? As far as I can tell, saying "get really good test scores or pay us a million dollars to get in" is not illegal.

WillPostForFood 8y ago

Part of this is paying to have the SAT test center correct the students answers and inflate their test scores.

marcoperaza 8y ago

They’re accused of, e.g., paying insiders at the SAT and ACT to change scores and engage in other such dishonesty, against the wishes of those organizations and the universities. This is fraud. This is very different from buying entrance to a university. Universities are allowed to admit on any criteria that they want (with a few exceptions). They are private organizations.

zipzap324 8y ago

Some of the examples were egregious, bribing Athletic Coaches to create fake profiles for the kids who weren't even athletes or paying people to take the SAT for their kids. Quite different than donating $100M for Admission.

lotsofpulp 8y ago
Donating so that you get something in exchange is fraudulent, and is different, but I don't see how it's any better. It's also possibly tax fraud, therefore theft from other members of society.
- zipzap324 8y ago
  Colleges can admit whoever they want for whatever reason they want, there's nothing fraudulent about that. Unfair? Obviously but certainly not fraudulent. The examples I gave however are illegal and obviously different than donations for admission.

shaki-dora 8y ago

I think the key is not to understand this as a crime against other applicants, or the public, or “fairness.” It’s a crime against the schools.

dhimes 8y ago

So, I've seen admissions described by three doors: Front Door: Student performance (scholastic and academic) Back Door: Family donations Side Door: What this article is about. Part of the ruse was faking athletic credentials to get into a more likely of admissions candidates (athletes have an advantage, apparently). So in this case, they lied.

zelon88 8y ago

When you "donate" a building, the school gets to use it. It blurs the line between legitimate and fraud because there's obvious benefits that transcend the arrangement of a wealthy sprog. When you "donate" $1.2m to a "consultancy" you're just committing fraud. Nobody benefits except your kid and the "consultancy." It's much easier to prove that this transaction is fraudulent. So in this case the government is going after fraudsters because the government isn't getting paid, and neither is the school. I'd be willing to bet that the government would have continued looking the other way if a) the wealthy had paid taxes on their bribe or b) there was some indisputable asset one could point to and say "there's my donation!"

stevespang 8y ago

No, you're right. But the ultra rich have "loopholes" since donating a building or a stadium to a college is not against the law, and a backroom handshake deal can still be made to donate millions without it going on the record as an exchange for all your kids getting accepted into that school. Same difference in that sitting presidents don't ask for and don't get paid $millions for giving speeches during office - - yet the record shows that almost ALL of them arranged deals during their presidency in exchange for favorable legislation, so that the minute they walked out of the white house they were jetting off to give these million dollar "payback" speeches.

anigbrowl 8y ago

It differs insofar as when you do it 'above board' more people get a piece of the pie, the pie tends to be larger, and there are more events where the consumption of pie is celebrated. One can argue that the benefit accrues to the university rather than the corrupt individuals, but from the point of view of excluded applicants that difference is moot except insofar as a donation expands the number of admissions or academic resources.

TomMckenny 8y ago

Bribing an employee to look the other way is considered unspeakably evil. "Donating" to the owner to to exactly the same thing is considered good business.