7 ms·

I have a very hard time getting even remotely upset about the college bribery scandal when it's both legal and encouraged for the truly rich to get their failso

I have a very hard time getting even remotely upset about the college bribery scandal when it's both legal and encouraged for the truly rich to get their failsons 'legacy admissions' at selective colleges by donating multiple millions to the institutions. The people who have been prosecuted as part of this scandal aren't being prosecuted for devaluing earned degrees at selective colleges; they're being prosecuted for finding a cheaper way to get their children into selective colleges than paying the ten million+ selective colleges charge a for legacy admission.

microtherion 6y ago
Technically, they are being prosecuted for paying off somebody who was not entitled to give their children preferential admissions treatment, while if you're donating to the university, they ARE entitled to give preferential treatment. But I agree, on a moral level, that legacy admissions are an odious practice, and particularly so when tied to donations.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  > while if you're donating to the university, they ARE entitled to give preferential treatment It’s not a donation if you’re getting something in return, e.g. preferential treatment.
js2 6y ago
You don't see a difference between bribing someone under the table to get only your child in, vs a public donation that benefits the entire student body besides your child? The rules may be unfair but at least in the latter case, everyone knows that they are up against.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  > vs a public donation that benefits the entire student body besides your child? Not a donation if the donor is receiving something in exchange.
  - js2 6y ago
    I was just sloppy with my wording. I should have said quid pro quo contribution. In any case, the amount above the fair market value of the benefit received is a donation. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/charitable-contributions-quid-pro-quo-contributions https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organiz... https://adminguide.stanford.edu/chapter-4/subchapter-1/policy-4-1-1 https://adminguide.stanford.edu/chapter-4/subchapter-1/polic...
    - spaced-out 6y ago
      Oh really? And how would one access the fair market value of an admission to Harvard?
      - js2 6y ago
        I have no idea, but Stanford has an office for it. I assume Harvard does too. This is all completely besides the point of my comment. One of these things is bribery and corruption. The other may be unfair and people have reason not to like it, but it's above board. You want to pick nits over my use of the word donation and the fair market value of admission, go ahead.
        lotsofpulp 6y ago
        It’s not above board as a donation qualifies for a tax deduction whereas payment for services rendered does not. It is also corruption.
      - danans 6y ago
        Well, the bribes paid in this scandal were on the order of a few hundred thousand dollars paid per admission. Another way to look at it is to look at the total cost of fully private preparatory primary and secondary schooling for a child, in programs that groom them to maximize their chance for admission (what a lovely childhood that sounds like). That's probably about half a million dollars, give or take, depending upon where you live. So I'd guess it's somewhere in that ballpark of 200k-500k. I don't know what the median size of donation-based admissions is though.
Aliabid94 6y ago
Yes but "bribing" the college directly with donations subsidizes the cost of tuition for everyone else. Students don't benefit if the donations go to middlemen instead.
- microtherion 6y ago
  USC had, as of last year, a $5.7B endowment. I suspect they don't really adjust their tuition based on the level of donations they get.
  - HaloZero 6y ago
    Actually, they do. USC will give you full ride your parents make under $80,000.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    How do you think they got that endowment? :-)
    - sumedh 6y ago
      By investing students fees in the stock market?
      - TheCoelacanth 6y ago
        Definitely not. Student fees have never left a surplus to invest. It's from investing donations.
  - newacct583 6y ago
    Not in the sense of accounting balance, no. But at elite schools, elimination of tuition need is absolutely a core goal of finance and fundraising. I think there's way too much cynicism in the comments here. These schools really do take their social responsibilities seriously and really do offer and prioritize student aid. And to the extent they can't, it's because they simply don't have the cash available. Giving to universities is a good thing (well, usually -- maybe there's an argument that the super-elite schools with outrageous endowments don't need this, I guess). Should universities be "selling" spots for this purpose? I don't know. But it's not correct to imply that they don't have a good use for that money.
fortran77 6y ago
There's a big difference. I'm surprised you don't see it. If a billionaire donates a new building to a college so his dim-witted son can get in, the entire school benefits because they have a new facility. And the school can see to it that nobody gets "displaced" by this dim-witted kid by increasing the class size by 1. If a wealthy person bribes and athletic coach to get his kid into school, the school gets no money and no benefit, and someone else was actually displaced.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  > If a billionaire donates a new building to a college so his dim-witted son can get in, It’s not a donation if they’re getting something in return.
  - simonh 6y ago
    That’s maybe fair, but just a matter of semantics. It doesn’t change the fact that a $10m endowment can generate enough income to support a handful of full cost academic scholarships in perpetuity. Anyone not seeing the difference between that and a sports coach pocketing a few tens of thousands of dollars is suffering from severe ideological impairment.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      It’s not semantics when erroneous terminology nets someone a few million in tax deductions. A donation is eligible for tax deductions. Payment in lieu of acceptance for child or increased probability of acceptance for child is not tax deductible. A sports coach pocketing a few thousand dollars, versus a much wealthier person pocketing a few million from all taxpayers. Where is the ideological impairment?
      - dev_tty01 6y ago
        Hmm, I think you have some wrong ideas about our tax system. A tax deduction doesn't make it free money. First, you are giving up $10 million to the school. The tax deduction gets you about $3 million (more or less) in tax savings. The donor still gave up a net of $7 million and the school and students still get tremendous benefit. (The precise amounts will vary with tax rates and state, but the point is that a huge portion of the donation is still out of pocket.) The wealthy person is not "pocketing" anything.
frgtpsswrdlame 6y ago
Setting aside the question of whether Lori and her husband are truly rich or not, you don't like that super rich people openly make donations to get their kids into school they don't deserve to be in so you're okay with other rich people cheating too? I honestly don't understand the logic behind your comment, shouldn't you be upset about both?
- LanceH 6y ago
  I don't agree with OP as the college is the victim here of some semi-embezzlement (admission slots being used for employee benefit). That said, I'm always a bit miffed by the enthusiasm for prosecuting the person bribing rather than the person accepting the bribe. It's not just in bribery. You see the same targeting of the interloper in cases of adultery. It's like everything was perfectly fine until contracts and vows were broken due to temptation alone. We should be cutting deals with everyone that offered a bribe and nailing people to the wall you accepted the bribes. They are the ones truly stealing. The others are buying stolen property (certainly also bad).
  - creato 6y ago
    The people that were bribed were prosecuted. At least one (from a quick googling) appears to have gotten a stiffer sentence (albeit not by much) than these two. It was probably evidence they provided that led to the convictions of the people doing the bribing.
  - treis 6y ago
    > don't agree with OP as the college is the victim here of some semi-embezzlement (admission slots being used for employee benefit). Which is an argument that it's immoral/illegal for the employee. For the parent? Gotta pick bribery being ok or not.
fossuser 6y ago
Yeah, it feels more like they're getting punished for getting a discount and not giving the universities the bribe directly (likely because the actual 'fee' for getting your kid in is more than they could afford). I was similarly bothered by this, and by the fact that nobody was worried that these students would fail out given that they cheated their way in. Says a lot about the actual signalling value vs. educational value of the universities (and the lottery that is admissions). On a tangential note, Lisa Brennan-Jobs' really great memoir "Small Fry" talks about her experience with this a bit. She dreamed of going to Harvard and during the admissions interview it didn't seem to be going anywhere until she quietly mentioned that her dad founded a computer company (the interviewer asked which one which prompted Lisa to say Apple at which point the dense interviewer figured out she was Steve Jobs' daughter) - and then the interviewer left the room for a time. When the interviewer came back she was smiling and generally a lot more engaged. Lisa went to Harvard. College admissions is an unfair system in a billion different ways, I hope ISAs like Lambda School end up replacing a lot of it for most people. Lori Loughlin and the actors cheated the system, but it's weird to me that they got in trouble because they didn't cheat in the right way. You need to be rich enough to pay a large enough bribe to the school directly. If that fails, hopefully you have a famous father. Otherwise it's a lottery. [Edit]: For those arguing paying the school bribe is different because other students benefit, I'd argue there should be at least some transparency in this process. If admissions slots are for sale, let the public see the price (instead the schools pretend otherwise).
- andreilys 6y ago
  “ I was similarly bothered by this, and by the fact that nobody was worried that these students would fail out given that they cheated their way in.” You would be surprised at how difficult it is to fail out of programs. From what I’ve seen profs have an unwritten rule to not fail students from school admin, otherwise they might complain and so it’s easier to give a D than fail them completely.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    Yeah, admissions isn't really about who can succeed at the school (since basically anyone who gets in will be fine). While you do get some education, I'd argue the majority of the value is the signalling the institutions provide by being selective. It's about forcing scarcity for social status.
viburnum 6y ago
Yeah you gotta bribe the right people or it’s a crime.
- hinkley 6y ago
  Always has been.
esoterica 6y ago
> The people who have been prosecuted as part of this scandal aren't being prosecuted for devaluing earned degrees at selective colleges; they're being prosecuted for finding a cheaper way to get their children into selective colleges than paying the ten million+ selective colleges charge a for legacy admission. Yes, and the cheaper way involves fraud, which is why people are being prosecuted. It's like you're saying robbing a bank shouldn't be a crime because people are just trying to find a cheaper way to get money from a bank than depositing the money first.
Alex3917 6y ago
Giving money to the development office doesn't get your kids legacy status. They'll get admitted, but not in a way that is unfairly taking away a slot from an actual legacy.
kbos87 6y ago
Not intending to change the subject - for what it’s worth I generally agree with you - but aren’t legacy admissions just a step above the lie that is meritocracy? Well resourced families produce children who go to good schools, have all sorts of help along the way, and signal correctly to end up in more prestigious institutions - and the rest is basically predetermined. Legacy admissions and what Lori Loughlin did are the same thing without the veil.
clairity 6y ago
that's odd reasoning. if you're upset with one thing, you should be upset with both. they're both erosions of the foundational principles that hold a society together, with corruption, bribery, lying, self-dealing and a whole host of other upper-crust criminal activity just sliding right by for the moneyed, with punishments perverted to be lighter for greater amounts of societal harm. that all create the us-vs-them dynamics that breaks societies apart.
ransom1538 6y ago
Ah hypocrites. Yes. This is exactly the case. You need to bribe your way into fancy universities like the rest of the rich people - otherwise, it would have no value. The other option is to be a son/daughter of a politician. My favorite photo is of Dr. Dre's daughter getting into USC: "My daughter got accepted into USC all on her own," the rapper wrote in the caption. "No jail time!!!!" (Dre made a $70million dollar contribution). Thanks Dre! Continue to fight for social justice! https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/24/entertainment/dr-dre-daughter-usc-instagram/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/24/entertainment/dr-dre-daughter...
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  And he got a tax deduction for it.
throwaway713 6y ago
I’ve often thought that if I ran my own company I would have a ban on hiring new grads from certain schools, particularly those like Harvard. Between their racism of denying qualified Asian applicants to accepting giant bribes to let in the children of rich or famous people, there’s no way for a company to to tell whether the credentials mean anything at all.
- chrisbennet 6y ago
  It’s not racism to choose applicants for racial diversity or diversity period. Affirmative action necessarily discriminates against/disadvantages someone in an effort to give another an advantage. We as a society, mostly accept this compromise.
ALittleLight 6y ago
I don't think this is a fair comparison. It's like complaining that I got in trouble for bribing the guard at the Ferrari dealership to look the other way when I drove off with a Ferrari, while the truly rich are allowed to just stroll in and pay the owner. The point is not that you mustn't get a college entrance by paying people for it, but that you must pay the right people. If you donate two million to the university, maybe they'll admit your useless child and carry them along. The two million you donated does enough good for the University that the leadership deems it worthwhile to trade. Conversely, if you bribe the coach to lie to the University, then that's you getting something of great value for far less and without paying the appropriate people. Being against the rich paying their way in is one thing, but this scandal isn't the same thing as that.
- choward 6y ago
  The difference is that the Ferrari isn't going to affect the rest of your life. It's mostly an ego/luxury item. Maybe it will help you make a sale if you're a real estate agent or something like that, but other than that if you didn't get the Ferrari, your life wouldn't really be affected. College on the other hand is way more important. > Being against the rich paying their way in is one thing, but this scandal isn't the same thing as that. So as long as it's legal it's okay.
  - refulgentis 6y ago
    To this reader, 'its actually much more important than a Ferrari' weakens your argument for legalizing bribing college officials for admission

microtherion 6y ago

Technically, they are being prosecuted for paying off somebody who was not entitled to give their children preferential admissions treatment, while if you're donating to the university, they ARE entitled to give preferential treatment. But I agree, on a moral level, that legacy admissions are an odious practice, and particularly so when tied to donations.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
> while if you're donating to the university, they ARE entitled to give preferential treatment It’s not a donation if you’re getting something in return, e.g. preferential treatment.

js2 6y ago

You don't see a difference between bribing someone under the table to get only your child in, vs a public donation that benefits the entire student body besides your child? The rules may be unfair but at least in the latter case, everyone knows that they are up against.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
> vs a public donation that benefits the entire student body besides your child? Not a donation if the donor is receiving something in exchange.
- js2 6y ago
  I was just sloppy with my wording. I should have said quid pro quo contribution. In any case, the amount above the fair market value of the benefit received is a donation. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/charitable-contributions-quid-pro-quo-contributions https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organiz... https://adminguide.stanford.edu/chapter-4/subchapter-1/policy-4-1-1 https://adminguide.stanford.edu/chapter-4/subchapter-1/polic...
  - spaced-out 6y ago
    Oh really? And how would one access the fair market value of an admission to Harvard?
    - js2 6y ago
      I have no idea, but Stanford has an office for it. I assume Harvard does too. This is all completely besides the point of my comment. One of these things is bribery and corruption. The other may be unfair and people have reason not to like it, but it's above board. You want to pick nits over my use of the word donation and the fair market value of admission, go ahead.
      - lotsofpulp 6y ago
        It’s not above board as a donation qualifies for a tax deduction whereas payment for services rendered does not. It is also corruption.
    - danans 6y ago
      Well, the bribes paid in this scandal were on the order of a few hundred thousand dollars paid per admission. Another way to look at it is to look at the total cost of fully private preparatory primary and secondary schooling for a child, in programs that groom them to maximize their chance for admission (what a lovely childhood that sounds like). That's probably about half a million dollars, give or take, depending upon where you live. So I'd guess it's somewhere in that ballpark of 200k-500k. I don't know what the median size of donation-based admissions is though.

Aliabid94 6y ago

Yes but "bribing" the college directly with donations subsidizes the cost of tuition for everyone else. Students don't benefit if the donations go to middlemen instead.

microtherion 6y ago
USC had, as of last year, a $5.7B endowment. I suspect they don't really adjust their tuition based on the level of donations they get.
- HaloZero 6y ago
  Actually, they do. USC will give you full ride your parents make under $80,000.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  How do you think they got that endowment? :-)
  - sumedh 6y ago
    By investing students fees in the stock market?
    - TheCoelacanth 6y ago
      Definitely not. Student fees have never left a surplus to invest. It's from investing donations.
- newacct583 6y ago
  Not in the sense of accounting balance, no. But at elite schools, elimination of tuition need is absolutely a core goal of finance and fundraising. I think there's way too much cynicism in the comments here. These schools really do take their social responsibilities seriously and really do offer and prioritize student aid. And to the extent they can't, it's because they simply don't have the cash available. Giving to universities is a good thing (well, usually -- maybe there's an argument that the super-elite schools with outrageous endowments don't need this, I guess). Should universities be "selling" spots for this purpose? I don't know. But it's not correct to imply that they don't have a good use for that money.

fortran77 6y ago

There's a big difference. I'm surprised you don't see it. If a billionaire donates a new building to a college so his dim-witted son can get in, the entire school benefits because they have a new facility. And the school can see to it that nobody gets "displaced" by this dim-witted kid by increasing the class size by 1. If a wealthy person bribes and athletic coach to get his kid into school, the school gets no money and no benefit, and someone else was actually displaced.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
> If a billionaire donates a new building to a college so his dim-witted son can get in, It’s not a donation if they’re getting something in return.
- simonh 6y ago
  That’s maybe fair, but just a matter of semantics. It doesn’t change the fact that a $10m endowment can generate enough income to support a handful of full cost academic scholarships in perpetuity. Anyone not seeing the difference between that and a sports coach pocketing a few tens of thousands of dollars is suffering from severe ideological impairment.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    It’s not semantics when erroneous terminology nets someone a few million in tax deductions. A donation is eligible for tax deductions. Payment in lieu of acceptance for child or increased probability of acceptance for child is not tax deductible. A sports coach pocketing a few thousand dollars, versus a much wealthier person pocketing a few million from all taxpayers. Where is the ideological impairment?
    - dev_tty01 6y ago
      Hmm, I think you have some wrong ideas about our tax system. A tax deduction doesn't make it free money. First, you are giving up $10 million to the school. The tax deduction gets you about $3 million (more or less) in tax savings. The donor still gave up a net of $7 million and the school and students still get tremendous benefit. (The precise amounts will vary with tax rates and state, but the point is that a huge portion of the donation is still out of pocket.) The wealthy person is not "pocketing" anything.

frgtpsswrdlame 6y ago

Setting aside the question of whether Lori and her husband are truly rich or not, you don't like that super rich people openly make donations to get their kids into school they don't deserve to be in so you're okay with other rich people cheating too? I honestly don't understand the logic behind your comment, shouldn't you be upset about both?

LanceH 6y ago
I don't agree with OP as the college is the victim here of some semi-embezzlement (admission slots being used for employee benefit). That said, I'm always a bit miffed by the enthusiasm for prosecuting the person bribing rather than the person accepting the bribe. It's not just in bribery. You see the same targeting of the interloper in cases of adultery. It's like everything was perfectly fine until contracts and vows were broken due to temptation alone. We should be cutting deals with everyone that offered a bribe and nailing people to the wall you accepted the bribes. They are the ones truly stealing. The others are buying stolen property (certainly also bad).
- creato 6y ago
  The people that were bribed were prosecuted. At least one (from a quick googling) appears to have gotten a stiffer sentence (albeit not by much) than these two. It was probably evidence they provided that led to the convictions of the people doing the bribing.
- treis 6y ago
  > don't agree with OP as the college is the victim here of some semi-embezzlement (admission slots being used for employee benefit). Which is an argument that it's immoral/illegal for the employee. For the parent? Gotta pick bribery being ok or not.

fossuser 6y ago

Yeah, it feels more like they're getting punished for getting a discount and not giving the universities the bribe directly (likely because the actual 'fee' for getting your kid in is more than they could afford). I was similarly bothered by this, and by the fact that nobody was worried that these students would fail out given that they cheated their way in. Says a lot about the actual signalling value vs. educational value of the universities (and the lottery that is admissions). On a tangential note, Lisa Brennan-Jobs' really great memoir "Small Fry" talks about her experience with this a bit. She dreamed of going to Harvard and during the admissions interview it didn't seem to be going anywhere until she quietly mentioned that her dad founded a computer company (the interviewer asked which one which prompted Lisa to say Apple at which point the dense interviewer figured out she was Steve Jobs' daughter) - and then the interviewer left the room for a time. When the interviewer came back she was smiling and generally a lot more engaged. Lisa went to Harvard. College admissions is an unfair system in a billion different ways, I hope ISAs like Lambda School end up replacing a lot of it for most people. Lori Loughlin and the actors cheated the system, but it's weird to me that they got in trouble because they didn't cheat in the right way. You need to be rich enough to pay a large enough bribe to the school directly. If that fails, hopefully you have a famous father. Otherwise it's a lottery. [Edit]: For those arguing paying the school bribe is different because other students benefit, I'd argue there should be at least some transparency in this process. If admissions slots are for sale, let the public see the price (instead the schools pretend otherwise).

andreilys 6y ago
“ I was similarly bothered by this, and by the fact that nobody was worried that these students would fail out given that they cheated their way in.” You would be surprised at how difficult it is to fail out of programs. From what I’ve seen profs have an unwritten rule to not fail students from school admin, otherwise they might complain and so it’s easier to give a D than fail them completely.
- fossuser 6y ago
  Yeah, admissions isn't really about who can succeed at the school (since basically anyone who gets in will be fine). While you do get some education, I'd argue the majority of the value is the signalling the institutions provide by being selective. It's about forcing scarcity for social status.

viburnum 6y ago

Yeah you gotta bribe the right people or it’s a crime.

hinkley 6y ago
Always has been.

esoterica 6y ago

> The people who have been prosecuted as part of this scandal aren't being prosecuted for devaluing earned degrees at selective colleges; they're being prosecuted for finding a cheaper way to get their children into selective colleges than paying the ten million+ selective colleges charge a for legacy admission. Yes, and the cheaper way involves fraud, which is why people are being prosecuted. It's like you're saying robbing a bank shouldn't be a crime because people are just trying to find a cheaper way to get money from a bank than depositing the money first.

Alex3917 6y ago

Giving money to the development office doesn't get your kids legacy status. They'll get admitted, but not in a way that is unfairly taking away a slot from an actual legacy.

kbos87 6y ago

Not intending to change the subject - for what it’s worth I generally agree with you - but aren’t legacy admissions just a step above the lie that is meritocracy? Well resourced families produce children who go to good schools, have all sorts of help along the way, and signal correctly to end up in more prestigious institutions - and the rest is basically predetermined. Legacy admissions and what Lori Loughlin did are the same thing without the veil.

clairity 6y ago

that's odd reasoning. if you're upset with one thing, you should be upset with both. they're both erosions of the foundational principles that hold a society together, with corruption, bribery, lying, self-dealing and a whole host of other upper-crust criminal activity just sliding right by for the moneyed, with punishments perverted to be lighter for greater amounts of societal harm. that all create the us-vs-them dynamics that breaks societies apart.

ransom1538 6y ago

Ah hypocrites. Yes. This is exactly the case. You need to bribe your way into fancy universities like the rest of the rich people - otherwise, it would have no value. The other option is to be a son/daughter of a politician. My favorite photo is of Dr. Dre's daughter getting into USC: "My daughter got accepted into USC all on her own," the rapper wrote in the caption. "No jail time!!!!" (Dre made a $70million dollar contribution). Thanks Dre! Continue to fight for social justice! https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/24/entertainment/dr-dre-daughter-usc-instagram/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/24/entertainment/dr-dre-daughter...

lotsofpulp 6y ago
And he got a tax deduction for it.

throwaway713 6y ago

I’ve often thought that if I ran my own company I would have a ban on hiring new grads from certain schools, particularly those like Harvard. Between their racism of denying qualified Asian applicants to accepting giant bribes to let in the children of rich or famous people, there’s no way for a company to to tell whether the credentials mean anything at all.

chrisbennet 6y ago
It’s not racism to choose applicants for racial diversity or diversity period. Affirmative action necessarily discriminates against/disadvantages someone in an effort to give another an advantage. We as a society, mostly accept this compromise.

ALittleLight 6y ago

I don't think this is a fair comparison. It's like complaining that I got in trouble for bribing the guard at the Ferrari dealership to look the other way when I drove off with a Ferrari, while the truly rich are allowed to just stroll in and pay the owner. The point is not that you mustn't get a college entrance by paying people for it, but that you must pay the right people. If you donate two million to the university, maybe they'll admit your useless child and carry them along. The two million you donated does enough good for the University that the leadership deems it worthwhile to trade. Conversely, if you bribe the coach to lie to the University, then that's you getting something of great value for far less and without paying the appropriate people. Being against the rich paying their way in is one thing, but this scandal isn't the same thing as that.

choward 6y ago
The difference is that the Ferrari isn't going to affect the rest of your life. It's mostly an ego/luxury item. Maybe it will help you make a sale if you're a real estate agent or something like that, but other than that if you didn't get the Ferrari, your life wouldn't really be affected. College on the other hand is way more important. > Being against the rich paying their way in is one thing, but this scandal isn't the same thing as that. So as long as it's legal it's okay.
- refulgentis 6y ago
  To this reader, 'its actually much more important than a Ferrari' weakens your argument for legalizing bribing college officials for admission