If 10 families want to donate tons of cash so that their little idiots can get in, I am totally OK with that.
That will be a significant chunk of that universities budget. It makes the university better and cheaper for everyone else. The only thing we have to “suffer” is that 10 idiots got in. I am willing to make that trade.
Is it “fair” that the idiots got in? No, but I am baffled how some people would prefer to hurt a larger group just to make things “fair.”
Note: this is not about the more recent cheating scandal. That is horrible (but not shocking). It just made me think of this issue.
I’ll go further and say I could live with both. I and pretty sure that went on in a few cases back when I was at Pitt, I am sure it went on in earlier days, and I have no real qualms against it happening now. With one small caveat; it doesn’t buy out-right grades and diplomas; which I am sure it does do. So Daddy is a Filthy Rich Dude, or Junior is a Football Star; big deal. Even with a diploma and great grades odds are they will still end up selling use cars by the time they are 50. I just feel it cheapens my earned grades and certificates a little. Let them buy their way in through cash or the cash donations they will generate; put the effort on making it more a case of reality after that.
If I understand your philosophical stance correctly, you are fine with “pay to play” schemes in general. In other words, when the former and now incarcerated governor of Illinois was trying to sell Obama’s vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder instead of going through a fair selection process, you are fine with that, too. If so, I think you are very misguided.
The current scandal seems to revolve around people who didn’t have enough money to donate to get their names on buildings, but did have enough money to pay a middleman to bribe water polo and crew coaches to put non-players through an easier preferred-player admission process.
What gets on my nerves is when people extol the importance of merit when decrying Affirmative Action, but are oddly silent when it comes to all the workarounds the wealthy exploit to get into competitive college. This is how you get anti-intellectual types like Trump or Kushner who are never expected to prove they rightfully got into their esteemed alma maters, while brilliant Obama or Sotomayer types constantly have to deal with the accusation that they took seats from someone more deserving.
That kind of thing takes a LOT more money than the numbers we’re seeing in this scandal. Plus, this involved deliberate fraud like photoshopping faces to steal a scholarship spot in a sport students didn’t play.
OK, but that’s not the nature of the current “scandal” unfolding, which is about a widespread cottage industry dedicated to getting kids into competitive universities by falsifying credentials. The schools in question are the targets, not the beneficiaries, of the deception, and are not profiting in any way.
Yes! This current scandal made me instantly think of last year’s dust-up where a young man got accepted to 20 schools and a news anchor said it was “obnoxious” that he put so many other students “on a waitlist”. That was a bunch of bullshit.
I would hope that people find this case to be doubly obnoxious.
Honestly, the whole system is so riddled with corruption and inequality and just general weirdness that I can’t get too het up over development cases.
One thing that is frustrating is that when it’s hard for a Typical White/Asian kid to get into a highly selective school, the blame is put on under-represented minorities, specifically African Americans. The reality is, the number of slots eaten up by
[ol]
[li]Development cases (large donations)[/li][li]Feeder Schools (elite private schools have centuries-old relationships with the highly selective schools)[/li][li]Recruited Athletes (which are generally rich–think crew and lacrosse, not football)[/li][li]Legacies[/li][li]Personal Favors/connections/fame[/li][/ol]
far dwarfs the numbers of slots “eaten up” by African American applicants–and it’s mostly wealthy white kids aided by those pathways. But no one gets angry about that.
So while it may not seem like a few people donating tens of millions of dollars is going to skew things much, I will tell you that the all the pathways of the rich added together is a large part of the reason why a normal white or Asian kid with test scores in the top 1% of the country, perfect grades, and meaningful accomplishments (let’s say, state-ranked in something) is more likely than not to get rejected at most top schools.
ETA: Ninja’d by you with the face, but hopefully this is more more detail.
I am NOT talking about the recent cheating scandal.
I frequently hear people complaining of how awful it is that Mr. Smith gave $20 million dollars to a university, got his name on a building and magically his son gets accepted.
You want to fund the $10M Wevets Center for Epistemology Studies, just because you think it’s a field of study that needs a center, fine. But if you expect your children get in (and graduate!) only because you gave the school $10M, that’s wrong (to me).
I think the schools should be upset. Whatever institute for “higher learning” trump went to, it’s obviously he didn’t learn anything in the curriculum. So if some average Joe applies to my company, and I see he went to the same school, am I wrong in assuming he has the same skill sets as trump? I obviously can’t trust his transcripts to be an accurate indication of his learning. Why should I hire him?
I am ok with “Pay to play” systems that provide benefits for everyone and practically no downsides besides offending people’s sanctimonious sense of “fairness.”
So, no I would say enriching politicians so other politicians can have power doesn’t qualify.
The rich are going to get a better deal in life, there’s no question about that, that’s the way it should be. The problem is that better deal has turned out to be rigging the system to keep making the rich richer. The donation system of getting a stupid rich kid into school isn’t as big of a problem as the way so many do get rich.
We are talking about schools that are, by and large, older than the United States, and have been prestigious the whole time. They have a LOT of institutional capital-- and having the spawn of incredibly rich and powerful people choose YOU carries it’s own benefit to your reputation. Everyone who matters in this world knows about development admits, and no one is holding it against the school.
I mean, it’s a little like walking into a Thai restaurant and saying “I am in favor of people paying an extra $4 to have crab instead of tofu on the pad thai” - it’s not particularly controversial. Everyone’s going to think you’re talking about the current admissions scandal anyway.