# I'm OK with wealthy people donating lots of money to get their kids into a university **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 14, 2019, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130 "2019-03-14T15:26:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2019, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130/41 "2019-03-14T18:07:23Z")
If it’s a private school that doesn’t use public money at all then they can accept whoever they want for any reason, and graduate whoever they want for any reason. On the other hand a school that does that shouldn’t receive any respectable accreditation and certainly shouldn’t be considered prestigious. However, the current scandal is not about the practices of the schools. Employees at the schools were bribed as were employees of the testing companies. I’m sure the schools listed in this scandal so far are really pissed about this and hopefully all schools will be cracking down on admission requirements and looking closer at the students they accept. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2019, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130/42 "2019-03-14T18:10:22Z")
No private school “doesn’t use public money at all”. They benefit by not having to pay income taxes on their investments, by taking government student loan money for the students and by getting many millions in research grants and other government contracts. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2019, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130/43 "2019-03-14T18:15:20Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > No private school “doesn’t use public money at all”. They benefit by not having to pay income taxes on their investments, by taking government student loan money for the students and by getting many millions in research grants and other government contracts. Sure, but some could afford to give it up if they wanted to. You’re missing the point, it shouldn’t be outright illegal to have a school that accepts students only on a financial basis. But that school is not going to be consider prestigious in any way, it would be a blow to the reputation of an existing school. The schools involved in this scandal may look hard at their practices. I don’t see how any of them listed need to accept students based on huge donations at all, and some of them I hope want to makes sure no one thinks that they do. OTOH you bring up a good point. There’s probably not any of the ones mentioned in the scandal that aren’t taking public money somehow and that means we should have some better standards for schools that want that money. ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2019, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130/44 "2019-03-14T18:36:39Z")
I wish posters would read (and then think about) \*\*Manda Jo’s \*\*post. There aren’t “slots” that get filled by one student at the cost of another student. There isn’t a 1-N ranking of all the applicants with line above which someone gets in and below which they don’t. _And there shouldn’t be._ Schools undertake a complex, multi-dimensional task when they determine who to accept out of the applicants they get (and recruit). All the dimensions aren’t equal (or orthogonal). In the end, they are seeking a class that improves the “health” of the university. That health is made up of a lot of different aspects, of which financial is just one. Do students of rich parents have an advantage? Yes. Some of this is causation (money buys improved admission scoring) and some is correlation (parents that can afford large donations can also afford test prep, private tutors, subsidy of extracurriculars, etc.). NPR has an interesting [article](https://www.npr.org/2018/11/04/663629750/legacy-admissions-offer-an-advantage-and-not-just-at-schools-like-harvard)on the advantage legacies have in the admission process. Some schools explicitly award points for being a legacy. Others don’t. And the division isn’t strictly by public/private. But is this because they are catering to donors or because they’ve found that children of alumni generally succeed more at their school than others? In answer the **Hermitan** ’s question, if we formalized the practice of allowing donors of multi-million’s of dollars to have their children admitted, regardless of other factors (which is not what good universities do), what percentage “slots” would be “taken away”. I just don’t think spending calories agonizing over the unfair inclusion of the children of the uber-rich in our universities is worth it when there are other unfair practices ([like reliance on SAT scores)](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/02/19/study-finds-little-difference-academic-success-students-who-do-and-dont-submit-sat) that affect a lot more “slots” We should be talking about whether the dimensions used to do the complex assessment that affects hundred’s of thousands of applicants are the right ones and whether they are weighted properly instead of parsing in great detail whether a handful of students can get in “unfairly”. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2019, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130/45 "2019-03-14T18:37:55Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > But that school is not going to be consider prestigious in any way, it would be a blow to the reputation of an existing school. The schools involved in this scandal may look hard at their practices. I don’t see how any of them listed need to accept students based on huge donations at all, and some of them I hope want to makes sure no one thinks that they do. > > OTOH you bring up a good point. There’s probably not any of the ones mentioned in the scandal that aren’t taking public money somehow and that means we should have some better standards for schools that want that money. But everyone knows that the big, prestigious schools DO accept students because of substantial donations. They are called “development cases”. This has been true for longer than the United States has been a nation. But Harvard and Yale etc. remain prestigious. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2019, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130/46 "2019-03-14T19:05:01Z")
> [@peccavi](#): > > There aren’t “slots” that get filled by one student at the cost of another student. There isn’t a 1-N ranking of all the applicants with line above which someone gets in and below which they don’t. _And there shouldn’t be._ Right. Schools will send out many more acceptance letters than they have space for at the school. They expect a certain percentage of students will not attend even though they are accepted. If many more accepted students attend than they estimated, then the school has to scramble for where they’ll put everyone. Often dorm rooms will get an extra bed and a double room becomes a triple, for example. So the number of acceptance letters sent out is not a fixed, unchangeable number. Just like students are trying to get into their dream schools, schools are trying to get their dream students. They will give acceptance letters to many of the star applicants knowing that only few will actually accept. Schools also know that students are applying to multiple schools. The school can’t just send you the same number of acceptance letters as the number of available slots since there are guaranteed to be students who pick other schools. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2019, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130/47 "2019-03-14T20:32:13Z")
It bothers me some, maybe not as much as it ought to. Here is a true story. I may have told it before on the Dope, please forgive. When I was graduate chair of my dept in the 90s, the principle (= president) of McGill was the twin brother of the president of Princeton. Our brother had been hired explicitly to manage our deficits, which had did quite well. So one day, before a meeting called by him of the graduate chairs, I started chatting with him and said something like: “I’ll bet that when you and your brother get together your problems running a university are entirely different.” He agreed and then added: “In fact my brother tells me that they could abolish tuition and function entirely on the return on their endowments.” “So why don’t they?” I asked. “Oh they want to have wealthy people whose family can pay the Princeton tuition as alumni. They are the people who will keep the endowment going.” Should this attitude be frowned upon? I am not sure. There is a certain graduate of the Wharton School who almost certainly couldn’t have gotten in (or out, for that matter) without donations from papa. And we are much the worse for that. ---
**Author:** ![UCBearcats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/77aa72/32.png) [@UCBearcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UCBearcats)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2019, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130/48 "2019-03-14T23:04:25Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > 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. Why should it be that way?? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2019, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130/49 "2019-03-14T23:18:00Z")
> [@UCBearcats](#): > > Why should it be that way?? Because we have an incentive based system that promotes hard work and creativity. The incentive is money and if it doesn’t make your life better than it’s not much of an incentive. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Gay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ab097/32.png) [@Enola\_Gay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Gay)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2019, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130/50 "2019-03-14T23:24:32Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > Am I the only one? > > 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 actually agree with you. Singer has told investigators that he found a “side door” to get rich kids into schools. In development cases (aka the “back door”) where someone donates multi millions to have a building built, there is NO guarantee that the school will accept their kid. They take a gamble, but in back door cases ALL students benefit from the donation, whether the rich kid gets accepted or not. They have a better science building, sports arena, library, etc for everyone to enjoy. But in the current situation, neither the school, the campus, nor the students were benefiting at all. The only ones who benefit are the bribers who get their kids into the school for a price & those who accepted those bribes for their own personal gain. ---
**Author:** ![Majestic\_Lee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Majestic\_Lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Majestic_Lee)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2019, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130/51 "2019-03-14T23:28:20Z")
I’m not ok with it if it means someone who is less rich but cleverer doesn’t get a place. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2019, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130/52 "2019-03-14T23:37:18Z")
Okay, so if there’s room for ten more students, and you want to buy a place for Timmy, it seems only fair that you donate enough money for there to now be room for _eleven_ students. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2019, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130/53 "2019-03-14T23:48:36Z")
> [@peccavi](#): > > I wish posters would read (and then think about) \*\*Manda Jo’s \*\*post. > > There aren’t “slots” that get filled by one student at the cost of another student. There isn’t a 1-N ranking of all the applicants with line above which someone gets in and below which they don’t. _And there shouldn’t be._ (Quote edited) Isn’t the current scandal about that, though? These were students getting in on the basis of being good athletes. For that there must be slots that, if taken by these cheats, are not given to other students. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2019, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130/54 "2019-03-14T23:55:33Z")
I personally don’t care. As long as it requires a lot of money. If it only takes $5,000 to get into Harvard, then no. But if it is 6 figures minimum, and the money goes to the schools (and not into the pockets of employees of the university) then I’m fine with it. Education is important, if people want to donate huge sums so their kids get into a good school, fine by me. That means more money for education. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130/55 "2019-03-15T00:02:53Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > I am sure that is possible and probably happens. But, how would you police that? I would gather schools don’t have the time or resources available to determine if a donor kid is getting treated softly, academically. I can tell you as a professor (retired), if I had received any pressure from the administration or a donor to alter the way I graded, I’d have raise a huge stink. But to be honest, nothing like that ever happened, at least to me, at either University of Chicago or Yale. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130/56 "2019-03-15T00:37:30Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I personally don’t care. As long as it requires a lot of money. > > If it only takes $5,000 to get into Harvard, then no. But if it is 6 figures minimum, and the money goes to the schools (and not into the pockets of employees of the university) then I’m fine with it. > > Education is important, if people want to donate huge sums so their kids get into a good school, fine by me. That means more money for education. I can sort of get behind this point of view. Colleges need money. But it does have a major problem in that it sends kids to colleges where they are not good enough to get in otherwise, and sometimes the kids don’t even know they were bought in, they genuinely think they got there on merit. So they end up college drowning like Olivia Jade, surrounded by smarter people and feeling like total idiots. The average person is not going to react to that by knuckling down and studying more, they’re going to hate the clever students for making them feel stupid, and only like them for their usefulness when they’re paying them to write their essays. And they’ll carry that hatred of intelligence on into their later life where they will have a great deal more influence than the average college grad. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130/57 "2019-03-15T00:45:26Z")
Yes, colleges need money. But very little of their money goes to actually educating students. I’ve heard that they typically withdraw only two percent of the endowment each year. The rest grows, and most years, they earn well above two percent return on investment. The really rich schools are more like a hedge fund with a side business in running a school. (And the portion of the endowment that goes to scholarships for current students goes right back to the school. As an undergraduate thirty-something years ago, we were told that something like 25% of the tuition amount went to scholarships, so the whole thing is a way to shift costs from the students whose parents are paying the full tuition to those of us on scholarship. It’s a bit like how US hospitals overcharge the insured patients and those paying out-of-pocket to voer the costs of the charity cases.) ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130/58 "2019-03-15T00:58:37Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > Did you just say that? If you see a black person with a diploma from an exclusive school, you “discount them”? And you can tell by looking? > > I cannot begin to tell you how ridiculous this is. I cannot begin to tell you how many highly qualified black students I have sent to elite colleges–all of them with test records that put them in the top 1% of students in the country. I can’t even. > > And, as I just said in great detail, elite colleges take under-qualified rich white kids all the time. Because they went to the right feeder. Because they play water-polo at a very high level. Because their great grandparents went to the school. ALL of those things carry more weight with the admissions committee than race. All of those things are not “visible” when you meet someone. And all together, those ways add up to way more than the 8% or so of slots taken up by African Americans. I personally don’t discount them because I am not involved in any hiring or other situations where a persons college degree would be relevant. However, those who are in those situations can. It is generally easy to tell what someone’s race is by looking. If you mean legacy admissions by underqualified rich white kids, not really. Typically only 10-15% of students are sons or daughters of alumni. A study of 64 colleges found that 48% of legacy students had test scores in the range of the median student accepted at the college, that 34% had better test scores, and only 18% had worse test scores. This means that at the typical college only 3% of the student body is made up of under qualified legacy students. That is not enough to dilute the signal a college degree has. On the other hand Harvard ran a simulation of admissions without affirmative action and found that admissions of black students fell by 57%. This means that a random white Harvard graduate has 5% chance of being under qualified legacy admission, if all legacy admission are white. While a black Harvard graduate has a 57% chance of being under qualified affirmative action admission. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130/59 "2019-03-15T01:11:01Z")
I posted a whole list. It’s not just legacy admits: it’s also recruited athletes, kids from elite private schools (which have “arrangements” and various personal connections. That ends up being more than 15%. Furthermore, even if we stipulate that your numbers are correct, Harvard only accepted about 8% African Americans. If half of them were under-qualified, then there were still as many more more unqualified white legacy kids as unqualified black kids–and we aren’t counting the unqualified athletes or development cases. Though, again, as I always do, I will point out that “unqualified” is highly misleading here. Saying that a kid “wouldn’t have been admitted” isn’t the same as being “unqualified” and you’re blurring that point. Many, many students who get rejected are quite capable of doing the work. That’s why they will take athletes with below-average scores and grades: the scores and grades are good enough, and the additional value of helping build the school community through athletics is why they are chosen. In the same way, students who contribute toward diversity–which may be racial but can also be about experiences (grew up in a refugee camp; started a successful company; highly ranked chess player) that are unusual and will add to the experiences of others. There are students of all races admitted to elite schools with lower scores than those of some students were rejected. That doesn’t mean that the others were unqualified. ETA: I’ve said my piece on this and I’m not gonna be pulled down this rabbit hole with you. I’ve seen you do it before and I know your mind can’t be changed. i only said the above for the benefit of the lurker. ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130/60 "2019-03-15T01:17:08Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > If you mean legacy admissions by underqualified rich white kids, not really. Typically only 10-15% of students are sons or daughters of alumni. Cite? Here’s are some contrary [facts](https://www.npr.org/2018/11/04/663629750/legacy-admissions-offer-an-advantage-and-not-just-at-schools-like-harvard). I’m sure you have better facts to back up your assertion. From the link (of Harvard admissions data which was made available through a civil trial): “An analysis commissioned by Students For Fair Admissions found legacy applicants were accepted at a rate of nearly \*\*34 percent \*\*from 2009 to 2015. According to the report, that’s more than five times higher than the rate for non-legacies over the same six-year period: just **5.9 percent**.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ok-with-wealthy-people-donating-lots-of-money-to-get-their-kids-into-a-university/831130.md?page=4)