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Post by HeavyDuty on May 21, 2020 12:16:20 GMT -5
What I don’t get - why is this a criminal matter?
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Post by rickyguitar on May 21, 2020 12:39:08 GMT -5
It is fraud.
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Post by Peegoo 🏁 on May 21, 2020 12:58:02 GMT -5
Yes, it is fraud because certain schools keep the bar high on admissions.
The hilarious thing about parents 'buying' their under-achieving kids into a prestigious school is this--and nobody's talking about it at all: the dumb kid gets into school and doesn't flunk out.
I think this is more of a news story than the bribery aspect because it reveals the truth about the standard of learning that occurs at these over-priced institutions.
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Post by Mfitz804 on May 21, 2020 13:05:37 GMT -5
I think its unfair, schools shouldn't sell admission.
But, who should be punished for that, the school who makes it available, or the rich people who take advantage of it?
Personally, I don't get it, and the only reason that its such a big to-do is because there are famous people involved.
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Post by theprofessor on May 21, 2020 13:40:27 GMT -5
Plus there were tax-evasion/money laundering aspects.
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Post by Taildragger on May 21, 2020 13:45:48 GMT -5
If the institution in question is tax payer-funded (e.g.: state college or state university) then it's particularly sleazy and egregious when your higher-achieving kid maybe gets bumped out of a spot by a payoff from some rich dummy's parents (who probably can afford to hire a battery of CPAs and lawyers to find them tax havens and loopholes). You pay but your more-deserving kid don't get to play.
Personally, I think that these days a college diploma is over-rated (especially given the price tag and especially if it's in the liberal arts). But that's another topic...
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on May 21, 2020 13:47:55 GMT -5
Yes, it is fraud because certain schools keep the bar high on admissions. The hilarious thing about parents 'buying' their under-achieving kids into a prestigious school is this--and nobody's talking about it at all: the dumb kid gets into school and doesn't flunk out. I think this is more of a news story than the bribery aspect because it reveals the truth about the standard of learning that occurs at these over-priced institutions. Couldn't agree more. I just wish less time was spent talking about the parents and more time talking about the schools. That there are rich parents with spoiled kids neither with much more compass isn't news. That the world will obey their commands, that is more significant.
We have a habit of closing our eyes real tight and imagining that higher ed is infallibly meritocratic, and they push through just enough scholarship kids who make it big to distract from how they normally run business. I'm glad people can talk about this now... when I was dealing with college stuff, it was tantamount to dropping an ethnic slur to even insinuate that schools were anything but perfect.
Back'n'th'day I got the run around from college admissions because I really wanted to commute instead of live on campus - doing so would've saved me at least $25k over the course of a 4 year degree since I lived 30 minutes away with my folks at the time. This is early 2000s dollars, too. They kept saying that they valued a "live in learning community" and almost never accepted people who didn't want to live on campus... (yeah... live in learning community... because kids in dorms are totally taking advantage of living away from home to do extra homework...) so I got a lot of fluffy nonsense answers when really it was that I wasn't willing to pay list. The school has since become essentially a rich kid day care; if you look at their site now they talk very little about academics, and more about how they have shuttles going to ski resorts on the weekends. Now the prices mean that kids are running up six figure bills to read internet summaries of books they'll never read and get a degree that won't help them in the job force at all.
This was after going to school for a year at another local school and being horrified at how non-academic it was - course work that wasn't even close to what I had in my high school classes, and teachers that were really just there to nurse conspiracy theories and smell their own farts. That school actually doesn't exist anymore. They went bankrupt a few years ago, and good riddance.
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Post by stratcowboy on May 21, 2020 14:21:16 GMT -5
Personally, I think that these days a college diploma is over-rated Hey..somebody make me an offer. I've got an old college diploma I can sell. I could make some real trouble here by detailing some of the kids of famous types who got into schools their parents went to even though they were pretty bad students. And then they went on to so-called leadership positions in the public domain. I'll leave it there...
By the way...Heavy Duty...how's the family coping? Hope everybody's OK.
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Post by gato on May 21, 2020 16:10:17 GMT -5
Dang ... with all that money, just phony up a transcript and buy the diploma.
Kinda like politicians buying medals and claiming they earned them in the military that they failed to enlist in.
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on May 21, 2020 17:29:16 GMT -5
Kinda like politicians buying medals and claiming they earned them in the military that they failed to enlist in. I have a giant trophy on my mantle that is inscribed "Best Trophy Shop Customer", and I feel targeted by this.
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Post by modbus on May 21, 2020 17:30:33 GMT -5
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Post by rok-a-bill-e on May 21, 2020 17:33:50 GMT -5
Yes, those parents committed a crime. But look at the prosecution of these crimes and you see the urge for Camera time and the desire for famous trophies. So, threaten with 20 year sentences--twenty years!---then accept a few weeks in a prison that is totally unlike what most will experience, call it a big win and advance your career. That is the true story of this scandal.
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Post by rangercaster on May 21, 2020 18:44:16 GMT -5
My Dad tried to bribe the Admissions Staff to not admit me
... He realized he would save money in the long run ...
Great idea, but I persisted, and got a BA ...
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Post by rangercaster on May 21, 2020 18:54:46 GMT -5
Some other, much, much, more deserving child got denied admission, 'cause Daddy coughed up a couple mil so his dumba** son/daughter can go party and blow off classes ... It is wrong in so many ways ... And prosecutable, apparently .. I'm OK with it . ... anybody got any beer
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Post by LVF on May 21, 2020 19:33:07 GMT -5
All I can think about on this, at this particular time, is them going to trial, being found guilty, being sentenced to however many months, because that's what the sentence will be, months and that "you'll serve your time at so an so correctional institute (maybe they can earn a diploma their!! ).......BUT WAIT!!, COVID 19!!!....you will serve your time in your home, home incarceration. Well...these are rich folks so...they be serving time, being served...poolside, yes, poolside, their pina coladas while complaining about the harsh sentence they were given and proclaiming that now they know what it feels like to 'be in prison' all the while writing their best selling book on this terrible experience. How do you get a gig like this?
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Post by Vibroluxer on May 21, 2020 20:01:42 GMT -5
Exactly. They wont see the inside of a jail or prison.
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Post by stratcowboy on May 21, 2020 22:42:02 GMT -5
Didn't Martha Stewart actually go to prison? So maybe it'll be the same for these folks. That would be OK.
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Post by rangercaster on May 21, 2020 23:38:22 GMT -5
Karma is ... what it is ...
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Post by rickyguitar on May 22, 2020 0:50:07 GMT -5
I worked for a family owned business where scuttlebutt was dad went to his alma mater, pulled out his check book and said I have a son who scraped by to get his BA, what's it gonna take for him to get an MBA? They reached an agreement where the son never had to take a test if he would attend every class. He did. Got his MBA and was really pretty lost at work. What can I say? I believe it.
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Post by LTB on May 22, 2020 5:34:30 GMT -5
Didn't Martha Stewart actually go to prison? So maybe it'll be the same for these folks. That would be OK. Yes she went to a Federal low security prison with her own room and TV
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Post by oldnjplayer on May 22, 2020 7:20:47 GMT -5
Years ago, my in laws were notified that their son had been accepted to a larger Ivy league college. The were so surprised that they called the school to see if a mistake had been made. Well in short their son did make the college and even more surprisingly did well while attending. Aside from the usefulness of a college degree, it is unfair that the majority of kids struggle and stress to get into "good" colleges while children of wealthy families get in through their parents largess. Also keep in mind the quality of the college helps you get a good job, but it does not help you keep it.
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Post by slacker 🐨 on May 22, 2020 7:40:07 GMT -5
I have a not-so-positive view of the super elite schools. I'm not convinced that the typical undgrad gets a superior education. It's all about reputation and self-fulfilling prophecy. Higher job placement because it's an elite school, but it's an elite school because of higher job placement.
I've worked in the tech field with a lot of people with educations ranging from MIT and Ivy league to the local 2 year community college. Honestly, the two most valuable people I've worked with went to community college...they were just brilliant people with a broad range of skills and superior work ethic. The MIT dude spent all his time telling people he went to MIT and expected special treatment because of it. He actually didn't last long. I think he probably job-hopped looking for a job where having a degree from MIT was enough to get him a salary. He didn't seem interested in actually doing anything with that "superior" education.
The next most valuable player I know went to a state college in Iowa. He's easily the foremost authority in his field and is recognized as such. Absolutely brilliant man and his education is just one tool in the toolbox he uses to be successful.
Bottom line: paying a half million to get these underachieving kids into some elite school is a waste of money unless they have the chops to do something with it. Even then, it maybe gets you your first job. The reality is that it's mostly about rich mommy and rich daddy being able to say jr is going to Hahvahd or wherever at dinner parties.
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on May 22, 2020 9:10:37 GMT -5
The reality is that it's mostly about rich mommy and rich daddy being able to say jr is going to Hahvahd or wherever at dinner parties. And, the illusion that when the kid ultimately lives a life of gross excess, he can pretend he earned it by going to a fancy school and whatever other careful postures of being self-made might exist. That way he can spend his whole life denying that he ever had it any better or easier than anyone else.
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Post by stratcowboy on May 22, 2020 9:24:45 GMT -5
Seems a lot of the group here is miffed by all of this. And I don't blame you. All I can say is...don't forget to vote.
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on May 22, 2020 10:48:17 GMT -5
Seems a lot of the group here is miffed by all of this. And I don't blame you. All I can say is...don't forget to vote. Yeah, I get pretty wound up on stuff like this. My own autobiography is why - as I mentioned above, I had incredibly lack luster, disenchanting experiences with higher ed. I watched a lot of peers go in for liberal arts degrees and come out with absolutely no knowledge on their fields of study you couldn't get from a basic wikipedia entry. I had peers coming out with crippling student loan debt. And up until a few years ago whenever I talked about it I was told I had a "bad attitude" or was "making excuses" or "didn't want to work hard" or something else. If you complained about price, they'd just say that if you worked hard you wouldn't have to pay anything because so many scholarships existed, or offer something fluffy like "you can't put a price on education" (guess what, they're putting prices on it every day!) Questioning anything about higher ed... quality, price, value for the money, their altruism, was so far off the table.
Things are different now. Circumstances may not have changed, but it isn't an Emperor's New Clothes thing anymore, and for that I'm thankful. Though, I am still prone to ranting.
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Post by slacker 🐨 on May 22, 2020 11:41:55 GMT -5
Seems a lot of the group here is miffed by all of this. And I don't blame you. All I can say is...don't forget to vote. Yeah, I get pretty wound up on stuff like this. My own autobiography is why - as I mentioned above, I had incredibly lack luster, disenchanting experiences with higher ed. I watched a lot of peers go in for liberal arts degrees and come out with absolutely no knowledge on their fields of study you couldn't get from a basic wikipedia entry. I had peers coming out with crippling student loan debt. And up until a few years ago whenever I talked about it I was told I had a "bad attitude" or was "making excuses" or "didn't want to work hard" or something else. If you complained about price, they'd just say that if you worked hard you wouldn't have to pay anything because so many scholarships existed, or offer something fluffy like "you can't put a price on education" (guess what, they're putting prices on it every day!) Questioning anything about higher ed... quality, price, value for the money, their altruism, was so far off the table.
Things are different now. Circumstances may not have changed, but it isn't an Emperor's New Clothes thing anymore, and for that I'm thankful. Though, I am still prone to ranting. I'm a bit of a Mike Rowe fan and a big proponent of his idea that we undervalue the trades and that too many people are shoehorned into college when it doesn't make sense. We've stigmatized any non-white collar job and over valued college to the point where far too many people are wasting money on a college degree that they either can't/won't/don't use. Even if they do, they rack massive loans and spend most of their career paying it off. There should be no stigma with becoming a plumber, welder, electrician etc. Those are great careers that would be a great fit for many people, but society looks down on them. It's really stupid.
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Post by hushnel on May 22, 2020 11:49:04 GMT -5
The whole collage thing ain’t for everyone. If they would have just taught me how to learn rather than fill my head with useless data, I would of enjoyed it and benefited from it.
It was like the line Matt Damon used in Good Will Hunting about all the money spent on an education that you could get at the Public Liberary for a pocket full of change in late fees.”
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on May 22, 2020 12:07:02 GMT -5
slacker - the more sensible people in academia have told me the same, too. They find it hard to teach classes when 2/3rds of them are there because they think it is the only path to a respectable life, but realistically have no interest in breaking down Gulliver's Travels. Ironically, one or two only told me after years of telling me the opposite, only to find themselves at the front of a class and having those problems, but I digress.
Another point near and dear to my heart is that if someone simply wants to improve themselves a la a liberal arts degree, they can do that. It has never been easier to be an auto-didact. The number of cheap books, commentaries, online courses and so on is staggering. Academic culture wants you to think you can't just pick up a book and read it without it being assigned as coursework, but it is just nuts. I'm not saying nothing can be gained from a good instructor, but let's face it, not every professor is that superstar that is going to blow your mind in breaking down a text for you. In my experience, most courses are just a reading list and a narcissist. Philosophy is remarkably accessible, despite what philosophy majors want you to think. You just can't skip straight to the advanced stuff, that's all.
I'm a big fan of what a liberal arts education is SUPPOSED to be, I'm just unconvinced that it is really being provided. If people really learned their trivium (grammar, logic and rhetoric) public discourse would be streets ahead of where it is now.
Being around graduation time, a recycled commencement address, right behind the famous "sunscreen" one, is David Foster Wallace's This Is Water... worth listening to for anyone contemplating the idea of a liberal arts degree.
(sorry, I think I'm hijacking this thread, aren't I?)
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Post by stratcowboy on May 22, 2020 13:12:05 GMT -5
There should be no stigma with becoming a plumber, welder, electrician etc. Those are great careers that would be a great fit for many people For sure! The potential benefit of an education--and a liberal arts education, specifically--would be to "learn how to learn." Or to learn how to think things through. Learning for the sake of learning is a really helpful way to approach life. When I started university, I was in a business administration college within the university. It was the wrong program for me because I was naive and didn't understand what it was about. I later transferred to the college of liberal arts. But that said, I remember an instructor I had in the business program who said to the class that the folks who would be the most successful in life and in business would be the ones with the liberal arts education; people who could think creatively. He had told us that guys like J. Paul Getty always looked for people with broad ranges of knowledge who could then think outside the box. Those who went for very specific goals within their education would be pigeon-holed for those specific skills upon entering the work force. If you wanted unlimited horizons, you needed an open mind. An interesting perspective, for sure. Ultimately, I got my good grammar and spelling from my parents (who both had college educations, despite having grown up in an era when that was a rarity). They wouldn't tolerate slop from us kids, even at the dinner table. Hopephilly I dun good.
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Post by rok-a-bill-e on May 22, 2020 13:56:35 GMT -5
I won't forget to vote, but, do we get to vote on college admissions? On criminal cases? I don't get it, or how any vote relates to this discussion, but on this forum we had better let that one die.
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