The ultimate in pushy parents
When I read about the college entrance bribe scandal, the first question that came to my mind was what did these parents think was going to happen when their kids got into a school for which they were neither prepared nor qualified?
But then it occurred to me that the parents probably thought their children would be just fine. The parents might be planning to continue to cheat and bribe on their offspring’s behalf. Or, perhaps they thought that biggest hurdle in college is getting in, and after that it’s all trophies, for everyone, all the time.
This passage caught my eye:
No students were charged, and authorities said in many cases they were kept in the dark about the alleged scam.
It seems pretty obvious that in the cases in which the parents hired surrogates to take the SATs and other tests, the children would have had to be in on the scam. But apparently that was not the bulk of the cases. And for those students whose parents did this without the kids’ knowledge, can you imagine how mortified those particular children must feel now? I wrote “must feel,” but that’s not strictly true. It’s really “might feel,” because with parents with such ethical standards, it’s hard to know what their children have learned about right and wrong.
Not to mention how frightened and even perhaps guilty the children—even the ones who hadn’t a clue—probably feel at the prospect of their parents’ spending time in prison for something the parents will say they did for their kids. The whole thing is a form of child abuse, among other things—unless the impetus came from the kids, which I very much doubt.
And the magnitude of what some parents paid is mind-boggling to us regular folks:
Some of the parents spent between $200,000 to $6.5 million to ensure that their children received guaranteed admission at the schools of their choice, John Bonavolonta, FBI special agent in charge, said.
“Their actions were, without a doubt, insidious, selfish and shameful,” he added.
More:
Of the 50 people charged so far, 33 are parents and nine were college coaches. The others were a mix of standardized test administrators, a test proctor and Singer associates, authorities said.
“We believe everyone charged here today had a role in fostering a culture of corruption and greed that created an uneven playing field for students trying to get into these schools the right way through hard work, good grades and community service,” Bonavolonta said.
True.
However, I’m a bit tired of this “level playing field” assumption. It doesn’t really seem that hard work, good grades, and community service work to achieve the same result for everyone.
Of course I’m not in favor of bribes and/or cheating, and the rules should be applied equally to all. That’s obvious and inarguable. But there are ways around the rules, legal ways. There are legacies. There are racial preferences (ask any Asian if the playing field is level for him or her, for example).
The playing field is never level and all efforts to make it level can never make it so. In fact, some make it less so. Most of the time we can’t properly evaluate advantages and disadvantages for categories of people, or even for individuals. For example, very wealthy people can give their children material things that poor people and even financially comfortable people can’t. But it’s also not clear how to measure those advantages the extremely rich have—for example, did these particular mega-rich people give their kids a sense of purpose or integrity? And aren’t those things extremely important, probably more important than nice clothes and a big house and jet-setting all over the world (whether these kids or parents are aware of it or not)? There are so many children of the ultra-wealthy who are messed up that it’s almost a cliche—actually, it is a cliche: “poor little rich girl.”
Which has nothing to do with cheating. At least, we can be very clear about our condemnation of those who cheat. But I don’t think we’re all that clear on much else in terms of college admissions and the manifold efforts to be “fair.”
I read this the other day:
(Dershowitz said this case appears to involve the “very rich” attempting to buy admission for their children into some of the country’s most prominent institutions.
He said in today’s college environment many students “sail through” because so few fail out.
“In many universities, they’ve abolished grades, so there’s no way of testing whether they are qualified or competent,” he explained.)
https://insider.foxnews.com/2019/03/12/alan-dershowitz-college-admissions-scam-involving-felicity-huffman-lori-loughlin
Different from my experience and that of out kids, the youngest now 40 years old. College today, once you get in, as long as you can pay they won’t kick you out.
Just saw that students denied admission to colleges involved in this mess are planning a class action lawsuit. Good.
OldTexan: and once the parents have paid enough, voila a diploma is given.
The real victims are
students trying to get into these schools the right way through hard work, good grades and community service, specially white and asian students. They must compete with themself, with the world class students. This make them stronger, stronger and stronger. Unfortunately, most of them don’t get in such uninversities.
The deeper problem is that American society today has given “elite” colleges way too much influence.
50 years ago, Peter Drucker said that one big advantage America had over Europe was that we did *not* have “Grande Ecoles” which served as a narrow funnel to control access to important positions.
“One thing it (modern society) cannot afford in education is the “elite institution” which has a monopoly on social standing, on prestige, and on the command positions in society and economy. Oxford and Cambridge are important reasons for the English brain drain. A main reason for the technology gap is the Grande Ecole such as the Ecole Polytechnique or the Ecole Normale. These elite institutions may do a magnificent job of education, but only their graduates normally get into the command positions. Only their faculties “matter.” This restricts and impoverishes the whole society…The Harvard Law School might like to be a Grande Ecole and to claim for its graduates a preferential position. But American society has never been willing to accept this claim…”
We as a country are a lot closer to accepting Grande Ecole status for Harvard Law School and similar institutions than we were when Drucker wrote the above.
While this affair is awful, so are the FBI’s gestapo tactics.
“Sources familiar with the arrest tell TMZ, 7 FBI agents showed up at Felicity’s Hollywood Hills home at 6 AM and drew their weapons as they ordered Felicity to come out and surrender.
We’re told Felicity, her husband William H. Macy and their 2 daughters were asleep when the agents ordered her out. Our sources say she knew the arrest was looming and would have gladly surrendered on her own, but the feds saw it differently.”
https://www.tmz.com/2019/03/12/felicity-huffman-arrest-guns-drawn-fbi-college-bribery/
In case no one has noticed, something is very wrong with the FBI.
Once again reminded of the Ohio State joke Harvey Mansfield likes to tell: “Q — How many students are there at Ohio State? A — Oh, about one in one hundred.”
A. Bloom’s “Closing…” subtitle spoke of “impoverished souls”. These parents are of a generation to fit that bill.
What OldTexan said
“what did these parents think was going to happen when their kids got into a school for which they were neither prepared nor qualified?”
Another possibility is that schools, especially elite schools, are “over-selective” because they can be, not because they have to be. If a school accepts 1000 students, maybe anyone from the top 10,000 applicants would be just as successful, and the difference between applicant 1000 and applicant 10,000 is fairly arbitrary.
Sometimes I wonder if it would be better for higher education for universities to identify a large pool of “good enough” applicants, and then select students within that pool through a lottery. (Maybe set aside a few seats for true geniuses.) That would calm down the extreme arms race that is qualifying for university these days.
Of course, there’s no incentive for elite universities to actually do this. Over-selectiveness enhances their brand.
Ace of Spades has a post up which reflects my thoughts on the education bribery scandal since it became public knowledge:
Yep.
” . . . what did these parents think was going to happen when their kids got into a school for which they were neither prepared nor qualified?” [Neo]
That problem, now called mis-matching, was solved a long time ago. Remember that the “gentleman’s ‘C’ ” originated in the Ivy League, not the State University of Flyover Country.
The elite colleges, more so than your run of the mill state schools, are in the business of making sure their students graduate with high GPAs. They want their graduates to gain admission to the top grad/professional schools and then go on to become the leaders in their chosen fields. This increases their already huge endowments as well as their prestige and reach.
It’s true that the only hurdle for these academically lacking students is getting into these schools. Regardless of the GPA they graduate with, the diploma in itself is the only bona fides one will ever need. The diploma will open any and all doors.
Furthermore, as long as they don’t take academically rigorous (e.g. STEM) courses and take courses graded on a subjective basis, they will do just fine GPA-wise, likely a lot better than they did in high school. Where they might have struggled with required chemistry or US history courses in high school, they will excel in their Women’s Studies and South American Pottery courses they choose to take in college. Plus, they can hand pick courses and professors known to give everyone A’s.
I recall an interview with Maria Sotormayor when she was getting confirmed where she talked about starting school at Princeton and she said her white and asian freshman year roommates were discussing SAT scores and hers weren’t anywhere in the ballpark of theirs. She said she felt uncomfortable to start, but then found she wasn’t over her head in her courses and didn’t think about it again. Likewise, we know Obama didn’t have the grades/test scores to get into an Ivy League school out of high school, he didn’t graduate Columbia with honors but somehow got into Harvard Law, but then turned around and graduated Harvard Law with honors.
The higher you progress in elite academia, the easier it is to do well in your classwork, even if you in no way belong. You just have to get through that first door and you’re on easy street.
It is very ironic that in cheating to secure their children’s futures, their parents have ruined them.
How are their fellow students, their professors going to think of and treat them?
Are these students going to be able to stay in the schools they were not qualified to enter, or are many of them going to be booted out of them?
What of these kid’s futures?
Isn’t the stench of this scandal always going to surround and trail after them, to color their lives?
“what did these parents think was going to happen when their kids got into a school for which they were neither prepared nor qualified?”
Well…one Affirmative Action graduate grew up to be POTUS.
But for so many others…
“In case no one has noticed, something is very wrong with the FBI.”–Ken
More than 15 years ago, my co-worker’s sister’s home was seized by Homeland Security. She, her husband and her 80 year old Aunt visiting from Pennsylvania woke up with guns in their faces. The house was ravaged–the long and short of it–their unsecured internet network was utilized by neighbors actually, who were guilty of some sort of child-porn. Unbeknown to them, they were surveilled for weeks in anticipation of the bust. It was a big mistake by our government.
It could be, though, that some number of these kids–insulated from consequences as they are likely to be–will just move on to something else, and just walk away from this whole ugly incident, and ignore it.
Hey, who really needs to go to college, right?
See also https://nypost.com/2019/03/13/son-defends-parents-caught-in-college-admissions-scandal-while-smoking-blunt/
Or perhaps in light of how little demand these “pushy parents” make toward their children, we might alter the old Soviet joke “You pretend to pay us, we’ll pretend to work” for this:
“You pretend to love us, we’ll pretend to be cherished”.
My takeaways:
a) Bothered by the FBI. Why is this a Federal matter? Have they solved all other crimes? Is bribing your way into a college even a crime? I guess it’s “mail fraud” or some such.
b) It’s pretty clear that “the rich” don’t have a big advantage in college admissions because these rich had to bribe their way in. A lot of nonsense is talked about SAT prep but before standardized tests only the wealthy and connected got in to the elite institutions. Middle-class people had little chance unless they had incredible talents which someone with power chose to recognize.
c) As usual, athletics gets whatever it wants no questions asked, not surprising to me that it is the weak point here.
d) Are the college employees who solicited and accepted bribes getting charged with anything?
I feel bad for the kids in this case, too. Parents don’t do this because they’re doing what’s best for their kids. They do it for the prestige. If they wanted to do what was best for their kids, they would teach them that they can be happy at a lot of different schools and on a lot of different career paths, and they wouldn’t imply that their worth was tied to the school they went to.
Frederick, news reports indicate a couple of FBI agents in Boston investigating an unrelated fraud case got a tip about a bribe to an area sports coach. The coach cooperated and off they went. Yes, I guess it was some kind of mail fraud. It does seem odd for it to be a federal case rather than a fraud lawsuit against the coaches by their schools. And why was bribery against NCAA basketball rules an FBI matter? Not that either case is acceptable; I just don’t understand why some of these things are federal crimes.
And why arrest people in early morning raids with guns drawn? That puts lives at risk over what is alleged to be a financial crime. Same for Manafort.
I’m with Ken,
We need legislation, or an executive order, restricting fed. SWAT style raids to drug dealers or organized crime rackets with a known history of violence. There was a conspiracy here, but no threats of violence.
This is an excellent FBI distraction if indeed the Mueller Investigation is winding down, wealthy people, celebrities, college coaches, with an extra helping of stupid 6am, guns out, get em out of bed raids along with incredibly high bonds for established people who would have shown up on their own with lawyers and could be trusted for release on their own recognizence I would think, we are not talking child raper Roman Polanski who slipped away. We are watching, all of us a media staged showboat extravaganza in the meantime the tents appear to be coming down on the long running Russia-Trump show. What’s next?
Sharon…that’s horrible. Yet, we have heard of these things before. One wonders how such well trained professional can make these kinds of mistakes.
Tommy Jay….well said. No need for guns in such situations. Maybe they thought Macy had a wood chipper waiting for them.
@ken:One wonders how such well trained professional can make these kinds of mistakes.
Check your premises: that they are “well trained” and/or “professional”, or that it was a “mistake”.
We have top men working on it right now.
Who?!
Top. Men.
There’s an aspect to this that isn’t being talked about.
“Some of the parents spent between $200,000 to $6.5 million to ensure that their children received guaranteed admission at the schools of their choice, John Bonavolonta, FBI special agent in charge, said.” my emphasis
Sorry, college coaches, proctors and exam administrators cannot on their own authority, guarantee admission. It takes administrators at the top to do that. That $6.5 million did not go into the pocket of a college coach, or a proctor or an exam administrator. Please. Had the parents paid that $6.5 million to a college coach and their child not got in, hell would have erupted. You can safely bet your last dollar, that the parents of a bribe that big were absolutely certain that the fix was in…
And note that the FBI agent strictly focused on the parents; “Their actions were, without a doubt, insidious, selfish and shameful,” he added.
Nice misdirection. The parents could do nothing without a college administration susceptible to bribes. Where is the outrage at the colleges? Instead we get faux rage at the scapegoats. Again, any good magician will tell you that pulling the wool over the audience’s eyes is all about misdirection.
And FBI agents showed up with guns drawn @ 6:00 am to quell criticism of Roger Stone’s arrest. By doing it again, the FBI is sending the message that the manner of Stone’s arrest did not have a political motivation. So, the manner of this arrest also had a political motivation, to act as a cover up of the FBI’s deep politicization.
Yeah, this is a scandal all right and the FBI along with the corrupt, “higher educational system” are up to their ears in it.
what did these parents think was going to happen when their kids got into a school for which they were neither prepared nor qualified?
They apparently knew what has been said for years of the Ivies: it is a lot harder to get admitted than to flunk out.
Don’t take STEM courses, though- there is still some rigor in them.
My youngest was rejected by Yale. A class action lawsuit was filed today. She had as good qualifications as one of the lead plaintiffs.
David Foster
The geneticist C.D. Darlington, in his book Man Evolution, and Society made the point that even though Oxbridge trained centuries of the British elite, Oxbridge had little to do with Great Britain’s scientific and engineering advances during the 17-19th centuries. As part of the restoration of the monarchy after Cromwell’s death, Oxford and Cambridge were open only to those who adhered to the Anglican creed.
Darlington points out that nearly all of Great Britain’s scientific and engineering advances during the 17-19th centuries came from religious Dissidents. You know, like those horrid Puritans. 🙂
There were some engineering or scientific savants, like Isaac Newton, who were religious Dissidents and also affiliated with Oxbridge. They got to Oxbridge only by dissimulating their Dissident faith.
I am reminded of the pressure in universities today to adhere to the “progressive” creed de jour.
David Foster hits it on the nail re Grand Ecoles. Only difference that it’s a LOT harder to make it through and graduate from ENA or Sciences Po than any of the Ivies in non-STEM. The Ivies are more like Tokyo University: Hard to get in to, partayyyy time / finishing school / networking nirvana / magic carpet embarkation lounge once you’re in.
As for the corruption / nepotism aspects, another hugely unexplored area is Chinese academic fraud in admissions to foreign universities. Yuuuuge.
And some people wonder what motivates other people to want to to tear down “the system”…
I would be very interested to know where these elitist parents fall on the political spectrum.
Sharon W, how terrible. I’m sorry, and I hope there were at least some heartfelt apologies when the truth came out.
Neo, I’m glad you wrote about the betrayal and shock and shame that the children of the cheating parents — at least, the kids who didn’t know about the cheat — must be feeling. I haven’t seen a lot of commentary on that aspect elsewhere. Imagine being one of those kids: finding out that your mom and/or dad, whom you may well have admired and respected until now, are cheaters, that they didn’t think highly enough of you to believe that you could succeed on your own, that they didn’t love you enough to put your well-being and your future ahead of their own desire for prestige — that they treated you like an ornament to their lives. And on another level, finding out bad things about yourself: that you didn’t do as well on that SAT or ACT or admissions essay as you thought you did, that you may not belong in the school where you thought you’d earned acceptance, that your school may kick you out and, even if not, you’ll probably have to change schools, because your last name is all over the media and all of your classmates and professors know who you are and how you got in. And yet another layer: at least one of your parents may be headed for jail and may lose his or her job and income (as, for instance, with Gordon Caplan, who was a top partner in a renowned international law firm, and is now “on leave” and likely headed for disbarment) so what used to be a comfy, affluent life may change, and there may not even be enough money to pay for college anywhere. Unless you’d been brought up to be as dishonest as your parents (and I recognize that may the the case for some of these kids) it would be the loss of almost everything that you knew or believed about yourself and your life. And even the kids who were in on the scam were inveigled into it by people they thought they could trust, and who raised them wrong.
I acknowledge the various comments to the effect that this is a minor thing, but I don’t see it that way. What vile parents, and what a tragedy for their kids.
Gringo:
Re Oxbridge AND the Ivies: If one takes a look at mid-late C19, one finds that a very large chunk of the anglophone best and brightest of the time did a swing through German universities (Classical Philology, Babyyyyyyy!) because that was where one went for the real scholarship deal. Random examples: Carlyle and Bismarck’s American Roommate at Goettingen.
I used to think it was just sabre fencing and The Student Prince, but the whole Kultur thing was a thing. Kind of got erased from the Anglophone collective consciousness in late 1914.
Oxford/Cambridge did awaken from their slumbers as the century progressed.
they were neither prepared nor qualified?
[how many were boys how many were girls? just curious… ]
what do you mean? we are all equal!! even the radio political ads for things like tutor service imply we are all equal but we don’t get equal environments.
they think the exact same think that blasio thinks when he decides to get rid of the evil racist test that prevents homogenization of the population at Bronx science, Stuyvesant, and Brooklyn tech
there is no such thing as talent dont you know
if talent and different ability actually exists and merit is not an illusion
then what is the point of all those lessers teaming up to change everything?
think before answering…
your not connecting what is being taught and what people believe to the actions your connecting what you think when you put on your analysis cap, and saying duh
by the way, how many times today did you stop what you were doing, and analyses a situation from above sociologically to then model it in your head to make a logical decision?
never?
of course never.. we dont do that most of the time..
and some people never do it, their whole life is seat of the pants guesses!!!!
so what the heck here?
they felt their way through it and the fact they were the first caught meant until now it want a bad choice..
not when places like where i work lie to the employees, and then place Harvard and Yale and even students automatically in boss positions without experience till the lower worker realizes hey, and leaves. Harvard business does business the way they imaging capitalists do it from a Marxist perspective.. very evil compared to the real deal which isnt and treats people better and often wins over the prior
when your young, its easy to show your a genius (if you are)..
but when you get older, behaviors homogenize and there isn’t a behavior a genius actually has that average people don’t! but there ARE behaviors that people can adapt that make other people believe that they are smart, or know, etc..
let me put it the most blunt way possible:
what do they call the very last person to graduate in a class of 4000 a medical school? Doctor…
Its the the car wash blues!!!
Once they get out, no one will care if they barely got through, they can make up for that with bs, and more… (anyone know managers like that? pretty faces, bad at their jobs?)
this was also a pretty people scam…
In any equation like your analyzing, you can be sure that this dynamic is in play but mostly ignored… why do people who others see as having good looks and success do stupid stuff, cause they have done stupid stuff all their lives and 90% of it, got away with it, and not cause they were clever, but cause of catch and release, because we perceive them as more persuasive too!!!
an ugly joe like me has no Steve jobs to my Wozniak 🙁
all the benefits are circular reinforcing..
[and note, they are the ones who whine they have a tougher time, when below you see, they dont… but they DO get a lot more freebies, and sympathy, and others time, and help when they do, so why not, right? 🙂 ]
Beautiful people are more intelligent. [but is it cause they are, or cause they get to go to school easier?]
Beautiful people are more persuasive. [so they win in the interview too? and get out of trouble? oh, and people give up easier to them? oh boy!]
Companies with good-looking executives have higher sales.
Beautiful people have an advantage in politics
Beautiful people are perceived as more likeable and trustworthy.
Taller men have an advantage.
Attractive men have higher IQs [but it doesnt mean ugly men dont, does it?]
Face symmetry is seen as attractive
First impressions count
Attractive people make higher salaries
Beautiful students get better grades and treated better in school.
Attractive people are treated better in the justice system
Attractive CEOs are presumed to be more competent.
there are downsides, but when people act they tend to ignore or avoid the downsides and their actions tend to incorporate their upsides as a front loading towards success.. some use downsides as ups if possible…
pretty people feel they can get away with more
less pretty people make a different calculation
want to see the face of a girl that has potential to manipulate?
https://raywilliams.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/girl-768×435.jpg
if i showed another photo of someone less a genetic celebrity, who would you pick as more likely to be homeless for a time in their lives?
also, what do you think college is like today?
Sarah Lawrence College receives demands…
• Free winter housing with a “communal kitchen” containing “dry goods from the food pantry”
• Free laundry detergent and fabric softener for all students
• Special housing for students of color
• On-campus jobs prioritize the hiring of international students
• Prevent students of color from being educated about history by “racist white professors”
• Reject funding from the Charles Koch Foundation and review the tenure of “racist” professor Sam Abrams
• All students have unlimited access to therapy sessions
• Permanent funding for minority student unions that is not paid for by the student body
If the entrance requirements for the elite schools weren’t so Byzantine, no parent would have to hire an “educational admission guide,” which was what William Rock Singer held himself out to be. The requirements should be quite simple – ACT/SAT and high school grades – a simple meritocracy. But no. Many of these schools had complex requirements that required gaming in order to ensure admission. The fact that Singer was onto the game and was able to ensure enrollment at the college of “your choice” shows how screwed up the entrance requirements have become and also how over-hyped the elite colleges have become. (Ala David Foster’s citing of Peter Drucker’s opinion on such.)
Yes, Singer and many other actors (Parents, coaches, proctors, test administrators, etc.) were willing to do dishonest things in pursuit of outfoxing the Byzantine rules for admittance. But it was the overselling of the luster of the elite schools’ reputations coupled with their opaque requirements for admittance that set all this in motion. Simplify and make transparent the rules for admission and the need to do illegal things to outfox the system will go away.
Apparently, the two daughters of one of the bribing actresses quit school today for fear of bullying by other students.
Way to help your daughters there!
Mrs Whatsit:
I agree completely with you. It is absolutely not a minor thing, in my estimation. The damage is profound.
David Foster on March 14, 2019 at 12:30 pm at 12:30 pm said:
..
We as a country are a lot closer to accepting Grande Ecole status for Harvard Law School and similar institutions than we were when Drucker wrote the above.
* * *
Pretty much what Dersh was saying.
* * *
Cornhead on March 14, 2019 at 6:45 pm at 6:45 pm said:
My youngest was rejected by Yale. A class action lawsuit was filed today. She had as good qualifications as one of the lead plaintiffs.
* * *
Go Team!
Keep us posted on the progress.
My kids were good-enough students who went to a good-enough state school (except the maverick who went to BYU), and are doing just fine in their chosen professions.
RohanV on March 14, 2019 at 12:55 pm at 12:55 pm said:
…If a school accepts 1000 students, maybe anyone from the top 10,000 applicants would be just as successful, and the difference between applicant 1000 and applicant 10,000 is fairly arbitrary.
* * *
It’s like the judging of Olympic athletes — all of them are at a similar level and the gradations in ability are miniscule, barring accidents in competition.
The introduction of all the other qualifications (see J.J. on gaming the system) are one way the admissions committees supposedly decide which of the 10,000 to actually admit, but the pool really isn’t that big, and the potentially successful are not really identified by the qualifications, so they have to “prove” they admitted “successful” students by simply never giving them bad grades.
(Restating what Dersh said, because he is correct.)
That assorted news media outlets are “reporting”……
That the FBI is “investigating” 50 (or so) cases…
Of THIS sort of “unfairness”……
At a “limited” level in the echelon…..
In “prestegious” institutions……
“Oh, if only SOMEONE could reach the king, and let him know what’s REALLY going on out here!”
Trust me, the king knows. As for those certificates of participation, suitable for framing, and adorning folks walls?
“HEY! The Emperor isn’t wearing ANY clothes!”
(And boy do those idiot savant award medals look stupid without them!)
I have no doubts concerning “mis-match” in SOME of these recently blazoned cases. Nor do I have doubts concerning SOME exceptional candidates simply circumventing obstruction due to “Other” protected mis-match considerations depleting available resources.
We have to find a way to let the free market provide educational services, with academia being reinvented as a community of scholars that sets standards for awarding of traditional degrees.
The student debt situation is an absolute disgrace, as is the explosion of administrators and the total takeover by the left. It is beyond control, it must be opened to competition in a meaningful way.
I suggest that we force universities to award credits via testing, with the education for the tests provided by the free market. Students could mix credits from testing with those earned by setting through the classes for their degrees. This should lead to a total revolution in the way we provide education.
The testing would obviously be more complex than what the sit through courses now provide and this would be part of the free market development. Many states have already created definitions of what must be in courses to be transferred. Texas has the TCCNS (Texas College Course Numbering System) that allows credits earned in one school to be used toward a degree at another. This should serve as a basis for development of meaningful tests.
There are proven examples of testing that works, such as the FAA knowledge tests for the various pilot certificates. Free market provision of flight instruction is well established and works very well. You don’t need to go to a traditional university to get an Airline Transport Pilot Certificate, or any lesser pilot certificates. These people operate in an amazingly complex system requiring a high level of education with very few problems. You don’t have to jump through hoops to get into a top school, just master the material. Excellent instruction is provided in a competitive free market environment.
The MOOC development is a start, but there has to be the prospect of getting actual credits that can be used for a degree to kick a free market system into action.
There is no meaningful competition for creating a given level of education in the current structure. The current system can never be fair as we saw with Jewish exclusion in earlier years and Asian exclusion today in the top schools.
With education delivered via modern technology there is no limit to how many students can be consuming it. Instead of creating generations so in debt that they can’t buy their first house or start a family, we could be creating generations that know how to learn new material quickly for the high tech world of the future. That world will require formerly unknown levels of continuing education.
Done right, learning would be fun. It can’t be done right with the present structure. Competition is mostly for the wrong things.
I now see why this is a federal case, in addition to mail fraud. Apparently the parents’ payments were made as “charitable donations” to a 501(c)3. Tax evasion as well.
Why is this a Federal Crime? Anyone who has read the book, THREE FELONIES A DAY, knows that almost anything can be a Federal Crime if you have a prosecutor who wants to get you.
Apparently it is a federal crime because these universities received more than $10K in government aid. That specific number was mentioned in the indictments.
Well, speaking as the treasurer for a small 501(c)3 charity, we are very careful to do only what supports the purpose for which we were granted our tax-exempt status. Taking “donations” to bribe people to benefit the donors or ourselves would definitely be illegal.
@Dick Illyes:We have to find a way to let the free market provide educational services, with academia being reinvented as a community of scholars that sets standards for awarding of traditional degrees.
This is cute, that people think the purpose of higher education is to award degrees.
In nearly every state, higher education is the largest share of government employees.
In nearly every state, the highest paid state employee is a university athletics coach (the tiny number who aren’t are administrators of universities with medical schools).
Higher education is a jobs program. Not largely for academics–who are only an ever-shrinking share of state university employees, but for administrators, clerical and custodial staff, etc.
Those people have the full panoply of civil service protections and benefits.
The whole financial system of higher education: student grants and student loans, taxpayer support of institutions, research grants, tuition, alumni donations–they all exist to keep those people employed.
Based on the experience of my kids’ matriculating through various institutions of learning it appears the standards are generally lower. My wife and I encouraged learning, and our kids picked up a lot from our home, and the way they were raised, but their schools weren’t pushing them particularly hard.
My kids have been good students and done well. All my kids participated in Scholar Bowl or Academic Team (sort-of a High School level Jeopardy competition) and did well. They were clearly at a high level among their peers regarding general (and specific) knowledge, yet I knew more about more things and I went to far inferior schools. From what I’ve seen, my mediocre, inner city High School where less than 5% of the class went on to 4 year Colleges did as good a job at College Prep as their elite, suburban, private schools did.
I’m referring to things like a working knowledge of some of Shakespeare’s plays, some knowledge of Ancient Greece and Roman, the ability to name a few Constellations and know the story behind their names, identifying organs, bones and muscles in the human body (and a few other species), the basics of Physics, Chemistry and Trigonometry, diagramming a sentence, knowing how an automobile works, an electric motor, an electric heating element, simple tools and machines and the principles behind their advantage, the origins and philosophies of most modern and ancient religions, the ability to identify major works of art and architecure, a knowledge of the U.S. Constitution and its Articles and Amendments, world governments and history… The Advanced Placement classes my kids had seemed equivalent to what we had in my day, but the general curricula; some breadth and not much depth. Two of my kids were near the tops of their High School classes and, after prep courses and multiple tries finally achieved the same ACT score I achieved with only one attempt and absolutely no prep work at all. I think they are similar to me in intelligence (or lack, thereof), but modern life did not put the same amount of stuff into their heads at age 18 as the ancient world of 1960s, ’70s America had mine.
Regarding College; it is nearly a complete mess and requires a major overhaul. It may not even be fixable. The edifice may need to be rebuilt from scratch.
There are certainly viable components. There are some entire campii that have it right and a few subjects that are done well at most all schools, even junior colleges; advanced mathematics, the hard sciences, medicine, surveys of classical literature, foreign language study, especially beyond the second year, music… the traditional subjects that Universities were originally created to serve.
And the Colleges and Universities where the majority of students board nearly all have massive problems at the administration level. Problems that are not likely to be fixed by the administrators.
In the U.S. far too many people attend college. My wife is a medical professional. She is very good at what she does. When she began her profession required an Undergraduate degree and the passage of a Board exam for certification. Today one must obtain a PhD before one can sit for the same Board certification exam. My wife sees it as a scam for the schools to tack on 3 more years of study and debt prior to letting graduates earn a living. The human body hasn’t evolved since her graduation. It doesn’t take 7 years to learn what she and her peers learned in 4. It’s basically the same certiification exam. The same has happened in many other disciplines.
Above, someone mentioned that the real victims are the students who were excluded to make room for these beneficiaries of corruption. I disagree. We are all victims of this fraud, because corruption of this sort undermines confidence in the fairness of the system for all of society. Enough chips in the foundation and, eventually, the building collapses.
… and don’t get me started on the big money sports programs! Until that entire system is gutted no serious change can even begin. We need minor leagues for football and basketball, just as there are for baseball and hockey. Any college that pays a coach or AD or any other athletic position a higher salary than the median of their professors’ is running a scam.
Roy Nathanson,
What you write is especially true for state schools. There is so much waste of tax dollars it is absurd.
Every state ought to have a board of experts that projects that state’s needs for professionals 5 years into the future and the tax payers’ taxes should go to fund those, and only those students to whatever level of subsidy the tax payers determine. If I’m a High School senior in Enid, Oklahoma and I apply to Oklahoma State to study Accounting and that board of experts estimates Oklahoma needs 300 accountants in 2024 and I’m the 301st best applicant, no tax-funded tuition subsidy for me. They may choose to pad their estimates a bit to accomodate drop outs, changes in major and graduates who move out of state.
Most schools do something akin to that for most of the serious areas of study; medicine, engineering, accounting… But why are the tax payers expected to subsidize kids majoring in English Lit.? I personally have nothing against English Lit. I think its’ a wonderful thing to study, but if one wants to get a degree in it why should a guy who works at an Auto Body shop in that kid’s state be expected to fund it? What benefit will that guy get from that kid’s education? If the answer is something like it makes the kid more well-rounded, or a better person, well, sure, maybe, but so would being on a bowling league, or reading the collected works of Ray Bradbury, or learning how to disassemble and reassemble a bicyle. Should the tax payers have to fund those things also?
The point of a state school should be to ensure the state has a well educated pool of applicants for careers vital to the state’s interests; educators, civil engineers, AG, science, accountants… If it wants to offer other majors, or more students than the state needs, fine, but don’t use state funding to subsidize those spots.
I do love that the Democrats’ obsession to prove Trump and conservatives as corrupt and criminal has peeled back layer after layer off their own corruption and criminality.
In the U.S. far too many people attend college. My wife is a medical professional. She is very good at what she does. When she began her profession required an
Disagree. Doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations from BLS data, my wager is that the share of each cohort which might benefit from tertiary schooling (presuming secondary schooling of satisfactory quality) is about 55%. The trouble is the model of tertiary schooling we follow in this country is terribly padded, and ill-adapted to various trades. IMO, a 60 credit program of specialized study should suffice for most occupations, preceded in some cases by a preparatory certificate consisting of a custom mix of academic courses (and perhaps business courses),
Certain profession would have longer courses of study (engineering, contingently; law, contingently; clinical psychology, contingently; medicine, veterinary medicine, and a selection of peri-medical occupations). Research degrees would have longer courses of study. The share of the work force in the above-named occupations and in those occupations where a research degree is beneficial sums to < 4%.
I'll wager societies benefit when some modest fraction receives ample liberal education. As recently as 1928, only about 6% of each cohort was receiving a baccalaureate or professional school degree each year. The number studying academics or the arts was correspondingly smaller. As recently as 1964 in Britain, the academic university degree (which I believe is 114 credits of specialized study, give or take) was something about 4% of each cohort garnered. If we had it that 12% of each cohort gets one year of study along those lines, 8% two years, and 4% a full three years, that might suffice. (I think about 12% of the 1948 birth cohort in this country received an academic BA).
these schools make it hard to get in, but easy to get through. They want high graduation rates, so they make it easy. the average grade tends to be an “A”.
these schools make it hard to get in, but easy to get through. They want high graduation rates, so they make it easy. the average grade tends to be an “A”.
doug whiddon: I’ve read that 95% of MIT students make it through to graduation. I don’t know the average GPA. Considering that most students are STEM majors, that strikes me as extraordinary.
I’ve taken some of the MIT online courses. They are hard, but not insanely hard. However, they are a huge amount of work. I can’t imagine MIT problem sets coming at me every week from four different courses at once.
When I saw that film, “21,” about the MIT Blackjack Team which took down Las Vegas casinos, I wasn’t that impressed they did it. I wondered how they managed to find the time to learn to count cards, then travel to beat the casinos, while handling an MIT workload. Maybe they took semesters off.
I think every single one of the students knew, or should have known, they got into a school improperly. The ones who had people take or proctors ‘correct’ their tests, obviously, but those who got in on an athletic basis, as well. As noted in another article, one student slipped up during a later visit when an administrator asked about the student’s track background. When you get in on an athletic scholarship (or even walk on), you get tons of correspondence about the team, going to practice, etc., and any student who got this had to know or should have asked. Plus, they had to withdraw from the team’s squad at some point.